Boscawen John: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Boscawen John: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8041. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 I understand that the Chair will be happy to take a double-call a 10-minute call. We are debating the name of the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill. Rather than calling it that name why not call it the “Lost Opportunities Bill? Why not the “When is a Subsidy Not a Subsidy and When is a Subsidy a Subsidy Bill”? Why not the “Tax the Poor Bill”? Why not the “Let Us Devalue Maori Fisheries Bill”? There are many names we could give the bill. 
I am deadly serious when I suggest naming it the “Let Us Devalue Maori Fisheries Bill”. The reason I say that—and let me be very clear to National—is that under this emissions trading scheme beyond 2013 there will be no relief available to Maori fisheries whatever. Currently they generate some 600000 emissions units or carbon units and the taxpayer is being given an allowance from the United Nations for those 600000 units. We will continue to get that allowance; as a country we will continue to get that allowance in 2013 in 2014 and for many years after. But will we pass the benefit of that allowance on to Maori fisheries—in fact to all fisheries? No we will not. We will stop it dead on 31 December 2012. And at what cost? Well at $25 a tonne those 600000 units of emissions will cost the fisheries industry in New Zealand $15 million. That industry currently makes $60 million in gross margins. So a tax of this nature represents 25 percent of its profit. It is a trade-exposed sector. It is an emissions-intensive sector. 
The Minister for Climate Change Issues knows it because he said exactly that in his minority report on Labour’s emissions trading scheme just on 12 months ago. And did he take the opportunity to fix it? Did the Maori Party insist upon it being fixed? No they did not. They left the trade-exposed emissions-intensive fishing industry to be hung out to dry in 2013. All I can say to the Minister is that if the Sanford fish processing plant in Nelson should close at some stage in the future it will be on his head and I hope his constituents are aware of it. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Sealord not Sanford. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: Sorry it is Sealord. I apologise and thank Maryan Street. It is the Sealord plant in Nelson not the Sanford plant. 
This has been a reckless process. We heard that this bill was pushed through the Finance and Expenditure Committee in 6 weeks. I gave credit to Mr Foss the chairman and he deserves credit because he was given a hospital pass. Mr Foss was given instructions to give submitters less than 24 hours’ notice. We had 380 submissions of which 170 said they wanted to be heard orally but Mr Foss’ riding instructions were to hear only 30 submissions and to hear them in 2 days. The Labour Party said the committee was given 1 day; my recollection is that it was given 2 and that is what my minority report says. 
But I also give credit to Rahui Katene who sits alongside me because she had the courage and the wisdom to vote with the Opposition and the ACT Party to allow the people who wanted to submit on this bill to submit. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes she did. And I say to Mr Cunliffe that although the Maori Party may be coming in for some criticism right now I think we need to acknowledge that had it not been for Rahui Katene voting with the Labour Party and the ACT Party we would not have heard 90 of the 125 people who came to the select committee. So I give Rahui Katene full credit for that. And I give Rahui Katene credit for the Maori Party press release that she passed to me as she was walking back from the Prime Minister’s press conference on Monday afternoon. What does it say? It says: “It is estimated that as a result of the Maori Party concessions on petrol power and insulation households will save at least $4 a week.” That is it—$4 a week. 
The ACT Party genuinely believed that the Maori Party had secured some concessions over and above what was in National’s original bill; it had secured some additional concessions. When I questioned the Minister in his office on Tuesday morning he confirmed to me that there were indeed no additional concessions. Electricity will go up by 10 percent on 1 January 2013 and there will be massive windfall profits for electricity companies that generate from water—hydro power—and from geothermal energy. It is estimated that those profits run at about $300 million a year so we are talking about projections to 2050 that some billions of dollars will be paid by ordinary New Zealanders. To whom? To the shareholders of Genesis and Meridian Energy which is us and to the shareholders of Contact Energy and TrustPower. So it is little wonder that there has been speculation today that the ruling council of the Maori Party is meeting because it is very very concerned about the Maori Party’s support for this bill because the poorest New Zealanders will pay the biggest proportion of their incomes for basic staples like electricity. They can go without petrol—they can ride buses—but everyone needs electricity. People need electricity to cook and to light up their homes. Electricity is a major component of living cost certainly for low-income New Zealanders. 
Pete Hodgson said earlier that the ACT Party is not interested in climate change and that it calls it a hoax and a scam. He was extremely critical of Rodney Hide. Well the science is unproven. In the last few days the data processing system—the computers—of the climate science unit at East Anglia University were opened up to hackers and the scientists at that unit have had to acknowledge that some of the leaked emails are indeed true. At the very least that indicates dishonesty on the part of those scientists; at the worst it indicates massive fraud. The ACT Party has said and said consistently that we should not be pushing headlong into doing this. The Minister well knows although he may wish to deny it and the National backbenchers know—the National backbenchers are not dumb—that they will have to go to their constituencies and defend this bill. They will have to defend it next week and they have to defend it at the 2011 general election. We could have postponed the effective introduction date of Labour’s emissions trading scheme. We could have sought a much better compromise. We could have looked to protect the fishing industry in exactly the same way as we are protecting the farming industry beyond 2013. There is so much more that we could have done. 
Earlier this afternoon Rodney Hide took possession of a petition from Neil and Esther Henderson. They were in the gallery earlier this afternoon; they may not be there now. They are farmers from Gisborne. Over the last 6 weeks they have collected over 10000 signatures opposing this emissions trading scheme. Why have they done that? Well it is a well-known fact that some 50 percent of our emissions come from agriculture but at the present time the maximum use of technology will reduce those emissions by only 13 percent—only 13 percent. So if we are to have any realistic chance of a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2050 essentially we are saying that the other half of our economy has to reduce its emissions by 87 percent. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: 50 years. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: I say to Dr Smith that technology may well develop over the next 40-odd years to allow agriculture to reduce its emissions beyond 13 percent but we do not know that it will. We cannot be certain of it. For this Government to enter into any binding commitment to that sort of reduction by 2050 without knowing how it will be achieved is no more than reckless. If this Government is to make any commitment at all it should be making commitments based on known technology. The select committee heard that we can make improvements. The output of the Kinleith mill has increased by some 50 percent while the absolute level of emissions has reduced. But in terms of agriculture we are talking about changing the digestive system of a cow or a sheep. We are talking about developing grass. We hear the Green Party express concern about genetic modification but those members seem to be very—