Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to make what will be a short contribution on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill. As my colleagues have previously mentioned the National Party will be supporting this bill at first reading. We're going to support it to select committee on the proviso that—look the bill is 200 pages long and it needs intense scrutiny. Now I hope that we will get the time in select committee to undertake that process in a thorough manner and that we won't be like we did with the zero carbon bill racing through it at breakneck speed and actually give it the time that it deserves to make sure that the detail in this bill is scrutinised and that we have enough time for submitters to come in and tell us what they think. Duncan Webb the chair of our committee even said in his contribution today that it was a very complex bill and I would have to agree with that and I do hope that we won't be given a couple of weeks prior to Christmas to race through this. I do look forward to scrutinising the bill at select committee.The bill proposes various changes to the Climate Change Response Act but the biggest one of these in my opinion is that legal backstop for the agricultural sector to be brought into the emissions trading scheme (ETS) by 2025. It essentially creates an interim period up until 2022—a bit of breathing space for the Government to work with iwi and the farming sector to develop an alternative mechanism to price emissions at the farm gate. Now in 2022 the independent climate change commission will conduct a review. If that pricing mechanism hasn't been developed the bill creates the ability for agriculture to be brought into the ETS before 2025.Now we have a number of concerns about this which I will outline in the body of my speech but I should acknowledge at this point that we are pleased to see that the Government are finally getting alongside farmers. For two long years they've basically beaten them with a big stick and it's nice to see that they've finally learnt their lesson in that actually you can work with and alongside the sector to get the results that you need. This is one of National's key tenets: incentivising and collaborating with the industry. It's better late than never that this Government has finally decided to sit down with the farming sector after uncertainty around the freshwater proposals. Farmers are being hammered. They've had pressures from the water reforms flooding Mycoplasma bovis farm debt and it's all well and good that this legislation buys the sector a little bit more time but ultimately they still have the threat of being brought into the ETS hanging over their heads as well. We all know the impact that this has had on our rural communities their families and in particular the mental health of our farmers.Despite all the scapegoating that they're often victim to it's worth remembering that our farmers are actually world leaders when it comes to producing fibre dairy and meat that is low emissions—amongst the lowest in the world per kilo of meat milk or fibre. So reducing production here and either importing it or having overseas farms exporting to the world what we're not will have the exact opposite effect of what we're trying to achieve. Let's remember that no other country in the world is putting agriculture into the emissions trading scheme. It's no excuse for our inaction—we need to do something—and it's not up to us to rest on our laurels and say Well look we're already the best in the world and we shouldn't have to do anything else" but I think that it is important at this point that we note that farmers do care about their environmental footprint. We actually need to give them the credit that they deserve and we also need to acknowledge that there are opportunities in this sector for New Zealand to be world leaders and sell some of that knowledge to overseas.But to bring down our agricultural emissions we need to incentivise behaviour change and it's all great that this Government is starting the conversation with the sector but we still have very serious misgivings about the ETS and its ability to drive down emissions. We don't think that this is the right way to go. Every farm has different stock numbers and different feeds and ultimately this means different emissions profiles and there is no current ability for us to effectively measure that at the farm gate. If the agricultural sector is brought into the ETS without the technology and the tools to measure emissions at farm level then we're stinging all farmers regardless of how efficient or inefficient they are. Furthermore if there's no technology to actually reduce their emissions then we're in trouble.At the select committee stage like I said earlier it's really vital that we hear from farmers about their ability to get environment management plans in place. Anecdotally when I've been out on farms I have heard from the sector that you know they don't just come up with these themselves; they have consultants that come in and often there is a shortage of these people to actually come and put these plans in place and it takes some time. So look I don't know but it will be really good to get these people into our select committee to let us know if this is going to be an issue or not because there's no point in telling farmers that they need to have farm management plans and environmental plans when they in fact can't get the people in to do that for them.These are just some of the issues we need to tease out and explore at the select committee stage. But we need to design policies that actually deliver emissions reductions and there need to be mitigation options available to farmers that don't involve just culling cows and herd reduction or shifting production overseas which will ultimately lead to carbon leakage and the increase in global emissions.The other point I'd like to make today is the potential effect this bill will have on our trade-exposed industries. Under this proposal we're potentially putting our steel cement fertiliser and aluminium industries at a competitive disadvantage. We will be potentially closing down industries which are huge employers and contributors to regional economies. We still need those products and we will be importing them from overseas—and again from countries that potentially have higher emissions. It's something we need to be very mindful of and spend significant time at select committee getting our heads around and understanding the risks to key industries.This 200-page bill needs a thorough and detailed examination which is why we are tentatively supporting it today. But we are very concerned about the potential effects on our trade-exposed businesses and the need for on-farm management tools to incentivise changes. So while we support the bill we look very much forward to examining it thoroughly at select committee over many weeks. Thank you."