Harawira Hone: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13800] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. As I was thinking about what to say on this bill a couple of emails came in. The first was from Lowndes Associates proudly announcing that it is the first law firm to get carbon neutral certification in Aotearoa—although given the amount of methane coming off the bull droppings that are a natural part of law firms one would have to assess that claim through a healthy whiff of incense. To its credit though Lowndes Associates also has an army of legal experts to help its clients understand the Government’s emissions trading scheme and the emerging carbon trading market—and that suggests at exactly what level this whole thing is being pitched. 
The second email came from the Indigenous Environmental Network at the United Nations climate talks in Bali urging Governments to reject the World Bank initiative to include forests in carbon markets. The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility was set to be launched as a key project to reduce emissions through deforestation in developing countries but the Indigenous Environmental Network said that the scheme would not make any difference because all that it would do is let industrialised nations and companies buy their way out of emissions reductions. 
When law firms international indigenous groups and the World Bank all get caught up in something as big as climate change we know that it is a big deal so we have to ask how come this Government is introducing something as important as this bill under urgency. We simply do not get robust and intelligent debate on a bill that is squeezed into the middle of 19 other bills being rammed through the House just before Christmas. What we get is limited discussion from MPs thinking about something else and no real depth of understanding of the costs and benefits of an emissions trading scheme to support global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—a lot of which I am getting from other members in this House today. 
But there are a couple of concepts I would like to present as the Maori Party contribution to this debate if I could. The first is our responsibility as tangata whenua to care for all those who live in this land and their descendants in line with our kaupapa of rangatiratanga manaakitanga and whanaungatanga and the obligations we have of care and preservation. This emissions trading scheme has a similar philosophy of recognising and honouring obligations in the industries of forestry mining steelworks and farming through the verification and surrender of emission units. 
The second is the concept of kaitiakitanga and our responsibility to care for our world through the reduction of those activities that would harm and indeed destroy that world. In the interests of life itself let alone social economic and environmental sustainability we have a responsibility to reduce our carbon output. Maori have a role to play in the reduction of greenhouse emissions and we do not resile from that responsibility but Maori also have the right to manage what little assets they may have for the betterment of their people. We realise that in order to manage both roles effectively we must—and we do—appreciate that our total well-being our health our economy and our sustenance are dependent on the well-being and health of our world just as all indigenous peoples across the globe understand their unique role of caring for and conserving mother Earth. 
But is this emissions trading scheme really the answer to all our climate change problems or is it just creating another property rights regime to let the world’s biggest polluters continue along their merry filthy way? Charging people for greenhouse gas emissions was supposed to encourage businesses to come up with alternatives to fossil fuels but all it is doing is giving them an excuse to continue. Why bother with the expensive long-term structural changes if we can meet our targets by simply buying pollution rights from operations that can reduce their carbon cheaply? 
To understand how the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill will affect Maori we looked at what it would mean for Crown forestry. In a report called  
Maori Impacts From Emissions Trading Scheme 
 we get a clear understanding of the responsibility Maori owners of Crown forest licence lands have: “In determining what constitutes a fair equitable and proportionate burden Maori are assumed to be concerned with their level of economic development relative to non-Maori (as a consequence of past Crown actions or otherwise) as well as their relative contribution to New Zealand’s green house gas emissions.” There are no simple solutions to this problem particularly with so many factors at play. To meet the challenges posed by greenhouse gas emissions we need to be creative and innovative. 
Furthermore there is the question of whether the 55 million carbon credits due to be allocated to pre-1990 forests under the proposed Act for Crown forestry lands should be allocated as part of Treaty settlements and here is where it all gets kinda tricky. Naturally Government officials say the claimants should have to buy their carbon credits out of their settlement moneys whereas Maori involved with Crown forestry rental lands quite rightly say that those carbon credits should be treated like accumulated rental separate from their settlements. The Maori Party supports the advice from the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group and the Maori reference group that carbon credits should be allocated on the same basis as accumulated rentals held by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. In other words once one has acquired Crown forestry land one gets carbon credits of equivalent monetary value over and above one’s settlement. We do not see the sense in making claimants buy these carbon credits from their settlement. In fact we believe that to make them do so would constitute a further breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. Claimants are not the reason these lands are not in Maori ownership and Maori should not be punished for that while still being denied the same opportunities available to other New Zealand owners of pre-1990 exotic forest lands. 
We also note the concerns of the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development that this legislation might place a 10-year ban on thermal energy. We have a particular interest in this given the contribution the Tuaropaki Trust is making to geothermal power through Mokai I. The Tuaropaki Trust which comprises hapu of Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngati Raukawa is an ahu whenua trust that is fast advancing progress in efficient thermal generation and we will be extremely interested to hear from its chairperson Tumanako Wereta about the implications of this bill for them. 
As I said earlier there are some huge issues in this bill; issues that will linger long after this session of urgency has been lifted. We welcome the opportunity for iwi to reflect on the issues that emerged at the national climate change hui in October and the national Maori forestry hui held just last month. We recommend in the strongest manner that all Maori interested in this debate make sure they get along to the next national hui on this climate change bill which will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday 18 December at the Brentwood Hotel in Wellington. We cannot just leave this to chance. We must manage both the opportunity and the risk that presents itself with this bill. So the Maori Party will support its first reading to enable those debates to be held. Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare.