Hipkins Chris: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11371. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): As I sat there listening to the Government’s Budget speech this afternoon all I could think was: “Is that it? Really is that it?”. Here we are under urgency debating two bills and now I am thinking: “Is that it?”. Is that all that those members can really come up with when we have a housing crisis—no we are not debating the housing crisis. We have got critical funding shortages in health and education—no we are not doing anything about any of those. We are here talking about increasing the price of cigarettes—which we will get to later on—and this bill the Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measures)—or “Measure”—Grant Robertson: Only one.CHRIS HIPKINS: —Amendment Bill. That is it. It was one measure and that is it. That is the total extent of the Government’s urgent agenda following this year’s Budget. There is nothing—nothing—about those critical issues that matter to New Zealanders. The “compilation Budget”—it is like a compilation album. That retro album with the same old tunes you have heard time and again—that is what this Government’s Budget was. Of course compilation albums normally come out before the band folds because it has run out of new material and it is about to—Grant Robertson: Out of ideas.CHRIS HIPKINS: It is out of ideas and it is about to pack up shop. The one surprising thing about this is that the Government is doing anything about climate change at all because of course we know that there is still a bunch of flat-earth believers over there who fail to accept that climate change is a reality. Of course they are propped up by the ACT Party which makes it its central thesis that climate change is not a reality. It has voted against most of the measures in this House that would actually do meaningful things to address the challenge of climate change. I know that personally because the first member’s bill I introduced into the House would have stopped new electricity generation in New Zealand coming from non-renewable fossil fuels. And what did the National members do? They voted against it. A bill that would have had a meaningful impact on New Zealand’s emissions because it would have reduced the prospect of new emissions coming from electricity generation—they voted against it.Every significant piece of legislation that has been proposed by Labour or by the Green Party or by any other party National has opposed it. The emissions trading scheme—the first thing it did when it became the Government was to water it down. It watered down the emissions trading scheme in its very first year in office. That says everything about its commitment to dealing with the challenge of climate change. This is a Government that still fundamentally does not believe in climate change. It does not accept the realities of climate change. So although it is welcome that it is doing this one small thing which will make a difference but not a very big one there is still nothing in this year’s Budget that will address the really big issues around climate change.But then National does not have anything in this year’s Budget that addresses the really big issues around just about anything else so why should we be surprised by that? There is very little in this Budget. There are no surprises and no substance actually in the Budget of any great note. It is just those members continuing on ignoring all of the major problems and major challenges facing New Zealand burying their heads in the sand for as long as they possibly can and hoping that someone else will fix up the problems. Well actually someone else will. It will be the next Labour Government and that will happen in 2017 after the next election.