Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak for the first time on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. Just over a year ago our leader Simon Bridges in the Fieldays outlined our approach that we would take in the negotiations with the Government over this bill. He touched on some of the principles that he felt from a National Party perspective were absolutely critical to inform this commission's judgment. The first was the importance of broad science. The second was the fact that we needed as an economy to have access to innovation and technology to assist us on this journey. The third was that we needed to calibrate our response aligned with our trading partners in the global response. Fourthly we saw a key role in the emissions trading scheme as a signal and an incentive for the change over time. Fifthly—and most critically—was that we assure ourselves of the economic costs of this transition. At the core of the National Party approach to this issue is that climate change is an issue that we have to confront as a collective country but we do it best when we are informed in a dispassionate way about what the science is suggesting is available in terms of innovation for us to apply and what the economic costs are for this change. We have had a fair discussion with the Government over the last 10 or 12 months. As I noted the last time I spoke—last week—for most of that period it has been a very forthright and goodwill-based conversation between myself and my opposite number James Shaw and we are very pleased to see that in this legislation are the key tenets that underpin our principles and approach to climate change. There is science to inform the conversation and judgment of the commission. Innovation and the availability of that innovation is a critical part of their judgment. So is global response and so is the economic costs that we need to reflect on as a country as is the importance of this commission being advisory and also the approach with respect to split gases. But clearly we have a challenge with respect to the target that has been landed with respect to methane. I listened closely to what the Prime Minister said and her speech today more than anything else reinforces the importance of having a commission to reflect on where this methane target should be. She spoke with authority in terms of her own interpretation of what the science says. She talked to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which says minus 24 percent to minus 47 percent of an interquartile range of four illustrative pathways out of 85 and each one of those pathways is hugely challenging. Most of them actually don't see the economies reaching the targets and they say in that report they are not to be used for national guidance. She used one line out of that and said That works and I'm cloaking science and the credibility of my comments around that." It is nonsense. That interquartile range is just one line from a series of illustrative pathways that can be considered by countries as they walk this journey. David Frame says methane should stay at minus 10 percent; the Parliamentary Commissioner: minus 10 to 22 percent. The point is: why are we having this debate in this House? None of us are qualified from a scientific perspective to hold a view when the economic cost of getting this wrong is eye-watering. This is not something that you can just wash away with lovely words. If we get this wrong regional New Zealand will not look the same again. If we get this wrong the standard of living that exists in this country will be materially impacted. The whole purpose of a bipartisan conversation around establishing a commission is for them to look at the competing objectives of science of available innovation of what the rest of the world is doing and of what the economic impacts are.The view expressed by the Government that the primary pinnacle perspective that floods all of this legislation is that we must do our bit to keep the global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius. Well the global temperature is already over 1 degree Celsius it's pushing to 1.3 degrees Celsius and this country is 0.17 percent of global emissions. The very idea that our collective effort will somehow impact the global temperature is a nonsense. We have to call this for what it is. One point five is an objective in this legislation; it is one of the perspectives that the commission has to bring to bear along with what the science says is possible what innovation is available to apply across the economy at a cost that works and what the economic impacts are for New Zealanders.The regulatory impact statement talks to the modelled cost on this economy between the current gazetted target that we have supported previously as the National Government and what is suggested in this bill. The sum of the difference is $300 billion; $45 billion different than what it would be if we stayed with the National Party's target. Prime Minister I'm sorry those modelled assumptions assume that electricity has been integrated across our entire transport sector assume that electricity is in our industrial heat and assume that we have found technology to support our opportunity in the agriculture sector—all those innovations are baked into the model and it still costs us $300 billion.So for us to sit here and say "This is a new nirvana and we're just going to walk there together." is not giving New Zealanders credit. This is hard transitional stuff. It will cost and it will continue to cost there will be opportunities there as well but it is going to cost. The Government's own regulatory statement talks to the scale of the cost. I'd venture to suggest that there would not be a bill that has been in front of this House in the last two decades that has a regulatory impact statement saying that the cost is $300 billion. But on this side of the House we stand willing to support a conversation around a commission that can guide us; but to frame this up as a headlong run to commit to 1.5 degrees Celsius even if the rest of the world doesn't and that those other conditions are secondary is flawed from our perspective—seriously flawed.I am not arguing that we do not progress our own emissions reduction journey over the next 10 15 or 20 years. I am not suggesting that because it's $300 billion we do nothing because the world expects us to play our part. But what I am saying is that our communities expect us to be prudent and to be measured and to use evidence as we slowly make this transition because if we get it wrong the Taumarunuis the Te Kūitis the small communities who have been so strongly underpinned by our agricultural exports and activity the most efficient and effective emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world—I repeat that for people listening at home: our agricultural sector is already the most emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world. No one here suggests that New Zealand does not put its shoulder to the wheel but we must not be so naive that we get crushed under the axle. We need to be seriously measured and prudent as we step through this. That is why when we go to the select committee I hope—and I echo my leader's comments—from students to farmers to academics to those who just have a passing interest in this: please we want to hear your voices. We want to hear the scientists—you've rung me I want to hear you at that select committee because as James Shaw has said himself this is an opportunity but we have to do this together."