Carter David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Carter David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:650;Page:18728] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 This is a historic day but it is also a very sad day. I say to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues that he should be ashamed of himself for progressing this legislation in the way it has been progressed. The Minister sent an invitation to me late last night by email asking me to drinks after the conclusion of debate on this legislation. I will not be attending. I thank the Minister for his invitation but I do not think the legislation is anything that anybody should be celebrating. I say that because there was an opportunity to pass legislation in this House today to give New Zealand an efficient emissions trading scheme and it could have been done on a consensual basis with all major political parties. However because of the Minister this legislation will be passed tonight only because of the support of New Zealand First. I think it is a pity we have not been able to develop a well-balanced emissions trading scheme that would have delivered the important behavioural changes necessary in this country to do our bit for climate change. This one will not work. 
We could have had a general consensus. We certainly could have had the National Party and the Labour Party on the same page because in December 2005 we wrote to the Minister offering our support to work together to develop an emissions trading system that would have been workable and accepted by significant consensus. The response we got from that Minister was no response at all. Mr Parker arrogantly ignored an offer by National to work with the Government to develop a scheme that could have been before Parliament tonight and probably would have had greater than 80 percent acceptance of this House. I say to Mr Parker that that would have given enduring legislation—but no. As a result of the Minister’s attitude this legislation is now seen to be a political football. I say to the Minister that I guarantee to him that this legislation will not be enduring. 
The second point I make to the Minister and the House is about the inclusion of agriculture in an emissions trading scheme. I want to be absolutely clear that agriculture should be included in a well-balanced emissions trading scheme. As an emitter of 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand there is no way agriculture should be exempted but to include agriculture in this emissions trading scheme we had to develop and debate the extent of its inclusion. We had to be accurate about the facts. The first thing I say to the Minister is that on this basis no other emissions trading scheme developed anywhere in the world includes agriculture. 
I will include the Australian Government’s position on this issue. After releasing its green paper the Australian Government said “The Government does not consider that it is practical at this stage to include agriculture emissions in the trading scheme at commencement.” and “Accordingly the Government has decided that the earliest that agriculture should enter the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would be 2015 with a final decision on inclusion or exclusion to be made in 2013 in the light of progress in overcoming practical difficulties and after extensive consultation with the industry.” Is it not a pity that the Labour - New Zealand First Government was not also prepared to take such an attitude? 
It is a common view around New Zealand that agriculture should be included but the difficulty of including it and forcing it into legislation in a dogmatic fashion as this Government has done is that the Government is refusing to acknowledge there are practical difficulties in monitoring measuring and reporting. I say to David Parker and Helen Clark tonight that the best interests of New Zealand should have been paramount. This issue should not have been based around personal agendas and the ticking of a few more boxes for CVs that might be needed in another couple of months. Yes Mr Parker should include agriculture but not to the extent whereby he risks the very viability of New Zealand farming operations and more important of the economy of this country. 
On a number of occasions throughout the select committee process I attempted to get a true indication of costs. The quality of the answers that we received at the Finance and Expenditure Committee were at best evasive and in many cases totally inadequate. The homework had simply not been done to the extent that the Minister himself—David Parker—said in the House last week that there was no evidence that the scheme would have an adverse effect on agriculture. That is what the Minister was reported as saying in the  
New Zealand Herald  
of 3 September. He had only to look at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry paper entitled  
Projected Impacts of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme at the Farm Level 
 which was released earlier this year. It states explicitly that as expected all farm types will suffer adverse profit effects. It is time the Minister was up front with the facts. 
If this emissions trading scheme had been designed properly its financial aspects and implications for agriculture could well have been recognised but now in a world that is demanding more and more food we will put our production base at risk and we will achieve nothing for global warming. The world will still demand the production of that food which will simply be moved to other countries. The Minister has been totally irresponsible because he knows as well as I do that in New Zealand we have a farming system that is relatively efficient in carbon emission terms. So the Minister will actually be shifting production from New Zealand to countries in South America such as Uruguay that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Those farming systems are far less carbon-efficient than the farming systems he is attempting to replace in New Zealand so the net effect will be that global emissions from methane will actually increase which will do nothing for global warming. The Minister should be aware of that. 
The final point I make concerns the chaotic fashion in which this legislation has been progressed right through the select committee process under the appalling chairmanship of Charles Chauvel and more recently through the House. We have gone in and out of urgency because of a weird agreement with the Greens whereby this legislation was not actually to be considered in urgency. So we have done a little bit of it then we have gone into days of urgency. We came back tonight to do a little more of it only to be told half an hour ago by Dr Cullen that we will be going back into urgency tomorrow morning. I remember when the late Rod Donald used to rile against having any urgency but no with the agreement of the Greens we are in and out of urgency in order for there to be some sort of cosmetic appearance that the emissions trading scheme is getting a fair crack and is not going through under urgency. 
This was meant to be flagship legislation for the Labour Party but it is just shambolic and Mr Parker has done his party no good at all in entering into such a shambolic process. But the more important thing is that when this legislation is passed later on tonight with the support of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and his team it will not be enduring regardless of the election result. I say to Mr Parker that this legislation will not endure. It will be back before the House before too much longer because it will not take long for the people of New Zealand to realise that the legislation will bind the economy cause the standard of living of all New Zealanders to decline and achieve very little—or nothing at all—for climate change.