Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6220] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am excited about having an opportunity to participate in the debate on the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill and I say we do note the changes to the bill that took place in the Commerce Committee. In concert with my colleagues Nick Smith and Bill English I want to affirm National’s position. We consider this bill to be too late and too little. But National is supporting it because we see climate change as an issue that we have no option but to be involved with addressing. 
I will digress for a minute. In September I was travelling in the United States—a privately funded trip looking at national park management and a few other things—and when going through Colorado I saw a billboard on the end of a barn. I thought it was quite stark and startling. It was just a few lines and if I can remember it it went something like this: 
Remember me as Dustbowl Dick 
To mechanize I missed no trick 
Burning hedges felling trees 
I bared the landscape by degrees 
And thus I earned both cash and fame 
Until the mighty whirlwind came. 
One fatal blow and I was bust 
Ashes to ashes dust to dust. 
I thought to myself: “Labour Party!”. At a time when we should have been planting trees to sequester carbon that verse typifies exactly what was happening. 
It was the intention that trees would be planted. But I say to the Minister that it takes more than talking about the need to plant trees—one has to actually do things. I pick up some of the elements of what the Minister said about changing land uses competing values and all of those things. That is why it is so important that we get the detail right and that the messages are correct. When I saw that verse on the end of the shed I thought of Landcorp—the Government’s own farmer and the biggest farmer in New Zealand—purchasing 25000 hectares of forest land cutting the trees down and converting the land to dairying. I thought about the sorts of mixed messages this Government is giving. 
If the Government is really serious about doing things that are not just placebos—actually doing things that will work—it needs to make some hard decisions and give some very very clear indications of what it wants by making the hard decisions for its own organisations. It is absolutely important that we get everything right around forestry. We support the fact that there will be opportunities for individuals to own credits. That is one element of it. But if forestry is to compete with other land uses and we are to see land planted in trees in New Zealand then a number of other things have to happen in the infrastructural line. 
I am aware of at least three large wood processors that are looking at securing an opportunity to process logs in New Zealand. One of the reasons why tree planting has reduced is simply that the returns are not there. On the one hand there is a recognition that we need to increase the value of forestry so that it competes with other land uses yet on the other hand the three major processors that I am aware of will not sign up in New Zealand. That is because of the difficulty under the Resource Management Act in getting their factories set up and because they cannot secure the long-term electric power contracts they need in order to commit themselves to operating here. Planting trees is one thing but actually dealing realistically with sustainable electricity is another very very important element. This Government has presided over not only the reduction in tree planting but also the non-matching of the electricity needs of the sector with the supply by sustainable means—and I am referring specifically to the Dobson and Project Aqua hydroelectricity projects. 
It is a matter of fact and a matter of record that we have not kept pace with need. If we want landowners to plant trees they simply have to have the opportunity to match the returns from forestry with those created by other land uses. That is critical. Just passing this bill will not fix the problem. A number of other elements come into the equation. Trees are important as a means of sequestering carbon. That bit of information has been around since I first started to get interested in the subject in the late 1980s. The member for Otaki says I have had a change of heart but I say that in my own particular case this issue has concerned me for almost 20 years. [ 
Interruption 
] Well that is what I say. But I am part of the problem. I was planting trees on a regular basis and I stopped doing so. I stopped planting trees for all sorts of reasons. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: You’ve made too much money! 
ERIC ROY 
: No I have not sold any trees yet. I planted them for a whole lot of other reasons.