Ardern Shane: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18625] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I shall start with some comments that are not repetitious. I was surprised to hear the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Charles Chauvel say that he had read all his papers and understood what he was doing. I know that member is reasonably honourable; he served for a brief period on the select committee that I myself chair and I know that he does his research. I know also that he is a lawyer and that he practised law before he came into this Parliament. That brings me to this point: how could somebody with that amount of knowledge of the law who chaired the select committee and who clearly reads his papers report back a bill that needed a thousand amendments on the last day of the select committee process and needs the 785 amendments that are before the Committee today? I say to the member there is something that is worse than ignorance and that is knowledge that one is doing the wrong thing but doing it anyway. I ask that member to take another call to explain to us how he came to his conclusion. 
My new material is this. Clause 6 of the bill defines what forest land is and what a forest species is. I will quote the definition of a forest species: “ ‘forest species’ means a tree species capable of reaching at least 5 metres in height at maturity in the place where it is located”. That is clear enough; I understand now. But I do not understand why a tree that grows like that is a carbon sink yet a tree that does not grow like that is not a carbon sink. I would love it if the Minister in the chair the Hon Pete Hodgson would take a call to explain why. Where is the science—what science was presented to the select committee—that says that a forest species such as I have described is a carbon sink yet for example manuka a native that grows over large tracts of New Zealand is not? The Department of Conservation is encouraging manuka and it is growing more vigorously than it has done for a long time. It is being allowed to grow on forest land that has been cleared and probably will not be replanted in the exotics that were there. I ask why manuka is not a carbon sink yet a tree that grows in the way I described is one. 
I also ask the Minister about the definition of “forest land”. It states “ ‘forest land’ means an area of land of at least 1 hectare that has or is likely when the forest species reach maturity to have tree crown cover from forest species of more than 30% in each hectare;”. Once again the simple question is why that land is able to be calculated as a carbon sink yet an area different from or less than that land such as the area that can be seen in the photograph I have in my hand is not. It is the same species of tree— 
Pinus radiata. 
 One is a carbon sink under the legislation and one is not. 
I have further new material. Why do we have before us a suggestion made by some people who have done an enormous amount of work on this legislation that the introduction of these amendments will impose a cost of between $600 and $1000 every year into the foreseeable future for as far as we can see on the average household? Why do we have that suggestion given that National knows that under the current proposal the Government itself will be pocketing something like $700 million or $800 million from its own State-owned enterprises? I know that the Government is about to make announcements or has made announcements in terms of the deal that it has done with the Greens and New Zealand First in regard to trying to offset that cost but the question that somebody needs to answer—a Minister any Minister someone who is here today—is why at a time when New Zealand clearly is not competitive internationally when 80000 people a year are leaving the country the Government thinks we should impose a cost of $600 to $1000 per year on every household.