Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. But before I do that let me surprise one or two people around the House by making a tribute to a couple of members: a former member who is with us today Dr Kennedy Graham and James Shaw the Green Party co-leader because it's a rare thing in this House to have members who come here with sincerely held beliefs about issues that they think are important and to work conscientiously over a period of time to bring about legislative change. I think anyone that comes to Parliament to do that deserves to be paid tribute to. I would also tribute Todd Muller for hitching his wagon to James Shaw's tractor in this regard but unfortunately I'm not feeling that generous today.I also would like to concede to the proponents of this bill that there is a certain intelligence in its design architecture in that it looks to change the political incentives and the architecture of political decisions over time and it looks to emulate the Fiscal Responsibility Act which has been a very successful piece of legislation for reducing deficit spending in New Zealand.So why oppose this bill? Well it's got nothing to do with whether or not we think climate change is a problem. I think it's fair to say that most people would view the emissions of carbon dioxide as being problematical although they may argue about the extent of it. Opposition to this bill has everything to do with the fact that it will not be effective at achieving the things that it wishes to achieve. The reason for that is that New Zealand whether we like it or not is a passenger when it comes to climate policy and to emissions. It is a fact that we as a country at 0.02 percent of emissions roughly cannot change the climate. We can however set an example and the example that we might set ourselves for the rest of the world at least is that we might end up changing the world's perception of climate policy by shooting ourselves in the foot. If New Zealand sets targets that are excessive that get ahead of our trading partners that we impoverish ourselves with so that the proponents of the legislation experience a political backlash and so that we end up pushing activity into other jurisdictions with less ambitious targets where the same activity takes place with greater emissions then we could impoverish New Zealanders and increase global emissions. That is a possibility if these measures actually require greater emissions reductions with more severe policies than our trading partners and our friends around the world are prepared to accept.As a result the fact is we cannot go further than our friends around the world are prepared to go. The result of this legislation can only be that New Zealand will end up reducing its emissions by about as much as—perhaps a slightly greater amount than—our trading partners. Once we accept that reality we come to quite a different proposition. That is that if we were serious we would not set up a bureaucracy because that's all this bill really does. It's the climate initiative for people too scared to take on the debate and say We seek to actually reduce our living standards by giving up on the amount of carbon we emit and pay more for the use of energy and transport and agricultural emissions." It means that we are not prepared to have that debate but we will outsource it to a bureaucracy.If we were serious and if we accepted the reality of our international situation what we'd do is very simple. We would say that New Zealand is going to have an all gases all sectors emissions trading scheme—which we almost have already notwithstanding some arguments around methane. We would say that we are going to pay the actual price for carbon that our top five trading partners pay on a weighted average basis—maybe plus 5 percent just to show that we want to be a little bit ahead. That would be a serious policy. That would be a politically tough policy to sell but it would be an effective policy—not just outsourcing a serious issue to some bureaucracy.So the ACT Party opposes this piece of legislation. It will not be effective at reducing carbon emissions. It hasn't worked in the UK; why would it work here? We're very happy to provide better policy and better evidence—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member your time has expired."