Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thanks for the opportunity to have a chat and a debate this afternoon in the general debate. I just want to reflect on the last couple of weeks because it was about that time frame when the Prime Minister announced there was going to be no capital gains tax and those horrible environmental taxes that were proposed in the Tax Working Group report have now been kicked for touch. I thought to myself But wait there's always more. There's always another issue around the corner." and what was telling in that debate that played out in the Cabinet room—and preceding that—was the influence that New Zealand First have over the coalition Government. It wasn't so long ago that Winston Peters said no to "Labour-led Government". That phrase is now banned. It has to be a "coalition Government". So what happened at that point in the Cabinet room we will never quite know when they were debating the Tax Working Group's findings and recommendations.What I can presume occurred was that New Zealand First because of the leverage that the National Party and the public of New Zealand had put on the coalition Government said "No we are not prepared to entertain a capital gains tax." Well straight away at that point I reckon what James Shaw did was reach down into his Cabinet folder and say "Here we have a climate change bill Mr Peters. New Zealand First needs to back this bill." So a deal was done at that point in time. Now we see that play out today. We see that play out. New Zealand First have signed up to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill and you should watch them squirm over the next few weeks and months to come. They have signed up to a methane reduction target of 27 to 47 percent by 2050. This is going to be incredibly damaging for rural communities.Just have a look at the economic analysis that has backed and that is attached to this bill. They are eye-watering numbers—billions and billions of dollars. Yes it will be fine for people to say "It's out to 2050." but think about it—think about what this message sends to our hard-working farmers and rural communities. What it says is that you're not prepared to look at decent science because I can't see the robust scientific reports and analysis that back this methane reduction up.Industry and farmers were prepared to get on board with the Government. We were prepared to work with the Government. Todd Muller did a huge amount of negotiating in good faith with James Shaw. For the last eight weeks we have found out that that was a terrible black hole. Never have I seen in my 14 years a Minister of the Crown stand up and openly apologise to one of our members because consultation went down the toilet for eight weeks. I'll tell you why: that was because of New Zealand First's influence. That's why it was. They locked out the National Party—locked us away—and said "No we're going to get on with this and we don't care about all of the dealings that Todd Muller and Simon Bridges have had with the Prime Minister at that level." That went down the toilet for two months.So now we are left in a position where we are trying to decide whether we want to support this bill and take the politics out of it or whether we're going to be signing up to a methane target that is going to help to bankrupt the economy in the future. Others on that side of the House will say "Oh that won't happen." Well it's typical of a Labour Government to treat rural communities just like a cash cow. If it had been backed by decent scientific evidence and the decent consultation in good faith that we signed up to it might have been a different story. We will hold our counsel we will debate this further in our caucus room but I'm so disappointed in the process by this Government in the last eight weeks.I get back to where I started: I reckon New Zealand First will cave in. It's only a matter of time."