King Colin: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Colin: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18284. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is indeed interesting to have been part of the audience during the first part of the biofuels debate. It is worthwhile to connect Part 1 and Part 2 together because this bill really comes from the basis that we are endeavouring here to set up a framework whereby we can grow an industry that will eventually give certainty for investors and that framework is part of a tax regime. We know that that in itself should not only give certainty but allay a lot of fears for those people who would be strong-spirited enough to consider setting up a biofuels industry in New Zealand.  
There is just one thing I want to draw the Chairman’s attention to. We had a speech from the chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee and it made very little sense around the urgency of why we have to implement this bill. My mind went back to a number of the other bills that have been pushed through under urgency and it worries me terribly to think about the regulations that will be worked out under this bill should it ever be passed into law.  
When we look back on the track record of this particular Government we see that we have had the Electoral Finance Act and the debate on the emissions trading system the other night in the Committee of the whole House. It really worries me that we have seen a lot of work done in this Chamber on bills such as this Biofuel Bill—we are on Part 2 here—that really when the work mutates into its application on the ground is quite untenable and unworkable and has to be brought back to Parliament for a number of rewrites.  
With regard to our science around biofuels I suppose that it could be quite clearly said that this bill has had a very quick gestation period. It went to the select committee in 2007—I think it was in October—and it has come back now. Yet that is probably an indication of how quickly this science is moving. The conversations and the science have clearly shown that the perverse effects of biofuels have become very clear. We know clearly now that Government incentives to stimulate biofuels within the economy—whether as a tax incentive or tax write-offs in whatever way is referred to in Part 2—have created such perverse effects as those we have seen in the mid-west of America: less food being produced to be available for sale on the world market and the subsequent rise and hike in fuel prices.  
I imagine too in listening to a comment before about what Dr Norman the Green member was saying that if we went far enough back in  
Hansard 
 we would find that the very gestation of this bill would have emanated from the Greens with a plea very similar to what the Minister said originally—that this was a panacea to many of our problems. However with the quick passing of time and the perverse effects of taxation incentives we find that we are confronted with harsh realities. This bill is headed in much the same way. It has unintended consequences bearing in mind the comments made by Dr Cullen when he came to the Chamber to rescue his chairperson Moana Mackey who was unable to rebut the scientific arguments. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
COLIN KING 
: Mr Chair I seek your indulgence to raise one question to the Minister.  
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: You have 32 seconds—go.  
COLIN KING 
: I draw attention to a further mess in this policy—the incentive that gives ethanol an advantage over biofuels. I ask the Minister to explain to me the logic of why in schedule 2 “Amendments to Schedule 3 of Customs and Excise Act 1996” ethanol is given a 42.524c advantage over bio-diesel. I would welcome hearing the Minister explain why to the Committee.