Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Well Mr Speaker if taking a political position by opposing this bill today is going to save Kiwis huge costs of living potentially their jobs then I'm happy to take that on. Mr Patterson has spent quite a bit of his speech today talking about Todd Muller in fact and his speech on Sunday. I'll tell you what Todd Muller did on Sunday: Todd Muller stood up for everyday Kiwis and what will be potentially the worst time of their lives and what we are doing today is standing up for those Kiwis to make sure that their cost of living their gas their electricity their basket of groceries won't be increasing at what will be the worst time in many of their lives.Now look listening to the Government speeches today you would think by listening to all their posturing today that what they've done over the last three years has been some monumental effort at wrestling down our emissions but the reality is over the last three years they've only gone in one direction—and it's not down it's up. I'll tell you why that is. That's because they haven't put in place a single thing to wrestle down our emissions not a single policy in place to do a single thing. Now Minister James Shaw today was very cute when he came out and said I'll save you an hour of your time"—Matt King: He's cute!ERICA STANFORD: What he said was cute I should say. "I'll save you an hour of your time and tell you what National speakers are going to say." and he wasn't wrong. But his very flippant way of dismissing our point won't sit well with Kiwis who are now paying an extra 4c a litre at the pump who are going to be paying more for their food more for their electricity more for their fuel and watch their cost of living increase. His whole speech was so high and mighty talking about eight years and ten years and the effect doesn't reduce and every year of delay—and while he was saying all this I was sitting here thinking to myself actually: where have all the delays been in the last three years? The delays have been in the introduction of electric vehicles into this country. We had what about 87 electric vehicles in the Government fleet at the beginning of their term? I think we still have that exact same amount despite their promises to increase that by a third or a half. They've done absolutely nothing in three years. You want to talk about delays? There's a massive delay.Shall we talk about delays in terms of the Green Investment Fund—the only thing that they won in the negotiations in creating this unholy mess of a Government? What happened to that? Not a single cent spent in the last three years. You want to talk about delays? Let's talk about the Green Investment Fund delays. All of those companies out there who are sitting waiting for that cash—nothing. We could talk about green tech investment—nothing. It's very rich from the Minister to talk about this side of the House delay delay delay when he's sat on his hands for the last three years and hasn't put in place a single policy that has had a real impact on emissions and we have watched our emissions over the last three years grow and grow and grow. What he's done is set up a working group and yep we agree with him—that's great—but what has he done to wrestle down our emissions in three years? Not a single thing.And Chlöe Swarbrick she yells from the other side of the House while Scott Simpson is talking. "Oh so we're going to screw future generations?" she interrupts.Chlöe Swarbrick: I was asking "What about them?"ERICA STANFORD: In the last Budget we just listened to we've got $140 billion of debt for our future generations. You want to talk about screwing future generations? Let's talk about that Budget. And by the way in that Budget there wasn't even anything that was remotely going to help the environment apart from a few jobs killing some wallabies—Chlöe Swarbrick: $1.1 billion.ERICA STANFORD: For shooting some wallabies? Awesome. Well I'll tell you what in that Budget—nothing. There was not a single cent for electric vehicles. There wasn't any big increase of the Green Investment Fund which we haven't even spent a cent of. There wasn't any hydro investment. There was nothing. Want to talk about green investment in our future? Well that Budget was a massive fail.And Dr Duncan Webb always my favourite—time for action! The time is now! In his very clever speech full of Ds—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Come back to the bill.ERICA STANFORD: Name one thing—back to the bill Mr Speaker I will. I'll stop all my rebuttal. It's very easy because they get me so riled but I will continue on with it. The advent of the global pandemic has changed everything. When we look at this bill we need to look through a different lens. We're living in a different reality and that reality for Kiwis is an increasingly difficult one. We've made it very clear at second reading that we cannot support the bill at this time. All we're asking for is 12 months so we can have a much better idea of what our future holds. The reason for this position is entirely reasonable. It's reasonable given the times we find ourselves in. We've got to look at the conditions that we're probably going to pass this bill in that we have today. It's important to do this because this bill will increase the cost of living. It'll make things tougher for companies to operate in this country it'll mean companies will shift offshore it'll mean that we will import products rather than produce them here. Fuel costs will rise. A trolley of groceries—the cost of that will rise. Everything that is reliant on the transport sector will rise.The conditions of our new reality are constantly evolving but so far we know we're probably going to lose 140000 jobs by Christmas—the worst economic crisis in over 100 years and it's a time when we are handing out billions in wage subsidies. And then there are more additional wage subsidies. Hundreds of millions in redundancy pay that the Government are paying. We're lending businesses more to survive we're seeing benefit numbers swell we've got charities and food banks that are swamped we're fast tracking bills to spend hundreds of millions on shovel-ready projects. We are in uncharted territory and for the most part while we're COVID-free the rest of the world is in a very different position. We heard Grant Robertson today say that—in question time about the global downturn—we heard about the fact that this downturn is going to have an impact on our export revenue. And just how big is that hit? We don't know yet. But the effects of the lockdown on our economy mean that we're only just starting to feel the effect of that and people are hurting.We're going to be spending with this bill—without doubt—more on groceries more on fuel and more on electricity. The cost of living is going to go up. The Minister said today and he's said also in committee stage that he was OK with this because now is the right time. He's fine with that. Well Todd Muller Mr Patterson and this Government—sorry I should say this Opposition soon to be Government—are not OK with that because we're quite happy to stand up for Kiwis who are doing it tough out there. A lot more of them are going to be doing it a lot tougher in the coming few months. We're quite happy to stand up for them and say now is not the right time. We need more information and a few months more so that we can get to grips with the true reality of this.I talked certainly in the committee stage about the removal of the fixed price cap. The cap was initially put on to make it more certain for businesses to operate—they had more certainty. We started at about $12.50 and it increased to $25 where it was sitting up until just recently and this gradual increase gave businesses and the public certainty. But the changes in this bill we've already seen as Mr Scott Simpson pointed out: the cost is now up to $34 or something. What this does is just put more uncertainty and more cost on businesses at a time when businesses are trying to figure out whether or not they can even be in business whether or not they have to lay off staff. This is the last thing that they need. We heard from a number of trade-exposed industries in select committee and I spoke about them at committee stage and they quite clearly said to us that this bill is not giving them certainty—in fact quite the opposite. We can't imagine a world that we would live in without steel aluminium and concrete—all of those industries that create emissions. As much as James Shaw likes to get up here and tell us that well there are technologies and they're coming well actually they're not here and they are costly and they are some way off. We have to protect our trade-exposed industries in New Zealand because what we don't want to be doing is shifting jobs offshore and importing products that are going to be manufactured overseas in a much more environmentally unfriendly way with more emissions.Our policy was always not to phase out these free allocations of units until other countries in our region were doing a similar thing. Now we are in a position with COVID where we are for the most part—apart from today—COVID-free but the rest of the world are doing it really tough and I find it hard to believe that countries in our region won't be putting additional costs and strains on their high-emitting industries in times like this. So we will most likely be doing this on our own and the Minister failed to at committee stage tell us how this would be beneficial to New Zealand and why these jobs and these industries just wouldn't be shifted overseas.These are uncertain times. We've only asked this bill be delayed for 12 months so that we can have a much better idea of the exact impact on our economy and on our people. And that is why Mr Muller—on Sunday—and the rest of the National Party are standing up for those Kiwis and those people who are doing it really tough.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Before I call the next speaker can I apologise to the member who's just resumed her seat? I omitted to give you the two-minute warning bell. It didn't impact negatively on you but I apologise for that."