Carter John: Biofuel Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Carter John: Biofuel Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18262. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I will start off by saying that if anybody listened very closely to that last contribution from the member who has just resumed her seat he or she would not have heard anything positive in regard to supporting this Biofuel Bill. One of the things we would have expected from the Government and particularly from the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Moana Mackey is that they would have offered a whole lot of reasons—good valid reasons—why this Parliament and this country should be supporting this legislation. But if people listened really closely to every word she said they would have heard that it was all about attacking Dr Smith for what he said attacking the fuel companies for what they said and attacking other people for not saying the things the Government thought they should say. Therefore there was nothing positive at all that would have persuaded anybody to want to support this bill. I would have thought that that member at least would come up with one or two reasons why this country should be embracing this sort of legislation. Unfortunately there was nothing at all positive in her speech.  
The second point is that the whole reason this legislation is before the House is that the Prime Minister got out ahead of the game and decided to grab the hose from a fuel pump and put it into a car and try to get a photo opportunity while saying to everybody “And this is what this Government is going to do. We’re going to do all this stuff introduce biofuels and make everything better.” But the Prime Minister did not even know where to put the nozzle. Actually it was all about a photo opportunity but suddenly officials and Government members all had to get in behind and support her because she had gone out saying that this was what was going to happen.  
Unfortunately what had not happened—and this is the problem with this legislation and indeed with the Government’s approach to this whole issue—was the Government doing its homework. We just need to look at commentary from all over the place—from everybody. What does the OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development say about biofuels? It says that they are unproven; it says that it is not certain about them. It does not know whether this is the way we should move forward.  
The United Kingdom’s House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report says that we should hang on a minute; we should just take our time on this—that it has been around for a while but we are still not sure whether it is the right way to go. The G8 conference of legislators said the same thing. The United Kingdom’s chief scientist the World Food and Agriculture Organization the Royal Society the World Bank and the Secretary-General of the United Nations have all said that there are some real problems about this stuff. It is a difficult way in which to approach a fuel issue. All these authorities are saying that there are real question marks over this issue yet this Government has decided to proceed.  
I draw the House’s attention to two other people who have made comment. The first is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. One would have thought that if anybody was going to get out there and say “Yep! We are on the right track; this is the way to go. This legislation is going to hit it on the nail.” then it would have been the commissioner but she did not. I will read to the House a couple of the statements she has made which I think are absolutely important for us to take into account: “International concern about the sustainability of biofuels and their true environmental and economic impacts has heated up considerably in recent months—which signals a need for caution.” Biofuels are seen as a way of achieving both lower carbon dioxideemissions and energy security but Dr Wright does not believe that the mechanisms allowed for in the bill will deliver those two goals. There is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment saying that this legislation is on the wrong track. “Biofuels appear to be carbon-neutral because plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) as they grow and this is equal to the CO2 emitted when the fuel is burned. However this does not account for the CO2emitted during cultivation and processing into fuel. Lifecycle assessments of a wide range of biofuels shows large variation in CO2emissions across fuels and in some cases across countries” says Dr Wright. “Ethanol from corn in the US for example is a very poor performer with total CO2emissions close to those of diesel.”  
Well we have to say to ourselves that if the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is asking those sorts of questions on this legislation then surely this Parliament should sit up and take notice. She has said that she is very uncertain about this Parliament and this nation proceeding with this legislation.  
I also draw the House’s attention to a report of the Ministry of Economic Development its briefing paper to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I have to say that it was astonishing to start reading through this paper that that committee put before this House. These are the Government’s own advisers talking about this and they are talking about the principle of sustainable biofuels: “After reviewing a number of potential principles provided by officials and suggestions from within the Committee there does not yet appear to be a consensus opinion. In this sense debate in the Committee has reflected international deliberations on biofuel sustainability. While one might know it when one sees it sustainability is difficult to define. … At its meeting on Thursday 29 May the Committee asked officials to provide advice on how principles can provide the best possible direction to the making of biofuel sustainability requirements.” They went on to say that they do not know. They are not sure. They cannot convince us actually that it can happen. And these are the Minister’s own officials who are telling the committee that. This paper if it has not come to the attention of the House needs to come to its attention.  
The next thing people should be concerned about is the issue of impact on food. We all know that we have a major issue around the world about food security. It will be one of the major factors of debate as we move forward around the world in the next 20 or 30 years. After the Second World War we had food supplies that without producing any more food would have lasted more than a year. We would have been able to feed ourselves. Currently the food supply is measured in days not months. What is now starting to happen which I think is an absolute disgrace is that some countries in Europe are asking countries in Africa to grow and export food to countries in Europe that will turn it into biofuels while the people in those very same southern African countries are starving. Quite honestly that is an absolute disgrace and it should not be allowed to happen.  
Finally I come to the point that Dr Nick Smith made in his address which is the issue of price. The previous member to speak Moana Mackey talked about the fact that there is debate and argument about whether there will be a cost. What she was not able to tell us was that there would not be. She said that there was some disagreement. She said the Government did not know whether it would be 7c or 1.5c and that it was not sure what it was. She said that different streams of advice gave the Government different levels of increased costs. But what she did not say and could not say was that there would be less cost. We all know that this legislation will impose more costs on this country; it will put more costs on to travellers in this country. The fact is that whether or not we like it this sort of legislation with the infrastructure needed to provide it will unquestionably cost the transport sector in this country a lot of dollars. So when members of this Government stand there and say: “Yep we are going to move forward.” when all the evidence is against it including the advice of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and its own advisers and when so many of the submitters have said that we should not do it then I say to this House that we have to take note.