Hipkins Chris: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7990. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to take my first call on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill. The people in my electorate whom I have spoken to about it over the last few days have had one question for me: why should we pay through our taxes or through a lower level of public services in order to subsidise the big polluters? Their question is very simple. We can get engaged in all of the detail of the debate here but the people in my electorate want to know why they should pay higher taxes or have a lower level of public services so that the big emitters such as Rio Tinto and its Canadian and Chinese owners can make a larger profit and be subsidised by the Government for their emissions. Fundamentally that is what this is all about. 
I want to respond to some of the comments made last night by Te Ururoa Flavell from the Maori Party. He accused me of not listening to him but I assure him that I listened very carefully to everything he said. I found his speech about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the need for a Treaty clause in legislation quite interesting. I do not think members on this side of the House have ever had the level of difficulty with those ideas that the party he now sits beside on the governing side of the House has had with them. It was the party he now sits with that talked about the drift towards racial separatism and that ran the “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign. It is no wonder that the Maori Party’s core supporters on seeing the Maori Party voting for a bill like this which was introduced by the National Government and which the Maori Party is now supporting have gone into an absolute revolt as we have discovered from the news stories that have been coming out in the last half-hour or so. They say that the Maori Party’s national council is having a special meeting this afternoon to discuss whether it supports the position taken by the Maori Party leadership to support this bill introduced by the National Government. 
This bill will increase the costs on some of the lowest-income New Zealanders. Of course we know that National would rather tax people at the lower end of the income spectrum because the very first thing that it did when it came into Government—and the Maori Party voted for it—was to increase taxes on the lowest-income New Zealanders so that it could give bigger tax cuts to those on the highest incomes. That has direct relevance to this debate. If National’s proposed amendments to the emissions trading scheme go through the taxpayer—and because of the way that National has structured the tax system the lowest-income taxpayers now pay a higher rate of tax than they otherwise would have—will end up footing the bill for emissions. 
I say to the Maori Party that it is not too late. I know that National’s junior whip sitting over there with them there is trying to make sure that National still has the votes to get this legislation through the House but I tell the Maori Party members to listen to their members who are having meetings as we speak. They have called meetings to tell the Maori Party leadership not to do this to Maori voters. I tell the Maori Party members to listen to what their members and supporters are saying. They are saying it is not too late to vote against this bill. I encourage the Maori Party members to listen to what they are saying. As one of the Maori Party members said: “Even though there is a signed deal on the table between the Maori Party and National the third and final vote is yet to be taken”. It is not too late for the Maori Party members to say that no they made a mistake; that they stand by the minority report that they wrote in the first place that said that Labour’s scheme did not go far enough and they wanted something tougher; and that they will not vote for something that waters down the scheme and gives Maori an even worse deal than what they would have got previously. 
The Maori Party members could stand up; it is not too late for them to change their minds vote against this bill and stand up for the people who voted for them. As is now being reported in the media “The Maori Party membership are becoming increasingly aware of the huge debt that our people are going to have to pay despite all the window dressing going on by the leadership about deals struck with Iwi and the $4 per week being saved with cheaper petrol and electricity prices … That figure fails in comparison with a 40 year debt of anything between $110 and $220 billion.” That is what the Maori Party’s membership is saying to the leadership. It is not the Labour Party’s position; it is the Maori Party’s grassroots membership saying that. I tell Te Ururoa Flavell to listen to what those people are saying. It is not too late. The final votes— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: The foreshore! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: He can talk about the foreshore and seabed but this issue is the biggest sell-out by the Maori Party since it has been in Parliament. His membership will desert his party over it if the reports coming through now are anything to go by. The Maori Party will be abandoned by its membership if it goes ahead and votes for this bill. Maori Party sources calculate that Maori will pay $500 million to $1 billion a year through the cutting of services increases in taxes or the sale of assets. How on earth can the Maori Party justify that?