SpeechHon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker kia ora tātou katoa. Can I just start by acknowledging all of the acknowledgments made already by those who have been a part of this working party. My colleague Marama Fox was certainly a part of it and I have very much appreciated the involvement. Can I also acknowledge Kennedy Graham for driving this kaupapa. He drove it so much that he forced me to make a statement in the House this afternoon on behalf of our party. So thank you very much Kennedy and I appreciate your commitment to this kaupapa. Ka nui te mihi. Issues about climate change are not things that I really know too much about. What I do know about is the effect that it is having on communities at this point in time in particular in my rohe of Waiariki. I am thinking about those communities of Edgecumbe Ruātoki and Ruatāhuna. As we debate this particular issue I send my thoughts and I am sure those of the House back to those families and those kāinga back at Waiariki and indeed throughout the country as we experience a not very nice Easter weekend. Governments of the world have agreed to limit average global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. The Paris Agreement which New Zealand ratified on 4 October 2016 and which came into force on 4 November 2016 commits us and the world to the so-called net zero goal by the end of the century and puts in place a longer-term framework to achieve this by agreeing to a new universal climate change agreement. This new universal climate change agreement needs to set the world on a clear path of a decline in emissions over time. The reality of the science indicates that global emissions need to be halved by 2050 and at some point in the second half of the century emissions need to be so low that healthy ecosystems such as forests can readily absorb the emissions that are left. A transformation to a climate-neutral clean-energy economic model needs to occur now. In those areas where it has begun it is already delivering huge benefits in and between nations. While the goal of the Paris Agreement is very clear how different countries achieve this is not so clear. The Vivid Economics report identified that for New Zealand the transition to emission neutrality will require more than the current practice. It will require changes in land use and pathways relying less on breakthrough technologies and energy and agriculture will require more extensive forestation by 2050. It could be possible for New Zealand to reach net zero emissions by 2050 by combining the high uptake of technological innovation with a switch to less emissions-intensive agricultural production higher levels of forestation and the end of energy-intensive industries. Substantial gaps in New Zealand's evidence base on domestic mitigation must be addressed to support well-informed decision-making in the future and the Māori Party wants to be a part of this. However the Māori Party believes that New Zealand's ability to achieve domestic emissions neutrality in the second half of the century and to meet its medium- and long-term emission reduction obligations is fundamentally flawed as current policies allow for emitters to offset their obligations with low-cost credits without the need to reduce emissions. Current policies incentivise major emitters who have been able to purchase cheap Ukrainian units to surrender these to meet their obligations while charging Māori and indeed New Zealand households a huge out-of-reach price for units. We also believe that there has been some negligible investment in low-emission technologies resulting in foresters leaving the changed system and planting is virtually zero. This has a huge impact on Aotearoa and also on those hapū and iwi who have received large forests as a part of their Treaty settlements and so have large carbon credits that are virtually worthless. This sort of statement has been made to me in the Waiariki area. So we welcome the Vivid report which highlights our forestation as one way forward. The Māori Party would want to see change within the climate area as it has also got huge implications socially economically and culturally as well as environmentally. The Māori Party is committed to ensuring New Zealand's natural resources and environment are healthy for everyone and to supporting the health and well-being of our people. This requires that environmental degradation is addressed. We believe New Zealand has time to transition to a low-emissions economy but there are benefits to taking strategic action and signalling long-term actions now. We support the outcome of this report.