Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2320] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I thank colleagues who have indicated their support for the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill and I am glad that we will have the opportunity to debate it in the Local Government and Environment Committee. I acknowledge the comments of my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell. They recalled for me the very first climate change conference I ever went to which was held in the late 1980s in the Waikato. I recall an amazing speech by a kuia from Hauraki Betty Williams who has since become a good friend of mine. She said very simply: “The atmosphere is a taonga. The climate is a taonga. They have been damaged and in Maoridom we have a mechanism for addressing that damage. It is called rahui tapu. We have to put a rahui on the burning of fossil fuels because the atmosphere has then got the capacity to recover and to heal itself.” I thought: “Yes that is what we are trying to say too when we talk about curbing climate emissions.” 
To the National Party I say that the legislative chaos that I am supposedly putting in place here is precisely the same legislative chaos—word for word—that the National Government introduced when it brought in the Resource Management Act in 1991. I am restoring exactly the wording of the Act as it was before 2004. I say to Dr Paul Hutchison that the Franklin District Council does not issue air discharge consents so it will not be obliged to consider the provisions of this bill. Environment Waikato does issue air discharge consents and before 2004 it had shown itself to be entirely capable of putting good conditions on the Huntly gas-fired station to make it mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions. 
I welcome the fact that Eric Roy has understood the seriousness of this issue and is as panicked about it and the future as I am—and good on him for that. But I say to him that the Southland Regional Council can already decide to promote coal burning in order to warm its climate. There is nothing in the present legislation to stop that. What the council is prevented from doing at present is considering the climate change impacts at all. So I do not think that argument stands either. 
Minister David Benson-Pope has outlined the main problem with this approach which is that there can be inconsistency between councils across the country. He said that a national environmental standard would be better. Yes it would! I tell the Minister to bring it on and when he does we will withdraw the bill. The fact is that this House has no alternative now. There is no carbon charge. There is no carbon trading. There is no national environment standard. The only thing we can do is restore some control at local level until we have a national economic standard. 
Passing this bill makes possible again some local control over climate emissions. We have no time to lose because new coal-fired power stations are being proposed in several places in the country—precisely I believe because there are now no controls over their emissions. At the conference today it was stated very clearly that the investment decisions we make between 2005 and 2010 will determine the climate impacts in 2030. We have only a very few years to get our investment decisions right or we will stuff up the climate for our children. We need to take that seriously. Nobody is suggesting that this bill can fix the problem. The idea that a member’s bill could fix global climate change is clearly absurd. It is one small step towards putting back some controls that used to be there. 
I finish by quoting again from the conference today. One speaker said: “We are treating the earth as a business in liquidation because it is not on anyone’s balance sheet.” That statement was not made by an environmental activist a scientist or a politician; it was made by IAG which is one of the big reinsurance companies of the world. It is panicked about climate change—as are a few of us in this Chamber—because of what it is doing to its business. Let us not treat the Earth as a business in liquidation.