Mackey Moana: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18303. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to stand and support the third reading of these bills. The member who has just taken his seat John Carter is actually the deputy chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee that worked on the Biofuel Bill. But one would not guess that because he clearly did not listen to a single submitter who came to the select committee or read a single paper produced by the officials. All the statements he has made in this House have been total misinterpretations and deliberate misinterpretations of what was said at the select committee. Some submitters said that this would save consumers money; it is not true to say that none did. Some biofuel producers said—and people may say that they may well say this—that when they had done their figures and looked at the oil prices they believed that their product could save consumers money. The fact is that they came and said that and it is completely untrue to stand in this House and only give the opinion and the submissions of the oil companies. We need to represent all the submitters who came and submitted to the select committee.  
It is also completely not true—and saying this shows that the member did not read his papers—that we are the only country using biofuels. That is a completely ridiculous statement. In fact submitters from international biofuel production companies came to the select committee to tell us about the targets or obligations in other countries that they were currently meeting. So again it is completely wrong to say that we were told at the select committee that we are the very first country in the world ever to use biofuels. Of course biofuels are also already being used sustainably in New Zealand and the very strong message we had from that industry was “Please give us some certainty. We have this little bit going but because of the uncertainty in the sector we cannot grow our domestic biofuel industry without a biofuel obligation.”  
This bill has not been rushed through the House. The select committee reported back on 23 June. The Hon Dr Nick Smith had more than 2 months to consult parties in this House on his amendment to the Biofuel Bill but he chose not to do that; he chose not to talk to us. 
John Carter 
: He put it in the select committee. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That does not matter I say to Mr Carter. He did not tell us that he would be reintroducing it in the House. I believe he actually introduced it at the select committee at the last minute as well. But the important point is that he could have come and talked to us about this and he chose not to.  
I have said that my issue with Dr Smith’s amendment is that it is a very convenient excuse to never have a biofuel obligation if one says one will have one only if there are sustainability standards. Mr Carter has talked about putting the cart before the horse; I suggest that if Dr Smith’s amendment had passed there would be no cart—there would absolutely be no cart. He would come under pressure to never produce the sustainability standard and we would never have a biofuel obligation.  
I go back to the point I made earlier. One of the important reasons for having this bill is that we need to create some certainty for biofuel producers in New Zealand. They said to us quite clearly when they heard about this amendment that had been raised at the select committee: “Please don’t do that. It just reintroduces all the uncertainty and we will never know when we will have an obligation. We may never have an obligation and we will never see the investment coming into New Zealand to build that domestic biofuel industry that we know there is the potential for.”  
That is a very good reason to pass this legislation. Another good reason—as has already been raised in earlier debates—is that at the moment there are no sustainability standards. The sustainability principles in this legislation are a huge step forward. We have said over and over again that this legislation is not a silver bullet. No one voting for it has said that they believe it is a silver bullet. But it is an important step on the road towards sustainable biofuels. We all know that second and third-generation biofuels are likely to be far better than the ones we are dealing with at the moment.  
The fact is that the time for excuses has long passed. We have worked on this bill for a long time and it has been reported back from the select committee for a long time. The National Party has had plenty of time to consult other parties in this House if it wanted to bring amendments but Dr Smith chose just to dump his amendment in the Committee on the night. I do not think that he can reliably stand up and accuse the rest of us of not voting for it because we are terrible people and we hate the people of New Zealand when he did not give us the opportunity to even consider the Supplementary Order Paper that he brought into this House.  
The legislation clearly spells out sustainable principles. The sustainability principles in there already will leave some of the biofuel sellers in absolutely no doubt about which biofuels are absolutely off the table. As we have said before if we are going to put some kind of sustainability principles in the legislation they told us that they would like to know what they will be like so that they will know when they go into their long-term agreements with biofuel producers whether in 9 months’ time those will be knocked out by the sustainability principles in the legislation when the methodology and mechanisms are done by Order in Council. The principles are already there and they are quite clear. It is the methodology and the mechanisms that will be done by Order in Council.  
The Minister has already referred to the price. The oil companies came to the select committee and quite fairly said they thought it would be 3c to 7c and the biofuel producers came and said they thought it could save us a lot of money. We got our officials to do some work on it to find out what we thought it would be. We were told that the large portion of the costs would come from the infrastructure investment that was required. Our officials came back and told us that based on the figures provided to them by the oil companies it would be 0.2c to 04.c a litre for 4 years if they recouped all that cost in 4 years which of course they will not. That was the basis for the infrastructure costs. We found when we looked at a table based on possible prices of oil versus possible prices of biofuels that our officials told us that a 1.3c a litre increase was at one end and at the other end was a 4c per litre savings for the consumer primarily because of the rising price of oil. 
So in fact on balance this legislation is more likely to lower that cost than raise it. But one would not guess that from the speeches made by the National Party members who all have this information because they were on the Local Government and Environment Committee and they have the same reports that we have but who choose to mention only the range that was quoted by the oil companies not that given by our officials or any of the other people who came along to the select committee hearings.  
I will point out one other thing to the National Party members who get up and say how much they care for mums and dads: they did not care about mums and dads when they told us they were going to lift the cap on general practitioners’ fees. They did not care about superannuitants when they slashed superannuation. They did not care about mums and dads when they opposed Working for Families or when they opposed 20 hours’ free early childhood education. They seem to care about mums and dads only when it is a convenient excuse to vote against legislation like this. I also say to those members that although I am very pleased to see they have discovered that there are poor people in the world— 
Simon Power 
: That’s a disgraceful thing to say.  
MOANA MACKEY 
: —it is very difficult to sit here and listen to them go on about it when they only ever mention it I say to Mr Power as an excuse to vote against the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill and any climate change legislation in this House. Some consistency would be nice and then we might take them seriously on that point.  
I say to those members that they should read the sustainability principles. We have been clear that biofuel crops cannot compete with food production and that they cannot be grown on land of high production value. We have addressed that issue in this bill. Read the legislation I say to National members before standing up and giving another speech that completely misrepresents what this legislation does.