Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6228] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is the part that makes some amendments to a number of Acts particularly the Forests Act 1949 and inserts some new provisions. One outlines just what a forest sink covenant is and the regulating powers in relation to that. So this part is perhaps a little more technical but National is again going to support this particular part because again it moves us into a position where we have a mechanism whereby ownership can be recognised individually. We see that as a crucial part of moving forward. 
I will reflect on the relationship of this part to the bill as a whole. The bill is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. Principally it deals with issues surrounding forestry and carbon sinks. It is interesting to note in this debate this afternoon in the Committee stage of this bill that most of the contributions from the Government side—and there have not been many of them—have criticised National. Government members have not stood up and said: “This is our bill. We are proud of it. This is the blueprint that will take us forward because …”. We have not had that. 
When I addressed Part 1 I made the point that this has to be more comprehensive than just dealing with the forest issue. Climate change is a complex issue and if this is the Government’s response to the issue I have to say that it is missing out. We have had the Minister the Hon David Parker say a little bit about working with the Greens and we have talked about the sequestration through forestry in these carbon sinks. Well it is much more complex than that. Can we just talk a little bit about the part that carbon sinks will play. It is good that the legislation identifies and has an interpretation of what carbon sinks are how they are set up the regulating powers and all of that. It is good to have those outlined so that we have some understanding about that. But in reality when our country is the worst-performing country in the OECD— 
Hon David Parker 
: It’s not. 
ERIC ROY 
: It is very close to it I say to the Minister. He might say it is not but today in Nairobi a paper was tabled that stated that it was. Let us not get into the semantics of whether we are the worst or the second-worst; we are bad; our performance is bad in terms of proportionality of the greenhouse gases we emit. We have to look at New Zealand as a land mass and ask whether carbon sinks are the future. Yes they are part of it but what part will they play? We have very little land now that can actually be identified as probably being a preferable forest option. Yes there are probably a couple of hundred thousand acres in the Manawatu–Wanganui area that need to be set aside into forestry and maybe there is a wee bit up the East Coast. But when we are performing so badly we could plant the whole of New Zealand out in trees and the sequestration of that might bring us to our 1990 levels which is what we promised to do under Kyoto. 
But when we have the total land mass of New Zealand in trees what do we do then? For a start what do we do for exports? So yes trees are important and we need to encourage people to plant trees for all sorts of reasons besides the sequestration. But simply to present us with this bill as a blueprint for the way forward is very very short of the other things that need to take place. 
I note that in some of the debate we have had around this speakers have said that trees are important. Yet we have had a number of Government speakers stand up to say that agriculture is the evil and causes about 50 percent of the greenhouse gases produced in New Zealand. Is it? I invite the Minister to take a call and explain to us why sequestration into trees that are consumed is good but sequestration of carbon into grass that is consumed is bad and causes huge problems out there in terms of New Zealand’s profile in the world as a greenhouse gas emitter. It seems to me that we cannot rely on the science with trees and then discredit it on the grass because the trees by and large are consumed—