Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 June 2009. Volume:655;Page:4393. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 The discussion in the House this afternoon has been very interesting. I thank Dr Ashraf Choudhary for his comments and I assure him that we respect his knowledge of science particularly his knowledge of agricultural science. I also thank Rahui Katene for her comments and for pointing out how important dealing with climate change is for indigenous people. We all agree that there is a need to do something about climate change but the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment bill is not the right way to do it. 
This bill is a member’s bill introduced by Jeanette Fitzsimons and first read in March 2006. I sympathise with Jeanette Fitzsimons because since the 1980s she has been well aware of climate change and has been actively calling for policy to deal with this issue. Her pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears. This bill was an attempt by Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Greens to do something but it is a last resort and a very poor one at that. The bill was born out of frustration. It was an attempt to get some traction—any traction and any legislative provision—to tackle climate change. 
The House must remember that back in 2005-06 when the member mooted this bill there was absolutely no legislative instrument to deal with climate change or greenhouse gas emissions because in 2004 Labour had removed the only piece of legislation that dealt at all with climate change or gas emissions. In 2004 Labour amended the Resource Management Act to remove the ability of local government to consider the effects of emissions on greenhouse gases or climate change when making rules on regional plans and determining discharge consents. It was a provision of the Resource Management Act that had been used quite successfully in the past—for example in 1993 in the consenting of the Taranaki combined-cycle power plant and in 2001 when Genesis Power was granted its consent for the new Huntly plant. 
As I said this bill was born out of frustration. Jeanette Fitzsimons was frustrated because Labour had removed the one and only piece of relevant legislation actually in place and Labour had not been able to make any new nationally consistent climate change legislation stick. Back in 2005-06 Labour’s environmental policy in terms of climate change was a mess and everybody knew it. I will give a short history. In June 2003 Labour announced the animal emissions levy. It failed. The Government then announced its energy efficiency target aiming to get a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency within 10 years. That also failed. The Labour Government then announced a carbon tax. That was voted down. It then attempted to negotiate greenhouse agreements with big industry players and that failed too. Despairing at the lack of progress Jeanette Fitzsimons produced this bill although she and everyone else was well aware that a national economic instrument was a far better way to deal with the issue. Jeanette Fitzsimons introduced this bill to fill the void left by Labour’s bungles. 
Well we do not need it now. The National Government has set up the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee to review policy and the emissions trading scheme and Jeanette Fitzsimons is a member of that committee. This bill was always recognised as a poor relation in terms of dealing with the issue and we now have better options. A national financial instrument like the emissions trading scheme is the right way to deal with climate change. It is an issue that should be dealt with on a national level not a regional level. Rules to manage greenhouse gas emissions must be consistent across the country across the industry and across sectors. 
Councils are certainly not experienced enough or equipped well enough to deal with one of the most important global issues of our time. We do not want ad hoc inconsistent local applications of rules on a case by case basis. Councils are already struggling to deal with their responsibilities under the Resource Management Act and we have seen the survey from the Ministry for the Environment just this last week that tells us that many councils are struggling. After 18 years some councils have still not got operational plans under the Resource Management Act and many are struggling to process consents effectively and on time. We certainly do not want or need the duplication of a messy local council system running alongside the new emissions trading scheme. We do not need any further complexity in the Resource Management Act just when we are putting in place the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill which is designed to simplify the Resource Management Act’s processes in order to cut costs and lengthy delays. Compliance with this bill would be both time consuming and costly for regional councils and the ratepayer and it would have no real benefit. 
In fact no one likes this bill. Even Jeanette Fitzsimons herself has acknowledged that the idea that a member’s bill could fix global change is absurd and that it is just an attempt to put back some controls that used to be there. Well we have moved on and we now have greater expectations of our legislation. Mrs Fitzsimons has said that the bill was proposed back in 2006 only because there was no carbon charge or carbon trading; it was never the instrument of first choice. Even then Jeanette Fitzsimons admitted that a national environment standard would be better. As I said no one really wants this bill. At the Local Government and Environment Committee the majority of submitters on the bill favoured a national approach rather than a local government solution. The Ministry for the Environment was not supportive of the bill and finally after hearing all the evidence the select committee recommended that the bill should not be passed. The committee was dead right: this bill should not be passed into law and I oppose it. 
The National Government supports emissions trading as its preferred option for addressing climate change. The cross-party Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee is in the process of debating how that legislation should perform and Jeanette Fitzsimons is part of that process. Everyone agrees that a nationwide scheme such as an appropriate emissions trading scheme will be far more efficient and effective than this bill. An emissions trading scheme will mean there is far more compelling economic incentive to adopt new cleaner technologies and processes and to make real changes in our businesses in our organisations and in our personal lifestyles. 
We all know that New Zealand needs to do its part in tackling climate change. We need to be an active part of the global solution and at the select committee table right now we are debating just how we should do that. I tell Jeanette Fitzsimons that I understand her frustration at how long the process is taking. She has been talking climate change for decades and I understand the motivation for this bill. But we all know that it is not the right way to make progress on this important and pressing issue. The National Government opposes the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill.