Williams Andrew: Climate Change (New Zealand Superannuation Fund) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Climate Change (New Zealand Superannuation Fund) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7212. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Climate Change (New Zealand Superannuation Fund) Bill. New Zealand First will support this bill through the first reading to give it an opportunity in the light of day to see what can be drawn from it. We do have some reservations but we do feel that at least it would be an opportunity to flesh out what the sponsor of this bill is trying to achieve in terms of climate change the effects of climate change and New Zealand’s investments. 
However we do have some concerns in that obviously we do want to maximise our returns to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. I myself am certainly aware of comments that were made to me a year or so ago by a person who said that New Zealand already had some significant constraints on its investments around the world because for instance it is not permitted to invest in any organisation that in any shape or form has any connections to the nuclear industry. 
Sometimes you can have very large organisations involved in all sorts of commercial activities but the mere fact that one very minor very small part of an organisation’s business—it could be infinitesimal—might be doing some nuclear science research or nuclear investigations of some manner rules it completely out in terms of being eligible to be invested in with New Zealand superannuation funds. 
I can recall this particular gentleman saying to me that New Zealand as a result often did not maximise its investments because it had to avoid putting money in some areas where there was even a sniff of any connection with nuclear development nuclear sciences nuclear research or anything of that nature. Sometimes that is not necessarily a bad thing because as we all know in many areas of medicine and many areas of science there is nuclear research required within the nuclear sciences for the particular purposes of medicines and medical research. 
But in this regard there are concerns about climate change and everyone is increasingly concerned about what is happening. However we have said in this Parliament that we do not support some of the radical notions surrounding climate change that would see New Zealand taxpayers and New Zealand companies paying a lot more money and a lot more in terms of taxes or levies to fund schemes to do with climate change environmental effects carbon taxes and all these sorts of things as a result of pollution. 
We feel that that is again a negative way of handling the situation and that New Zealand should be investing its money in actually solving the problems solving the pollution issues and solving any problems in our own backyard first. We should be taking levies or any taxes to actually put them back into coming up with the remedies here within New Zealand whether it be in our dairy industry in our manufacturing industries in our forestry industries or in our other polluting-type industries. We believe that funding should be going into that work not going into international money-go-rounds that end up with people basically making money in foreign markets out of the hard-earned earnings of New Zealand people and New Zealand companies. 
 In this regard there are some questions here about climate change in terms of as was mentioned Exxon Mobil and all these other organisations that do have an effect but equally you know the list would go on and on and on and on and where do you stop? Every major corporate around the world might have an aspect of its business that is having an effect but at the same time we are seeing more and more of these corporations acting as good socially responsible corporate organisations that are addressing the issues and trying to reduce their effects on climate change and their effects on pollution. 
So we are prepared to let this bill go through for its first reading. We will hear what the member in charge of the bill has to say hear what research the member has done and find out what the officials can put forward and then we will take it from there.