Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It is exactly those gritty hard gnarly issues that this side of the House is advocating for with the promotion of this bill. Dr Smith I have just had to listen to a 10-minute speech that—it's so disappointing because what we did hear only a couple of months ago from the Leader of the Opposition was that there was going to be a real commitment from the Opposition to work with this side of the House. We've had the clear stewardship by the Hon James Shaw who has worked with Todd Muller from the Bay of Plenty—a fantastic gentleman and future leader of the National Party. We heard that there was a commitment to a real bipartisan approach to this piece of legislation. But I must say—yes I have sat in this House for the last hour and a half of this debate and every single member of the Opposition has got up and said emotive quotes like this: This debate is going to be all emotional. It's head versus heart. It's emotions versus economics and this side of the House has to understand the economics. You have to understand the science because you don't understand the money. You don't understand the cost to this country."Well I say to my fellow friends opposite on that side of the House: do they understand the cost of not acting now? At the end of this week on Friday what we have are young students from all across this nation who are mobilising galvanising and coordinating a second day of climate justice action. Why? Because it is that generation that will have to bear the burdens and the responsibilities for whatever decisions that this House makes right now. Then I hear another quote from the opposite side of the House: "Why are we debating this bill? Why are we debating this bill now?" Well we heard from the Rt Hon Winston Peters that it's because that side of the House signed us up to the Paris accord. But beyond that it is because the whole world is watching and every country that signed up to the Paris accord—174 countries plus the EU—is trying to work out right now how to practically implement reaching no greater warming than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. We are all grappling with that challenge. So why is this House debating this bill right now? Because we don't have a choice not to.When you come up to an electorate like mine in the mighty East Coast and when you see those floods when you see those plains flooded for miles when you watch the productivity of our agricultural and horticultural sectors drop when I look at the NIWA reports and they say that our farmers our horticulturalists our primary production sector can anticipate a 10 percent increase in droughts we do not have a choice. This is not about some liberal urbans sitting up there in Grey Lynn going "Oh let's all go and try and achieve some great outcomes in climate change." Why are we debating this bill right now? Because our primary production sector needs an answer just as much as our future generations do. So let's all take ownership of what we need to do as a House right now.I want to acknowledge and I want to thank the Hon James Shaw for the work that you have done because I know how hard it has been how challenging—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!KIRITAPU ALLAN: —and for the fantastic work and leadership that you have shown—sorry that the Minister has shown—by working alongside industry by working alongside scientists by working alongside all aspects of this House. We know it has not been easy but the member has produced an absolutely outstanding bill that recognises some of the challenges that industries in my own community in particular the primary production sector from my community can look to and say "At least we've been heard."We've heard a lot about the reduction of greenhouse gases and emissions. Now what the Minister has done in terms of setting out a two-phase approach to greenhouse gas emissions—David Seymour: The member's slowing down.KIRITAPU ALLAN: Thank you! What we need in communities like mine and we learnt this through the 80s is that when we make radical economic reforms without a plan if we don't have a just transition for communities like mine that rely heavily on industries that are primary production - focused if we do not have a plan a just transition plan that allows us to transition from point A to point B it's the workers who get left behind. So what we do have is a two-tiered approach to the way that we look at the reduction of greenhouse gases.A 10 percent reduction by 2030 for methane gases: now we've heard a lot of discussion from that side of the House and a range of commentators in the news but what I will say is that I was with my good friend and colleague the member Mark Patterson just last week. We went up and visited a biotech company—an agri-tech company. The opposite side of the House asks where we are going to get these solutions to bring about a 10 percent reduction by 2030. Well ask the guys who are doing it. The agri-tech companies are already doing it. LIC our biggest biotech company in New Zealand which is working on securing future breeding programmes have said that right now they are working towards a 10 percent reduction in methane. That's what their focus is. If we look at what's happening over at Massey there's a whole commission set up there—the greenhouse gas—Mark Patterson: Alliance.KIRITAPU ALLAN: Alliance. Thank you Mark. Their whole focus is on looking at how we can get the productivity of these sectors reduced down by 10 and ultimately 30 percent. So let's not be so lacking in ambition and let's not be a country that focuses on driving a wedge between the rural sector and environmentalists between the regions and the city folk because that doesn't help anyone; that does not do this debate justice. I look over at the other side of the House. Now I know Erica Stanford. She's a greenie; she's a greenie at heart—a "teal green" or whatever they're called. I know Sarah Dowie; she's another one. But they didn't speak in this debate—they didn't speak in this debate. The Opposition got their rural folk up to talk. No no no this is an injustice to this debate. If we are to be responsible in managing how we as 120 members of this House approach something that is intergenerationally so significant let us be responsible in the way that we approach it.Right now if we look over to the Pacific Island where we have primary responsibility in Fiji 40 villages have gone because of sea rise—gone for ever. If we look all throughout our own country we're watching the erosion of coastal lands. Like I said in the mighty East Coast I'm watching the erosion of my coast and watching that sea level rise. We're watching insurance companies that no longer want to provide insurance for coastal properties. These are issues that we can no longer afford to be flippant about.This bill here creates a binding statutory target for the Climate Change Commission. We've got this guy Professor Jonathan Boston; he talks to us a lot about how important it is to have public policy that goes beyond three-year terms. This Climate Change Commission is something and I'm pleased to hear Dr Nick Smith commend its capacity and its ability to do that future forward-looking. There needs to be a mechanism that takes away the politicisation—that takes it away from us being able to step away from our obligations every three years and turn to debates like this which are so critical to the way that we survive as a nation beyond the three-year term. So I think that both sides of the House can agree that this is a pragmatic and necessary step and that's something that this bill brings in.Please let us not drive a wedge between the urban and the rural between the primary sector and the environment because we know on this side of the House that my rural primary-based community will no longer be thriving in the way that it can be if we don't have the land to farm if our communities are ebbing away in extreme weather events. The toll that the Edgecumbe flooding took on my community and our farming community was drastic. So I challenge that side of the House as they go through the rest of this debate and consider this legislation: when you say "Well there's nothing in this legislation for the farmers." please reconsider that position because there is absolutely something for all of us in this bill."