Turia Tariana: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — Second Reading 
Turia Tariana: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18087] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. First of all the Maori Party would like to thank the Hon David Parker for the briefings he has provided to us. Although we are not supporting the bill today we look forward to learning more about this matter. 
Three months ago two executives of Genesis Energy flew to Europe on a shopping trip to buy carbon credits. The writing was on the wall. How will Genesis respond to the challenge of paying for up to $100 million every year for fossil fuel burnt at the Huntly power station? How will the company address the environmental problem of producing around 3 to 6 million tonnes of carbon emissions per annum? The answer lies in the power of the purse. 
The crux of the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill rests in its name. Fundamentally the emissions trading scheme is limited by being nothing more than an emissions trading scheme when what we really require is an emissions reduction programme. The Maori Party knows that how this nation curbs greenhouse gas emissions will define this moment in our history. Meeting our obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases is vitally important but this issue is much more than one of compliance with United Nations goals to cut emissions and to stabilise the climate system. It is far more simple than that. Reducing our emissions is about honouring our commitment to those who have passed on that we will leave this planet in a better state than it is now for those who come after us. The Government acknowledges that this scheme will make almost no difference. It will cut emissions by 2 percent over 10 years and that will be far short of even our Kyoto commitments. To make the world a better place we need to live differently and we all need to live differently. 
One of the fundamental issues that has troubled us in the passage of this bill has been the issue of inequity. The inequity exists at several levels. We suggest that the emissions trading scheme is politically sustainable only if it seen to share the Kyoto burden fairly across all sectors at each stage and all starting at the same time. The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development has highlighted the inconsistency of business agreeing to forgo compensation for electricity price spikes while accepting the vast bulk of the free credits it is offered. The Maori Party has suggested that the free credits to assist export-exposed industries would be better allocated on the basis of need. 
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research predicts that the real cost of this scheme for New Zealanders will be about $58 a week. For the 13 percent of our population living in poverty the loss of another $58 a week will shave even more off the weekly grocery budget. The costs of this scheme will fall heavily on householders with low-income families being hardest hit by consequentially rising living costs. Although the Greens and New Zealand First will no doubt jostle to lay claim to the unspecified one-off payment that households will receive to adjust to the high energy costs of the emissions trading scheme it is unlikely that such a concession will soften the long-term impacts on the family budget. 
The ShapeNZ poll taken just over a month ago of 3000 New Zealanders recommended that rebates on monthly household electricity bills were favoured. We think it is an excellent idea to spend $1 billion to make homes more energy-efficient but why did this concession have to be wrung from a reluctant Government? I thought the Government supported energy efficiency and conservation anyway. A billion dollars was the price of the Green Party support for a scheme that will achieve almost nothing. We predict that that $1 billion will seem like 30 pieces of silver once the full impacts of climate change start to be felt. 
No such concessions appear to address what the Wairongomai Incorporation described as the disproportionately negative effects on Maori and that view is endorsed by one of the large corporations in my electorate the Morikaunui Incorporation which stated that while the scheme is inequitable generally it is even more so for Maori landowners. The incorporation believes that the bill as drafted conflicts with the principles and provisions of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 and breaches the Treaty of Waitangi by imposing an encumbrance over Maori land that is effectively an alienation. Their recommendation to the select committee was that Maori land should be excluded from the bill at this stage and that a timetable should be set to consult with Maori on how to include Maori land without transgressing the basic principles set out in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. In their view the emissions trading scheme bill must require no greater contribution or sacrifices from the owners of Maori land than from the owners of privately owned non-Maori land. Indeed that is a view that Maori Party members endorse with all our hearts. The Federation of Maori Authorities believes that locking Maori land into this regime compares to the actions of the Crown in the 1880s of converting Maori land to perpetual leases and leaving Maori with peppercorn rentals. In 2008 this regime is going even further by legislating how tangata whenua are to use our lands. 
Another fundamental failing of this bill as Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu advises is that the provisions for the forest sector are so flawed that they need to be totally redrafted to be fair and equitable. Ngai Tahu have stated that as a result of this bill they will suffer a disproportionate and significant liability amounting to overwhelming financial cost and opportunities lost. Indeed their submission contended that the reduction in future asset value will possibly exceed their entire Treaty settlement. 
The Maori Party is profoundly in accord with the global concern of needing to prepare for an emerging post-carbon world. The last thing we want to suggest is that we are the authority on the emissions trading scheme because clearly we are not. But we do care passionately about leaving this world in a better state for the generations that follow us. We must halt the relentless pursuit of unsustainable growth. Allowing big business to continue its polluting practices via carbon credits is not the solution. The market model creates a new currency of carbon credits a currency disproportionately dispensed to business elites; it will deliver economic benefit but it will not save the world. 
The submission from the Federation of Maori Authorities revealed that Maori have constantly recognised and demonstrated the need for climate change policy and the importance of changing our behaviour to mitigate human impacts on the climate. This acknowledgment is manifest in our belief in kaitiakitanga the nurturing of our spiritual cultural and environmental protection of te ao marama. 
The Maori Party does not support the bill. We are of the view that what is needed is a radical rethink of the whole approach. We are opposed to the concept of paying the polluters of rewarding the corporate lobbyists with huge exemptions and of the very nature of trading rather than reducing emissions. But we will take forward the concerns of so many submitters who believe that this bill once more breaches the Treaty of Waitangi in failing to uphold our rangatiratanga; in the Committee stage we will be presenting an amendment to include a clause requiring the Act to be consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Na reira tena koutou katoa.