Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to stand in support of my colleague's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which is Erica Stanford's on the review of the auction. I listened carefully to the Minister's response then and yes it may well be within the auction monitor's purview to review that but I think it should be wider than that and it should be a compulsory option. I think this is a very good SOP and it requires quite a bit of thought I think.This has been rushed through and I think to just take it for granted that that small group of people who are involved in setting up the methodology themselves are also asked to critique themselves—and I think it's important that we have a proper and open and transparent process of at least knowing that this has been reviewed properly and that we have the confidence that this is going to be functioning correctly because actually as has been said this is a really technical thing that we are doing. It is quite complex.I had the pleasure on the weekend of speaking to a group in Marlborough called the Climate Karanga who are very keen climate activists who actually don't understand the emissions trading scheme (ETS) that well. And I'm finding—that's no criticism of those people at all but it is quite a complex thing that we're talking about here. And I think it's more than just doing the functionary things correctly; we have to take people with us. They have to own this because they're going to pay for it one way or another. They're completely unaware that they're paying for carbon emissions now—at the fuel pump for example—and when I explained that to them it was a bit of a shock. Most of them drove Nissan Leafs and I pointed out to them that while they may be lowering their emissions they're not lowering the country's emissions because they're simply making it cheaper for other emissions certificates to be purchased on the open market because they won't be requiring them. And we have a set number of units that are going into the market. It's a very simple process once you get your head around it but it takes a little bit to get there. I think that this bill—well-meaning—will do a job but it needs some more belts and braces around it because it actually is so important to us in New Zealand to make sure that it works correctly. And I think the Minister actually could give us some more information around that because I think surely the advice would be that the only auction really at risk would be this first auction. And I think as the member for ACT Simon Court spoke earlier about those emitters who need some emissions certificates can buy up until some date in May from the reserve market to cover their emissions at a much lower price than the secondary market. And so why would it be an issue after that particular auction on 17 March? I think the second quarter auction will clean up everything if the auction did in fact fail and I don't think that's a great risk anyway. But if it did fail then we have a known quantity in the ETS—that's what the ETS is all about and we have a known quantity coming to the market this year. So there may be a risk that an auction would fail; it's for 4.75 million units. That I think is not a massive amount and if it fails that will create some urgency I believe in the market.So could the Minister please tell us if he received advice on that and how thorough that was and the process he went through to effectively make the decision he did. Thank you.