Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): What a bitter speech. We know which way that member voted in caucus as to whether this bill should be supported at the third reading. What a negative speech bereft of hope and reminiscent of the nine years that Judith Collins was a Cabinet Minister. It was nine years absent a little bit of time on leave from Cabinet—Hon Judith Collins: Attorney-General!Hon DAVID PARKER: —during which—oh still don't know Standing Orders? This should be a day of celebration even for the National Party—even for the National Party. They should see a way through the difficult politics of reducing climate-changing emissions.Now can I begin by congratulating James Shaw and the Prime Minister for actually taking this difficult piece of legislation through the House with support of all of the main parties represented here. Can I thank New Zealand First for their contribution because it's difficult politics for them some of this as well but Parliament has managed to come together. I was one of those who met with Lord Deben when he was here. I don't think it's fair to credit Lord Deben with the initiative to have a climate commission. As others have said Generation Zero have been advocating for this for many years. We adopted it as a position I think under Moana Mackey in about 2009 or 2010 when she was still in Parliament and we've been advocating for it for some time. Its purpose is to depoliticise the carbon reduction tracks that we need to adopt as a country. That so self-evidently is needed in this country from the speech that we just heard from Judith Collins and also I have to say from the Hon Mr Simpson because I thought that he was also signalling that slow-follower track that the National Party still want to have us on. I want to give us a little reminder as to what happened after they took power in 2008. What did they do? They immediately put an unnecessary cap on the price of carbon without a floor. They allowed New Zealand's emission pricing to be undone by allowing the New Zealand market to be flooded by Ukrainian and Russian hot air which took the price to close to a dollar per tonne.What did that encourage? Well they actively encouraged deforestation in New Zealand and their record in Government wasn't a billion trees; it was the loss of close to a billion trees through deforestation. They said that they would be fast followers and who were they going to follow? Australia. Where's Australia? Australia hasn't got a price on emissions in any part of their economy. What are they up there today saying? If they get the chance to modify this legislation it will make sure that we become slow followers again. They're somehow going to embed that in changes that they will—I don't know how they're going to do it but somehow the independent climate commission will under their view of the world reach different answers.I was struck though when Lord Deben was here by a forward-thinking—he's a forward-thinking man and he told a very amusing story which is none the less of importance. When he was a Minister for the environment under Margaret Thatcher's Tory Government—not a Government that I'm particularly fond of and that unleashed neoliberalism on the world with Ronald Reagan but she was a scientist and he believed in climate change. As Minister for the environment he had a group of officials come into his office and say Minister we have a duty to put before you the issue as to whether we should lift the sea defences around the United Kingdom. The good news is you're not going to have a scrap with Treasury because we're recommending that we don't lift them." He said to the officials in the room—and he told this story a couple of times when he was out—"Is there anyone here who has a contrary view?" He said a young official who happened to be a man in the corner said "Well Minister if you happen to believe that climate change is real I believe we should be investing in lifting the sea defences." He said "Well as it so happens young man I do believe that climate change is real." Thereafter followed a scrap with Treasury to get money to lift the sea defences around the United Kingdom. He had great difficulties doing it and so he phoned up Maggie Thatcher his Prime Minister—when he was contributing to his speech he was making—and he said "Well what do we do about it?" She said "You know John. There's only two people in this Cabinet that believe climate change is real: you and me—and I believe we call that a majority." And they lifted the sea defences around the United Kingdom. They lifted the Thames barrier and isn't that investment proving wise now? The UK got ahead of these issues. They depoliticised their carbon reductions pathway through the climate commission and he's had sufficient respect across both sides of the Houses to be put in charge of that job. Now where do we have to go next as a country? In my view electricity is largely under control. A little bit of history there: the last Labour Government priced carbon set a 90 percent target put a moratorium on more fossil fuel baseload. The National Party opposed all of those measures. They said the future was fossil fuels. Gerry Brownlee put out a video at the time of the 2000 election that he had the audacity to caption as "sexy coal" and he got the nickname of "Sexy Coal Brownlee" as a consequence. He then took over as Minister of energy and sought to remove the 90 percent renewable electricity target and it wasn't until he was reshuffled out of that position that Hekia Parata the following Minister reintroduced it and was wise enough to stay on course. What are we? We've gone from 64 percent renewables to 85 percent renewables and the cost of electricity has not gone up. The cost of line services increased a little bit but electricity hasn't moved one cent. I predict that the decarbonisation pathway in New Zealand will make us wealthier as well as cleaner.Where do we need to go next? We need to decarbonise transport. That's electricity through battery electric vehicles for light transport. But really I've come to the conclusion that we're not going to get there as a country or a world without a hydrogen economy. So Megan Woods signed an agreement with Japan to advance the hydrogen economy. We've got Japanese investors already in the central North Island. We're looking at projects to advance this through the Provincial Growth Fund. Just yesterday or it might even be within the last 24 hours I went to the import expo in Shanghai where I was there for trade reasons. Every time I go I look at how fast forward the hydrogen economy is coming particularly for public transport particularly as a firming fuel for intermittent renewables as we get ever closer to 100 percent. Essentially in the next 20 to 30 years we need to double New Zealand's renewable electricity output in order to electrify transport and industrial heat. A deal's going to have to be done with Fonterra to move from coal for dehydration of milk to renewable electricity. This can be done. These are things that are within our reach. In respect of the points that Judith Collins made on agriculture—what a negative view of the capability of the agricultural sector. You know even without a price signal the agricultural sector has reduced their greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant agriculture by 1 percent per annum for the last 20 years. It's just that they've taken it in volume growth. Well even if they only continue that 1 percent per annum over 20 percent compounded which works in reverse they would have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent gross if they give that improved greenhouse efficiency to the environment instead of volume growth. If some of these new technologies that we're investing in come off they'll do much better than that. Now as to the idea that we'll stop producing food—what nonsense. We as a Government are expending money not just through the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium—which was not an idea of any political party. Actually it was an idea of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry for Primary Industries under the term of the last Labour Government. But you know it wasn't our brilliance; it was the brilliance of officials. Those ideas will bear fruit. They'll do better than 1 percent per annum. But even if they didn't what's wrong with producing a bit more horticultural output? It's high value. Our horticultural exports which don't produce ruminant emissions are growing faster than dairy. It's good. We're investing in agritech to bring forward the automation that we need in horticulture. Just the Friday before last Minister Jones myself and others announced the partnership between the Government and Scott Technology one of the best robotics firms in the world to advance these robotics on farm. Hon Shane Jones: Otago!Hon DAVID PARKER: Otago indeed—Otago indeed. So we're not going to be fast followers. We're going to lead and we should be proud of leading. There's a moral case to be done for this. All of this talk about economics. Yes of course economics are important. Of course you want to decarbonise in the lowest-cost possible way. But it doesn't mean to say that you justify doing it in economic terms—that's just the choice of how you do it. There is a moral imperative that we do this. I find it appalling that those who say that we should essentially be slow followers—they used to even say they were going to be fast followers. No credibility for that now they say. Having said that can I return to the positive because it is good that we have—Hon Scott Simpson: That'd be unusual for the Minister.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well it is hard to be positive when I follow your negative talk. But I do think it's good that we have—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry but the member's time has expired."