Fitzsimons Jeanette: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18616] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I would like to speak to clause 2 but just before I do that I point out to the National Party that the issue it has been going on about in respect of industrial heat is in the officials’ report to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on pages 32 and 33 and then on pages 235 and 236. Several National members sat on that select committee received that report and did not raise the issue at the time. So to claim that it was an error as National members were doing recently and that the Government did not know that it had forgotten about industrial heat is certainly contradicted by the evidence. 
To return to the provisions relating to the transport sector coming into force I say that this is the very heart of the obligations in the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill because until the sector has entered the scheme nothing happens. The bill as introduced had the transport sector entering the scheme in January next year so transport was going to cover its emissions for 4 years out of the 5 for which New Zealand is responsible. An announcement was made by the Prime Minister in around April or May that because petrol prices were so high the entry of the transport sector would be delayed for 2 years meaning that transport would cover its emissions for only 2 out of the 5 years for which New Zealand had to pay. The reasons given were high petrol prices which were inflationary and the fact that households would find it difficult to cope. The extraordinary idea was put forward that it would somehow be easier to add 6c a litre to the price of petrol in 2011 than it would be to do so in 2009. That seems to ignore the fact that 2011 is another election year and that the long-term trend for fuel prices is up. Well today petrol prices are 11c a litre less than they were when the Prime Minister made that announcement which meant that the 6c could have come in and petrol prices would still have gone down compared with what they were when the announcement was made. I think it would take a very brave person to predict that in 2011 prices for petrol will still be down. It seems very likely in fact that they will be considerably higher than they were even when the Prime Minister made this announcement. The timing was changed at the select committee not because the select committee chose to do that but because it was a Government announcement and it was passed by majority at the committee. So that is what the bill now says. I predict that whoever is the Government in 2011 with an election coming up will find it very difficult to add 6c a litre to the price of petrol given where oil is going and I fear that we may leave transport out for even longer. 
I was also very interested to notice when some Cabinet papers were released through the Official Information Act that Treasury had advised the Government to bring transport in gradually perhaps over 3 years or so—a little each year—so that there would not be such a sudden hit on either the motorists’ pockets or on inflation. That is exactly what the Green Party proposed and has been proposing throughout the year. It is a matter that needs to go up in lights when the Green Party agrees with Treasury’s advice—it does not happen very often but sometimes we agree. It is unfortunate that the Government chose not to take that advice and that transport emissions will be allowed to grow because they are not covering the full cost that they cause to the country in terms of their greenhouse emissions. When the petrol levy comes in in 2011 we can expect that transport emissions will be even higher than they are now and that therefore the hit on the motorists will be even worse. The important thing is that we need to start getting those alternatives into place and until there is a proper price on carbon that will not happen.