Smith Nick: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Nick: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18293. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to make two important points in this part of the debate on the Biofuel Bill. The first is in relation to costs. We have no idea of the cost we will be imposing on New Zealand households with this bill. We know that households are under enormous cost pressures—food prices going up electricity prices going up—and what we know from this Government is that it is completely out of touch with the struggle that is going on in ordinary New Zealand homes as they put their family budgets together. I was just astonished to hear the contribution from Dr Michael Cullen the Deputy Prime Minister in this Clark-Peters Government. What Dr Cullen said was this: “The price of gas sometimes goes up and down by 10c overnight. So why would we give a bother if this is 1c or 2c?”. Why would we bother if this bill poses an increase of anything from—depending on the advice—somewhere between 3c or 7c a litre? Well let me tell members what 3c a litre means. Every cent a litre costs New Zealanders $60 million—$60 million. So tonight this Parliament is looking at whacking another $180 million of costs on to families and businesses for very questionable environmental gain.  
We believe that if we have an emissions trading scheme there will be an incentive for biofuels. Biofuels should be able to stand or fall on their merit rather than our having this nanny State bill where the Minister is going to define the exact percentage of biofuels for the next 6 years. That is my first point. The second point is—and it comes down to the amendment in my name in respect of the commencement date—that every member of this Committee knows there is enormous international debate about the sustainability of biofuels. There is not a publication in the world that has not talked about the awful problems that other countries have got themselves into with their biofuel regulations. And what does this bill do? It says we are going to make biofuels compulsory on 1 October this year but we are not going to sort out the sustainability standard for some time in the future. So if I bowl a tropical rainforest over grow palm oil and export it to New Zealand it will meet the compulsory requirement of this bill on 1 October. If I go and bowl over some Amazonian forests if I steal food from the poorest people in the world and produce biofuels on 1 October that is all OK. And the Green Party New Zealand First and Labour are saying they do not care.  
They do not care! Have they not listened to the submissions from Oxfam—a reputable organisation? Have they not listened to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment whom the Government appointed and who opposes this bill and says that it is damaging to New Zealand’s environmental reputation? My amendment is very simple and says simply this: do not introduce the compulsory requirement until we have the sustainability standard in place—put the cart after the horse not before. Have members ever heard of anything so common-sense?  
Now the Green Party members were interesting. They did not want to argue for introducing this compulsion before some sustainability standard comes into place into the never-never. They just simply said: “We can’t vote for Nick’s amendment because we haven’t yet seen it.” Well that is not a very good argument. We moved it at the Local Government and Environment Committee. We gave notice that it was one of the most important issues in this bill and for members in this Committee to proclaim that this bill is about sustainable biofuels when the sustainability standards do not come into place for some long time down the track—officials say it may be as late as 2011—is reckless and irresponsible.  
I could refer to the Secretary-General of the United Nations pleading with countries not to put biofuel requirements in place without sustainability standards. I could refer to the reports of the OECD and to the United Kingdom House of Commons. I could refer to the reports from the World Food and Agriculture Organisation and to all of that international advice and still the Government blindly proceeds with this bill and this compulsory requirement that is so foolhardy.