Parker David: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11926. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):The last speaker Jonathan Young said that the Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill did not know what it was trying to achieve would not make any difference but would somehow inhibit the development of the electricity industry. There are some inconsistencies there. The world does face a challenge from climate change. Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are probably the largest environmental threat that we all face in the world collectively. Emissions come from four main sources: electricity production transport industrial uses and in New Zealand agriculture. They are all hard to fix. But the easiest of them to fix in New Zealand is your emissions from electricity. If New Zealand a country that is as rich in renewable resources as we are cannot fix that part of the problem there is very little hope that the world will. If there is very little hope that the world will that is a pretty depressing outcome that we leave for our children and grandchildren. It does not have to be that way. Instead of having this sort of depressing vision as to whether we can get there we on this side of the fence think we should take meaningful steps to do it.I was part of the Government that put this measure in the original legislation at the time carbon pricing was introduced. Why did we do that? Because we knew that it was very affordable for New Zealand to go down a renewables path rather than a fossil fuel electricity generation path but we also were suspicious that a price on carbon did not give you the certainty that you will get there. That is why we put this in the original legislation and we were right because what has happened to the price of carbon since is that it has gone down below any expectation—in part because of poor policy choices by this Government but also in part because of what has happened overseas. The price on carbon is not an inhibition on the development of fossil fuel alternatives. It is not nearly as significant an inhibition as it was or as it may well be again in the future but is not now. What this bill does is try to get New Zealand to meet that target of 90 percent renewables by 2025.It is true that New Zealand has made great progress. The trend was downwards. The trend was downwards for some decades and in the worst quarter 57 percent of our generation came from renewables. Since then the trend has gone the other way. That was caused by a myriad of measures taken by the last Labour Government. Those included carbon pricing a national policy statement under the Resource Management Act to make renewables easier to consent transmission upgrades a Government policy statement under the New Zealand Energy Strategy and lots of other initiatives—all of which combined to get the industry going in the right way including the signal that was originally in the legislation in respect of future thermal generation.New Zealand can get to 90 percent renewables by 2025 but there is a significant risk that if you have got gas—sorry not you Mr Assistant Speaker. But if an industry participant—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER: That was accidental Mr Assistant Speaker but it was quite good. If an industry participant has gas resources and it has no other use for them or it is not connected to the international gas market it may be tempted to price its gas at just below the cost of renewables not in a way that would meaningfully reduce power prices but in a way that would close out future renewables developments. So that is still a risk in New Zealand—that future thermal electricity will be priced just below the cost of renewables foreclosing those renewable developments and bringing forward more gas-fired generation instead. That is what Moana Mackey’s bill addresses and it should be supported by this House.I suspect it will not be supported by National because of course we had Gerry Brownlee come in and in an act of petulance really in my opinion reverse biofuels causing the bankruptcy of people who had made no mistake and replacing it with a failed voucher scheme which never worked. This was another of his measures because he really does not believe that there is a serious problem of climate change. Sadly I think this bill will be treated in the same way by the National Party but that is wrong.