Nash Stuart: Climate Change (Divestment from Fossil Fuels) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Climate Change (Divestment from Fossil Fuels) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7934. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): As Megan Woods pointed out we are supporting this bill to the select committee. I would say that the last member to speak Andrew Bayly made some very good points and those points are that this could become quite confusing. But the reason why we are supporting this bill to the select committee is that the way Parliament tends to work is that we come up with these great ideas very good bills and we take them to the select committee. Then the experts come in and they nut out these difficult decisions—these troublesome points that the last member brought up—and if there are solutions to them which I have no doubt there are then we can incorporate them in the legislation.As Mr Shaw will tell you the form this bill is in at the moment does not necessarily have to be the final form that comes back to the House but I actually believe that we are beholden to members who put up members’ bills to actually take them to a select committee and get them tested by the absolute experts. And the experts will say to us “No this just isn’t practical because it won’t allow us to do that.” “Governance will be difficult to implement.” or “It may put us in a conflicting situation.” but until we actually know that all we are doing at the moment is making assumptions. So I actually think we should be sending this to a select committee and I would love to hear what the experts have to say.One of the reasons I am supporting this to the select committee is that there are a myriad of domestic and international investments at the moment that the Superannuation Fund or the ACC fund or any other fund have the ability to invest in. Like you I have immense respect for Adrian Orr and the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation because they are extremely clever investors. They have proven themselves to be very very prudent and I am assuming that if we gave them direction from Parliament that there are certain investments that we consider as a country and as a Parliament to be unethical then they would say: “That’s fine.” They would remove that from their portfolio and they would go forward into other investments.But there are a couple of implications of this. The first is what does New Zealand stand for? This cuts into our global image. We have got to be seen to be walking the walk not just talking the talk. Mr Groser told us today in question time that we are going to Paris and we have done all this and we are going to save the world as Mr Shaw said. Well if that is the case let us go to Paris and let us tell the other countries that New Zealand believes that this is a real issue and in fact not only do we believe it but these are the actions we are taking. It is an easy thing to do in this case and this is why we should send this to the select committee. I must admit I do smile sometimes at the ACT member when he stands up and says: “This is a noble bill with noble intentions.” I say to him: then support it. Take it forward and again let us see what the experts have to say.I do not believe that it creates a conflicting objective in any way shape or form. In fact if we have a look at what our Superannuation Fund has done—let us just talk about the Superannuation Fund for a moment—the facts say that the superannuation fund instigated by the Kirk Government if it were still around would be worth about $242 billion in today’s money. Muldoon cut it—illegally as it turned out. It seems that this Government is making the same mistakes that the Muldoon Government made. It has cut contributions to the Superannuation Fund at a time when the Superannuation Fund is making extraordinary returns. What I would first love to see is in fact contributions to the Superannuation Fund started again and then let us have the argument around what constitutes ethical and unethical investment. Let us have the conversation about where we want to move as a country. Let us have a conversation as a Parliament but wider. Let us have a conversation in the general public about where we see our country perhaps in 2050 and how we get there what the objectives are that we want to achieve and what role the Government can actually play in achieving these objectives.One of the roles that we can play as a Parliament is representing the will of the people. I would not say that this is the most challenging issue. I think the most challenging issue is actually sustainable economic development and jobs—and throw into that inequality—but it is certainly a very important issue the issue around climate change. It has reached that tipping point where it is not just a bunch of—I was going to say greenies—environmentalists concerned about this. This is the wider community and we get it wherever we go. We get the question: “What are you doing about climate change?”. This bill is just one of the pieces in the jigsaw to address the conversation. I think we should have sent it to the select committee. I absolutely support sending it to the select committee because there are people there who are a lot more intelligent and a lot more competent than all of us here who would have provided answers to the questions we had. Unfortunately now that is not going to be tested unless the Nats vote for it. Thank you very much.