Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National): This climate change amendment bill dealing with a very complex detail of the emissions trading scheme being dealt with in urgency actually does show a pretty ramshackle process around the most important policy instrument for dealing with the challenge of climate change. We need to be reminded that this bill was only introduced a month ago and is being rammed through the Parliament tonight under urgency for an auction involving hundreds of millions of dollars to take place next week. I don't think there's a single member of this House that can pretend that is competent and good government.Now there was going to be an emissions trading bill that went through introduced in 2019 and passed in 2020. And when that bill was introduced we were told it was for the purpose of being able to establish the rules around which New Zealand emissions trading scheme (ETS) units would be able to be auctioned. So the question has got to be asked: why is Parliament today under urgency rewriting the rules that were written more than a year ago? And the answer is simple: there was a stuff up there was a mistake. I wouldn't have heard it from any of the members opposite but actually this is just another one of—whether you are talking KiwiBuild or light rail or whether it's other issues like mental health this is another area in which there has been a gulf between the Government's rhetoric and its actions. Now I'm a little bit cautious in this area around urgency and amendments to the emissions trading scheme because I've seen it all go to custard before. Helen Clark during the last Labour Government declared that climate change was the nuclear moment" of her generation; and by the time we got to 2008 and emissions had increased by 12 percent they decided to rush—in a period of three weeks—400 pages of law for the emissions trading scheme. We were assured as a Parliament that that law—Hon Dr David Clark: I thought it was 2010? That's what Erica said.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I'll come to that very point because it's critical and I would like to educate the Minister Dr Clark as to what took place. Because what happened was that Labour felt so naked after being in Government for nine years and emissions were continuing to grow that in the last dying moments of the Clark Government they rushed through botched legislation on the emissions trading scheme. And one of the key flaws that were made in that legislation was quite loose provisions around international units that were able to flow into the ETS that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of mistakes in the way in which that ETS was operated and a mistake that National had to fix in Government. And for Dr Clark's benefit the New Zealand emissions trading scheme came into effect on 1 July 2010. And for a matter of historic record that was when there was a John Key Government.Hon Dr David Clark: Labour did the work. National took the cap off.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well Mr Clark says that "Labour did the work"; let me remind him of the actual results. During the Clark Government emissions went up by 12 percent. During the nine years of the Key Government it's the first Government in the history of New Zealand to actually see emissions reduce—not by as much as we would like but actually it was a stunning achievement that the economy grew by 25 percent and emissions went marginally down. I would love the Minister of Climate Change maybe one of the Green MPs or maybe one of the Labour MPs to be up front with New Zealand and say 3½ years after being the Government how much have New Zealand's greenhouse gases reduced in that 3½ years. Is there any member that would be able to answer that? Maybe the Minister? How much since you've declared New Zealand as being in a climate change emergency have New Zealand's emissions gone down?The silence is deafening. Because it's easy to declare an emergency it's easy to give big bold speeches all around the world; the hard yards is getting emissions down. The hard yards is doing things like what National did—500000 Kiwi homes insulated; good growth in incentives for electric vehicles; programmes like the Kigali agreement and the Paris Agreement of which we worked very hard internationally to achieve. That's where I do challenge members like Dr Clark who will stand in this House and say "Where was National's programme? Where was National's actions?" They were there and we were making progress.So the question I would love a member of this House to answer is this: why was this issue not dealt with in the ETS amendment bill that was passed for auctioning in 2020? Now the Minister can blame his officials he can blame parliamentary counsel. But let me remind him of something: responsibility rests with the Minister. The reason that we are under urgency ramming through very complex legislation around this issue of a confidential base price for emissions units in the emissions trading scheme is because the Government stuffed up. Can't dress it up any other way—the Government got it wrong.I note the statement was that the legislation that was passed last year had made an error in the drafting process and not carried through the Cabinet decisions into the legislation. What does it say about the degree to which the Government is on top of its legislative programme that it passes laws for an auction and the legislation does not contain what was in the Cabinet minute? Having done over 100 bills in my time as a Minister I would be embarrassed if the legislation did not match the decisions that were made in Cabinet and we do deserve an explanation on that point. I fear that the auction next week—only to be conducted a few days after we pass this law has got a high level of risk to both the effectiveness of climate change policy as well as to the Government's financial position. I do share the colleagues'—both Stuart Smith and Erica Stanford's—concerns that the Government is confused around its climate change policy and around its financial instrument as to whether it really is committed to an emissions trading scheme or whether it continues to amend the scheme to make it more and more like a carbon tax. The reason members on our side of the House are cautious of amendments of that sort is we want real progress on climate change but we do not want to create a legislative framework which makes the ETS a backdoor tax.We all know on this side of the House that this Government is heading for extreme fiscal pressures—that is that they are doing very large levels of spending that the deficits are growing and that the potential for them to use the auctioning scheme of the ETS as a backdoor method for getting funds out of both business and households is not what National supports. National supports a genuine emissions trading scheme that is set with the parameters of ensuring that New Zealand meets its Paris and other international agreements and obligations around climate change. We want that done efficiently we want that done in a way that minimises the cost we want that done in a way that maximises the use of markets and we worry that with every complex tinker that is done to the emissions trading scheme—particularly those that drift it more towards looking like a carbon tax—that we actually are compromising its effectiveness. So I'll again say: this bill is a product of mistakes by the Government. If it was not it would have been dealt with properly when we set up the auctioning scheme in the amendments with the climate change legislation that were passed in June of last year. It is being done in a rushed process and on three previous occasions when we have seen Labour Governments rush climate change legislation it has had expensive mistakes. That is why National says that we should not be rushing legislation of this sort. There is no area of public policy that is as complicated as climate change added with the complexity of the emissions trading scheme; it is an area where real care is needed. We are not satisfied that the Government has all of the details right; there are risks for the integrity of climate policy as well as to the Treasury as a consequence of this bill."