SpeechIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It's a little task to take a call on the Climate Change Response (Late Payment Penalties and Industrial Allocation) Amendment Bill. The reason I mention the name of the bill is because I'm going to now mention the name of another bill. The fact that this bill follows hot on the heels of the Climate Change Response (Extension of Penalty Transition for Forestry Activities with Low Volume Emissions Liabilities) Amendment Bill points out how damn complicated this whole situation that we've found ourselves in with respect to the emissions trading scheme (ETS) is. Hon Member: What bill are we talking about?IAN McKELVIE: Exactly. As I listened to the Minister this afternoon speaking in the debate in the House you very quickly realise that when you lose half the room in this country you've really lost the game. And the risk we've got with this whole ETS is that if we don't simplify it and get it to a situation that people will understand it we'll lose the game on it. I don't think I'll be around when we do but I'm sure history will be the judge of whether this is right or wrong and whether we've taken the right approach to this or the wrong approach to it. Having said all that I certainly support the premise of the ETS and I suppose the efforts that the Minister has made to get this thing in order so it actually works. I do have some questions for the select committee—much as the Minister did actually—and I'll put those to you in a minute. But I just want to very briefly refer to the issues that have affected New Zealand in the last couple of weeks. I suppose this bill's very relevant to those issues as well. But I suppose when you think about it the pressure and the intense I guess despondency that will set in particularly in the Hawke's Bay with respect to horticulture and some of our hill country and in other parts of New Zealand with respect to what's happened in the last few weeks will become very evident. But I just want to remind those people affected by this that if you go back to 2004—ironically the very same date actually: 14 February 2004—the whole of the lower North Island suffered from a very similar event. And if you looked around the lower North Island now the response and the repairs that took place as a result of that event happened much quicker than you'd imagine. I guess the point I'm raising is that I think that there will be a lot of people under significant stress particularly in the Hawke's Bay / Gisborne area and obviously Northland and Auckland but actually things come right and the Government of the day in 2004 made and the Government of the day now is making their very best effort to put those things right and we as an Opposition will support that wherever we need to and hope that it does put things right. But things do come right and I think that they need to be assured that it will all come right in the end. So while it might seem desperate at the moment—and it will be desperate for many of them—the situation will improve and improve quickly. So this bill is part of our response to climate change as I just said a moment ago and the effect that it has won't be known for many years to come. We won't know whether we're right or wrong with this as I said earlier as well but none the less we've got to try. Minister Shaw said that the carbon pricing is a simple idea. Well it is a simple idea but this bill and the previous bill I mentioned and many other pieces of legislation that have gone through this House prove how inordinately complicated it is. They also prove that there will be winners and losers in the course of this and the Government itself has admitted in the introduction of this bill that it doesn't know who the winners and losers are going to be or how much it's going to amount to. So that's the game we're playing in this and I'm not criticising it; that's just how it is but it does show the uncertainty and the potential for us to get this wrong. The Minister also was a little critical of previous Governments in hedging their bets on these pieces of legislation and in fact the ETS and you can see why they did because the uncertainty of it and the uncertainty it creates is massive.I guess the issue that I want to raise and think that the select committee needs to consider carefully—and the Minister did talk about two of these points—is that our biggest emitters are in fact planting trees all over New Zealand: exotic plantations which will be there for ever whether we like it or not in a bid to offset some of their emissions and then in many cases still passing the costs on to consumers. So we're not really winning and I think the Minister's point about the carbon price is very relevant to this but can our economy stand a carbon price two or three times what it is now? I very much doubt it. And certainly the people that struggle to pay the bills now in New Zealand will not be able to handle those costs. We recently had the privilege of going to South America and looking at many issues in South America. One of the biggest concerns they had was the cost of mitigation of climate change and the cost of pressure on our food supplies—the pressure that was going to put on their poverty levels and the people that live in poverty in those South American countries. And frankly if we think we've got poverty here you'd want to go and have a look over there. We've got nothing compared to the challenges they've got. We've also got an economy that can subsidise some of those costs. They haven't got economies that can subsidise those costs so it's a massive challenge for the world. The other issue that I think is interesting—and was raised by the Minister and by Scott Simpson in their speeches—is the potential for emissions leakage in New Zealand. In fact the ACT speaker raised the same issue and I think that's something that the select committee has got to seriously consider as they go through this process because whilst this bill might seem small and it will affect very few people or very few business entities in New Zealand it does have a long-term effect of significance on many people in New Zealand. They don't know it now and that was my point earlier about When you don't get half the people in the room understanding you've lost the room." Because if they don't understand it they won't put up with it and eventually will have a reaction to our activities which will be counterproductive to what we're trying to achieve. So I'm certainly joining the National Party in supporting this bill. I think it'll be very interesting to see where the select committee gets to with some of these issues because it is a challenging issue. And getting the balance right as we set these penalties and charges and the granting of allocations are going to be critical to the future. That's my lot. Thank you Madam Speaker. We support the bill."