Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7918. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I thank Amy Adams the member who has just resumed her seat for clarifying several things. The Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill is putting on New Zealand households—on hard-working New Zealanders and their children—a debit equivalent to $92000 a household. By the Government’s own numbers even if we take the most favourable assumptions and leave out the compounding cost it will be $50 billion a year by 2050. This is based on a carbon price of $25 a tonne in 2013 going up to $50 a tonne thereafter. The Government’s own number is $50 billion by 2050. If we put in the cost of capital we see that it will be $110 billion yet those members have the gall to say that Labour wants to impose costs on New Zealand households. 
The member who just resumed her seat is from an agricultural constituency and she did agree with the point that agriculture has been reducing its emissions by 1.5 percent per year on average since 1990. But the obligation this Government is bringing on the sector is for 1.3 percent—less than that—going forward. Analysis presented to the Finance and Expenditure Committee said that the first 5 million tonnes of agricultural carbon emissions reduction will be at a profit but the Government will write the sector a cheque as well anyway. 
But the saddest thing was not Miss Adams’ speech; it was the previous one by Rahui Katene. She is a member I do respect but I ask her whether unlike Ngai Tahu other iwi like Tainui got Department of Conservation lands in their settlement or whether those other iwi who participated in the Crown Forestry Rental Trust will have access to the last-minute deal that the Maori Party has brokered for its benefactors. Members should make no mistake: this is not a deal for the average Maori up and down the motu. This is a deal for a very small number of people—wealthy interests at the “Browntable”—and that is not kaitiakitanga and it is not whanaungatanga in any understanding that we possess. 
But let us put ourselves in the shoes of our children. No member of this House whatever party they come from can honestly look their children in the eye and say to them that they will be better off in the future as a result of this bill and that their future will be brighter than ours. Let us cast our minds back a little and think about the place that this baby-boom generation has occupied in our history—the children of the Second World War who vowed to build a better world. Here we stand today at the cusp between their era and the era that our children and our grandchildren will inherit but what do the latter have to look forward to? 
The thing that worries young people today is not the global financial crisis—that is just a blip—it is not the end of the American empire or the rise of East Asia but it is the threat of a changing climate. That is why we go to see movies like  
The Day After Tomorrow 
  
2012 
 and even  
Twilight 
. We go to them because this civilisation our young people feel is entering its twilight. Our young people are no longer optimistic that their future will be better than this generation’s past but what is the National Government doing about it? 
This Government is imposing on the young people of New Zealand and on our grandchildren a bill that will put liabilities on the credit card for generations to come in order to subsidise the big polluters of today: the powerful interests that support the National Party. It is as cheap and as dirty as that. If smirking members opposite doubt me I say let us cast our minds back to when the man who is now Prime Minister said climate change was a hoax. Then just before the election when he worked out that young people vote he said that no he had always believed in it. Now he has returned to type because this bill is hype; it is a hoax and it is a nonsense. 
Why should we be surprised? The process that has been used by the “Minister for Shambles” was exactly that. It was a travesty. There is a telephone book of amendments laid on the Table that this Parliament has not seen before today. I appreciate the Minister inviting some of us in this morning but those Supplementary Order Papers have not had the benefit of a select committee process. Even those parts of the bill that did go to a select committee had to be considered in the absence of material that that Minister withheld under the Official Information Act. Although 379 submitters said they wanted to be heard the chairman of the committee felt there was time for only 30. We finally insisted on 127 but most of them got called the same day and were told “Pony up or lose the chance. This is it.” Yet that National Party had the gall to say of last year’s bill that Labour’s emissions trading scheme was rushed. Labour spent a whole year on a select committee process; National has allowed 1 day for submissions and tabled those amendments in the House. There is a word for it—I cannot use it—it starts with “h”. Members opposite know which word I mean. National has one set of standards in Opposition but runs right over them when it gets into Government. I say to those guys opposite that the issue with that is that a party like that does not stay on the Treasury benches for long because New Zealanders know the difference. 
I ask what our young people want. Our young people want responsible leadership. They want leadership that can see into the future and help to bring the present to that better place. Our young people know that they are being cheated today and that they are being presented with a huge bill for a scheme that is badly designed and that has not been properly considered. It is a scheme according to Treasury’s regulatory impact assessment unit that could not stand scrutiny because the analysis it was built on was flawed—or words to that effect. It is a bill that did not have even a departmental clause-by-clause report. Officials could not produce one because there was not time. It is a bill for which the Parliamentary Counsel Office could not produce a revision-tracked set of amendments for the committee to consider in the normal way because there was not time. 
What is the rush? Is it to allow a Minister and his leader to grandstand in Copenhagen? I pity them because Charles Chauvel will be there telling people the truth about the sham that is being driven through this Parliament today and the world will know that the Government is “100% Pure”—“100% Pure Nonsense”. [ 
Interruption 
] I have two minutes left before the next member’s call I say to Ms Wagner and I hope she will enjoy my speech because I am so far from finished with this bill! 
We have a long few days ahead of us on this bill. I am looking forward to the Committee stage—to counting every subsidy to unmasking every dirty deal and to showing out every craven emitter who has come to the door of the Minister where God knows what has been exchanged for a $110 billion cheque. How ludicrous is this: a “cap and trade” system with no cap? It would be like a carbon tax with no tax— 
Charles Chauvel 
: And no carbon. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —and no carbon. The idea of emissions trading for the general public is that New Zealand gets to adapt to a low-carbon future at the lowest economic cost but it only works if we actually have to trade and that only happens if we actually have a cap. Treasury and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment agree that this bill will reduce emissions by up to less than 1 percent only. So what do we get—and hey let us be generous—for our $50 billion? What do we get for that? According to the independent authorities we get less than 1 percent of emissions reduction for at least $50 billion on the Government’s debt by 2050. 
Is that anybody’s idea of a good deal? Is it anybody’s idea of a good design? Is it anybody’s idea of a good process or a good future for our children? If I feel upset about this bill it is because I have kids and I cannot look them in the eye and say that today we as a House are making their future brighter.