Parker David: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Parker David: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:789] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 There is a saying that it is an ill wind that blows no good. It gives me no pleasure to rise in this debate and reflect on what is going down in New Zealand at the moment under this National-led Government. I think it should send a chill down the spines of all New Zealanders that New Zealand is now backtracking on sustainability initiatives across the ambit of the environment whether it is through changes to the Resource Management Act or measures to deal with climate change or water quality. We will see New Zealand’s environment going backwards at a time when most of us accept that the world has serious environmental problems. 
I have long had a strong environmental ethic and I think that most New Zealanders do. About one-third of our country is in national parks. We are one of the first countries in the world to do something about truly trying to make our fishing sustainable in the deep seas and our inshore fisheries. I personally did a lot of work around water protection and trying to stop the degradation of waterways over many years was part of my work. I was not one of the first in the world to come to the conclusion that climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed. Others in this House like Pete Hodgson Jeanette Fitzsimons and Simon Upton were ahead of me in that regard but eventually I got there. 
I became convinced—like the National Government pretends to be—by the scientists who overwhelmingly tell us that climate change is a real and pressing problem that could change the world as we know it. It is not an exaggeration to say that climate change could change the world as we know it and this has been proven to such an extent that it is now the responsibility of politicians and Parliaments like ours to do something about it and to moderate emissions so as to not let climate change get as bad as it could get. 
I personally see climate change as an indication of a wider ill. I am personally convinced that we on this planet are living in a way that is beyond the environmental means of our ecosystems to cope. Our planet is filling up with greenhouse gases in a way that is unsustainable. There is undue pressure on our waterways; there are dropping aquifers; there are collapsing fisheries; there are dying coral reefs; there is desertification not just in Africa but also in Asia and in large parts of Australia; there is pressure on food production; and there are rising sea levels that are starting to threaten atolls. If there is even a metre of sea-level rise there will be 30 million people on the move in Bangladesh. 
These are serious problems. What worries most of us about what is happening is the truth that the world is living beyond its environmental means. More than that an international response is required in order to do something about it. Underneath that international response action by individual countries is required. It saddens me to realise that if New Zealand cannot get these problems under control then the world is doomed to a future that is not as good as it could be. 
If we look at our country with our wealth of natural resources our environmental ethic and our wealth—and we might not be as wealthy as our Australian cousins across the ditch but by God we are very wealthy compared with the world average—our low population density our climatic advantages that we already have and our richness in renewable energy we see that it is probably one of the wealthiest countries in the world when it comes to renewable energy sources. If New Zealand cannot get this right then the conclusion to draw is that the world will not. We really are to that extent the canary in the cage. We should reflect on this reality: if New Zealand does not get these issues right then the world will not. That is a very very sad conclusion to reach because that will affect our children and their children. Millions and millions of desperately poor people in developing countries will be more affected than most and it will make their futures even bleaker than they currently are. For people in developing countries who are poor their future is already bleak. 
Against that background I think it is very very sad—and I am somewhat ashamed—to be in a country that is turning its back on those problems when we can fix them or our share of them comparatively easily. That is where this bill fits in. To deal with climate change we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Half of our emissions come from agriculture. It is pretty hard in that space. Things can be done to reduce agricultural emissions—I am not letting agriculture off free because some things can be done—but they cannot be reduced by a lot. The rest of our emissions come from the use of energy and from process emissions from things like smelters that use coal in the production of metals. 
If we cannot do much in the agricultural space we have to do our fair share in the area of energy. Our energy emissions come from two main sources: electricity production and transport. Transport in New Zealand has a big share in that; we are already pretty green in our electricity production and we are starting to do even better. However in transport we can do only three things: first improve the efficiency of vehicles; second change the modes of transport to more efficient modes such as more freight on rail and more freight on bigger trucks which sometimes is a good idea; and third substitute out the existing fossil fuels that we burn to produce greenhouse gases for new sources of fuel that are carbon neutral and do not produce greenhouse gas emissions. 
 The two most likely candidates in that field for New Zealand are electricity substitution and biofuels. This bill deals with biofuels. Other people have talked about the terrible injustices that have been done by this bill to Mr McNicholl and others—the job losses and the multimillion dollar losses that have been caused to industry. I am not going to focus on those things in this contribution; I am going to focus on the environmental aspects. 
Every country in the world has a problem with transport emissions; they are very hard to fix. But given that we pour billions and billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels for transport we have to do something about it. If we do not do anything about it we may as well give up on the ambition to reduce emissions because it will not work. Transport emissions are such a big part of the problem and that is where biofuels come in. They are not a universal panacea and they are not the answer to everything but they are an important part of the solution. They are something we can use now they make economic sense as well as environmental sense for the country they are affordable and they are achievable. 
We have heard the Minister of Energy and Resources the Hon Gerry Brownlee saying in this House and on the radio that the Government is putting forward this legislation because of sustainability concerns. The Government is actually taking out of the legislation the sustainability controls that control the import of unsustainable biofuels. Already the legislation requires the oil companies to now report the source of their biofuels. So if they are importing unsustainable biofuels they get dinged now because the public sees that and the companies will not want to risk their brand value by doing something silly during this short intervening period while more detailed and prescriptive standards are worked out. 
On top of that the Act—which this bill repeals the relevant part of—already includes more than the normal amount of detail seen in primary legislation concerning sustainability principles. It sets out three principles relating to greenhouse gas reductions on a life-cycle basis including competition with food—because of course we do not want to put up the price of tortillas in Mexico City by turning corn into ethanol—and it addresses biodiversity concerns so that people cannot knock over rainforests and orang-utan habitats in Indonesia for example to produce palm oil for New Zealand biofuels. That is not allowed under New Zealand legislation. The Minister is stripping out those environmental protections by the repeal of this part of the Act. I think that might be a mistake on his part and he does not realise it. I will be promoting amendments at the Committee stage to fix that particular omission in this bill. 
More fundamentally the Minister knows—and the National Government knows—that the biofuels that are starting to be produced in New Zealand from tallow are the most sustainable sources of biofuel in the world according to the United Nations and he is killing that industry. Not only do we have the loss of jobs and the loss of money for those people who have invested their life fortune and done the right thing—and I feel very sorry for those people—we see that the Minister is ruining the environment and that should be on his conscience. It is the wrong thing to do and it sends a chill down my back.