Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you Mr Speaker. I wouldn't say it is my pleasure to take a call on this bill. Labour will not be supporting this legislation because this is a piece of legislation that is making a poor choice and it is a piece of legislation that is taking New Zealand backwards. If ever there was a can in New Zealand politics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that has been continuously kicked down the road it is that of agricultural emissions and where it fits in our emissions trading schemes (ETS) and indeed our emissions pricing schemes. This is something that it is time that we as a country had a clear plan for. Unfortunately what we're seeing in this bill that has been brought to the House by the Government is clear evidence that there is no plan. The only plan is to further kick that can down the road and to delay the inevitable which for many decades has been tumbling along. When we see the objectives of this bill are twofold—to keep agriculture out of the ETS by repealing all New Zealand's emission training schemes obligations for agricultural activities from the Climate Change Response Act of 2002; and also ensuring that agricultural emissions are not subject to surrender obligations under the New Zealand ETS and all the languages about removal and prevention—once again we are seeing not a glimmer of what the vision of this Government might be what the plan might be and where they may be going. Farm-related emissions—biogenic emissions—make up 49 percent of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. Of those methane makes up the majority of those. It is agreed across this House and there is multipartisan support that we need to reach net zero by 2050. That is an area that we have agreement on but what we have to have is this Government start to front up and tell us how they plan to do this. They don't plan to do it in the same way that we as a Government plan to do it and that was by having a plan that was by actually cutting emissions. The Minister of Climate Change continually telling us Wait till you say see emissions reduction plan 2." is not good enough. We need to have transparency around what those plans are and we need to be debating them across this House. When the zero carbon Act was passed in 2019 it was a watershed moment for New Zealand. It was a moment when we could come together put politics aside and agree on a direction of travel as a country in this House. We are a better country for having done that. But it is disappointing that we're not seeing us grasp the most difficult of nettles by having a plan. It is vital that we have a plan to reduce our agricultural emissions to meet our various obligations not at least of all our agreed target to be net zero by 2050 to meet our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement and various other international obligations. But I would also point to the economic necessity for New Zealand to meet these obligations. I would like to acknowledge the work and the huge amount of work that was done in our Government by my colleague the Hon Damien O'Connor—not only as the Minister of Agriculture but as a man who went and negotiated successful trade deals in both the EU and the UK and understood that market access into these most lucrative of markets was actually contingent on us having some ambition in climate action—that includes agriculture. If we want to continue to sell our high value agricultural products into certain markets us being an international laggard is simply not going to cut it. We have within those trade agreements clauses that speak to the necessity for both parties of those agreements to fulfil their international climate obligations and time and time and time again we are seeing from this Government a walking back of what action is being taken to fulfil those obligations. In this case in this piece of legislation that we're debating here today that is around agricultural emissions. We're seeing it in transport we're seeing it in industrial and process heat we're seeing it in every part of the New Zealand economy—a walking back of the actions that we were taking to get us there. What we have is a Government in doing this that is putting New Zealanders' future at risk—not only our ability to get our agricultural products into high value markets and to fulfil our trade obligations but the jobs of the future as well. Thank you."