Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a bill which takes New Zealand backwards back to a time when we had no leadership on the Government meeting its obligations internationally to climate change and no pride in the role that New Zealand plays on the international stage of leadership as a small island nation in the Pacific and doing our bit for our Pacific neighbours to stop the effects of climate change which are affecting us and our closest partners.This is a disappointing and embarrassing piece of legislation which takes us back to a time when it was not the role of Ministers of Cabinet to lead our agricultural sector to do the best they can possibly do where it was not the role of Ministers of Cabinet to get out and have those conversations with our great farmers to do better and to plan for the future and to act in a way where their responsibility and the responsibility that they take to care for the environment which we are so proud of is well rewarded. No they've gone for the lowest common denominator here. They've gone for a solution in this bill which represents stepping back into the worst players in the market getting rewarded and those who have done their best those who we are most proud of in our agricultural sector are being punished.I say it takes leadership because I have watched the Hon Damien O'Connor do exactly that—get out and have those hard conversations with the sector and earn their respect for that and have a partnership that actually was getting us somewhere where great agricultural sector players were doing really well out of working closely with Government and making those arrangements happen because they know that in 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now our agricultural sector depends on us honouring those commitments that New Zealand has internationally to our climate change goals and being the greenest best performing sector that we can possibly be.I've seen Ministers on this side of the House making hard decisions about the way that the Government prioritises our impact on climate change. I've seen things like the Climate Emergency Reduction Fund that the Hon Rachel Brooking talked about being used to make targeted investments in those sectors to help them improve their performance in emissions and make sure that we are planning for the future because it does have to be Government alongside industry in this. We all want Government to be partnering with those people in the industry making decisions about our total emissions profile and we know we can't do that as Government alone. That's the kind of leadership I'm talking about and that's not what we are seeing here in this bill.So what is this bill? Well it's a clear indication to anyone watching today that the Government has no plan to address the impacts of agricultural emissions on climate. On one hand they want us to believe that they will use the emissions trading scheme which is a great scheme to improve our emissions but on the other hand they won't do anything to help the agricultural sector become a part of that. So we have this tool now which is a dead duck in the water because really it doesn't apply to some sectors and it doesn't apply to the sectors it needs to most.We have a tool here which was world-leading. The emissions trading scheme is something we can all be proud of and is something which has been borrowed by a number of other jurisdictions and used to great effect overseas. But there's always been this outstanding question of how agricultural emissions are going to be included in that or included in another market mechanism similar to that. We have now taken this away in this bill. There is no further forward momentum for those leaders in the sector to be able to draw on and bring people with them. Instead we go back to a system where those people who do not see it as their obligation to care for the environment and do not see it as their obligation to do their part for the rest of the sector are the winners here. And that is bad decision making by this Government.The Government are leaving farmers in the dark when they desperately need something clear about the road ahead. We need a proper policy which outlines where we are going with this and that allows us a cross-partisan way of having this conversation. They are doing everything they can to delay taking action on climate change with this kind of move and it's the wrong side of the debate to be on because when we look back at this we will see this legislation for what it is which is hurting New Zealand's reputation on the world stage which is hurting New Zealand's agricultural sector which is hurting our exports and which is hurting those farmers who are doing a great job now. I'm disappointed about this bill I'm sad to see it progressing in the House and I do not commend it.