Roy Eric: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Roy Eric: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18146] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am pretty eager too to engage in this whole process of raising some issues around this climate change bill. Firstly I say as I have said in this Chamber before that I am not a naysayer. In fact I have given a number of speeches here in which I have said that I am more than concerned about the issues of climate change. But it is essential that we have something that will be a resolution and not just a placebo. It is also important that we identify the crucial things we have to deal with so I am drawn firstly to look at the purpose clause clause 5 in Part 1 and my contribution at this stage will be about that clause. 
The new section 3(1) of the Climate Change Response Act which is to be substituted in clause 5 states: “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations …”. Therein lies a bit of a debate in the first instance as to what our obligations actually are and why we feel more obligated to meet them than many of our trading partners. I have asked various people why it is that I think the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is like some international nudist club with every nation a member and the only country taking its clothes off is New Zealand. The reason I make that claim— 
Rodney Hide 
: Could you please get another analogy or metaphor? 
ERIC ROY 
: Well we are exposed—that is the point. We are seriously exposed including being exposed through some of the elements in this bill. This is particularly so as Nick Smith mentioned with regard to the issues surrounding agriculture; yes they have been delayed until 2013. 
I have also said a number of times in this Chamber that agriculture is important. It is the wealth driver of New Zealand and yes it is the industry I have spent most of my time engaged in. The one figure that keeps cropping up in regard to New Zealand’s profile in greenhouse gases is that of 50 percent in relation to agriculture. I have pondered this figure. I ask whether it is because of bad practice or the way we measure it or because some other factors are involved. I approached an august body the Parliamentary Library of the New Zealand Parliament and said I wanted this information. I wanted to know the number of people and the number of livestock in all of the OECD countries. Then I converted all the livestock numbers to cows—I made eight sheep the equivalent of a cow—so that I could divide the number of people by the number of cows in the OECD countries. There are 2.73 cows per person in New Zealand—2.73 cows. The next country with such a high proportion of cows to people is Australia at 1.9 cows. By the time we get to Europe the proportion is about 0.2 cows. So the reason our profile would stand out and be extraordinarily bad is that we do not have enough people to offset the number of cows. 
But we would say that that is one issue and we would ask whether it is due to bad practice. So the other thing I asked the Parliamentary Library of the New Zealand Parliament was how much nitrogenous fertiliser we used per acre of pastoral land. The library could not give me that information so I got the overall figure and divided it tried to work out the profiles of arable versus pastoral use and found that the ratio is rather similar to that of Europe. But because we have pioneered things like the nitrous ammonis clover fixation of nitrogen we use a fifth of the nitrogenous fertiliser so we have not relied on that. I admit that this is only a crude measure but it gives us an indication that it is not bad practice. If we were seriously concerned about climate change in agriculture then we would be closing down dairying in Europe and bringing the cows to New Zealand because our record is not due to bad practice. What we do in New Zealand by world standards is good practice yet under our international obligations—under clause 5 as part of the interpretation of this bill—by 2013 we will have dragged agriculture into some kind of reckoning. 
A number of figures have been given here today and I do not know the validity of each of those in question. In reality if we have a concern about climate change then I can say that what New Zealand is doing in agriculture is good by world standards. It is not bad; we should not be punished. Yes we should be conscious about these issues in agriculture and yes we should be investing in solutions with regard to nitrogen fixation the better metabolism of animals less wastage and higher energy utilisation into growth—yes we should be doing all of that—but in fact the inclusion by 2013 of that in a punitive cost because of what cows are doing is nuts.