Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Well I feel we are straying a wee bit away from the substance of the bill. I was going to start by complimenting Erica Stanford on her fine piece of political theatre that I think will do very well for her social media channels but I feel that it's equally distributed around the House.So look what I want to just address is this point about is it the right time or the wrong time and costs on households. So to start with Mr Bennett's question: if prices were to double—right so they're currently floating at around $25. If the carbon price was to double to $50 a tonne the impact on middle-income households would be about $3.40 a week. For households in the lowest 20 percent of income levels the weekly costs would increase by about $2 a week and that—like I was saying before to an earlier question—assumes no change. So that assumes that everything ticks along and nobody changes anything—so a return to the status quo.Now we have doubled the winter energy payment this year we've increased the base benefits across all benefit classes by $25 a week we've put out wage subsidy schemes and so on. So it is possible to address those costs in a variety of ways but they are at the margin. Now I know for a low-income household $2 a week actually—given how low benefit rates are in New Zealand; below cost of living—that makes a difference. But what that says to me is that we need to do more to ensure that people have adequate income to cover their cost of living.That leads me into some of the points that Erica Stanford was making about whether now is the right time or the wrong time. There is an economic downturn approximately every 10 years globally which affects New Zealand to a greater or lesser extent. So if you went back to 2009 you had the global financial crisis (GFC) the Christchurch earthquake—obviously the Christchurch earthquake just affected New Zealand but there was an impact of the GFC on New Zealand obviously as there was around the world. If you went back 10 years before that there was the Asian bird flu which did affect New Zealand in terms of the economic impact here. You also had the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000—Hon Tim Macindoe: This is nothing like that.Hon JAMES SHAW: I understand that this isn't like that but I haven't finished the point yet. My point is that every time that there is an economic downturn when they're in Government the National Party says Great. Let's defer action on climate change. Let's put it off until things get better." And then things get better and you kind of think OK well we probably need to review those settings right? Roughly five years after the last economic crisis—2015 was the review. Then that whole process because it's so complicated takes a few years to roll in and then you say "Look great. Here's some reforms that we need to do." and then boom there's another economic downturn "Let's kick the can down the road."Now when it comes to climate change—and she did say that she doesn't want me to talk about urgency but I'm afraid if she asks the question she's going to need to tolerate my answer which is that climate change does actually have a time frame on it. If you read the science what it suggests is that globally carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by approximately 50 percent in the next 10 years in order for us to stay within the 1.5 degree threshold of global warming. Now every year that we defer action—because carbon dioxide is a stop gas and stays up there and it accumulates—means that we're imposing additional cost the following year because you not only need to do that year's action you need to do this year's that you've given up as well. We have been doing that for 30 years—we've been putting off action. What that means is we are now at the point when we're out of time and the cost that previous Governments have imposed on us by kicking the can down the road is so much higher. It is much more expensive and much more difficult to do the longer you leave it. So that's why we're in the position that we are in of having to take action now because action wasn't taken 10 or 20 or even 30 years ago.So you compare that to the United Kingdom. Here is another part of the argument that is fallacious in my view which is the idea that this only comes at cost and that there's no such thing as a return on the investment. If you look at the country that has been most successful in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions it's the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has reduced their emissions—Hon David Bennett: Because they've destroyed their economy over 20 years—went from an industrial economy to a service one.Hon JAMES SHAW: Mr Bennett hear me out. The United Kingdom have reduced their emissions by approximately 40 percent below their 1990 levels in 10 years and at the same time prior to Brexit they had the fastest growing economy in the G20 over the same period of time. So the notion that acting on climate change will somehow destroy the economy runs against the evidence of those countries that actually have reduced their emissions over the course of the last decade or so.So intellectually it would be a more honest position for the National Party to take to say "Actually we think that acting on climate change is only ever a cost and an impost that there can be no benefit from it and therefore let's just give up on it let's forget about it. Let's get rid of the emissions trading scheme let's get rid of the zero carbon Act let's take no action on climate change at all." because the mentality that's coming through is that it only has a cost but it doesn't. The evidence is actually that once you get started—and the hard part is getting started and we've never really gotten started in this country—the transition is faster and cheaper than any of the modelling ever suggests. So I think that the basis of the argument that we need to defer only ever increases costs on future generations of taxpayers and households and that's why the situation that we're in—we want to avoid that. And because prices are lower at the moment the cost in the margins now simply won't be felt.So those are my points there. I can't remember—I think I may have addressed most of Mr Bennett's questions but clearly he's keen for some more."