JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) : I move, That the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill was written at the end of 2004, after the Government had amended the Resource Management Act to remove the powers of regional councils to consider climate change matters when they were issuing air discharge consents and in making regional plans that dealt with air discharge consents. The Government removed from the Act the ability of regional councils to consider climate change because it intended to bring in a carbon charge and believed that a national economic instrument was all that was needed to deal with climate change in New Zealand.

Then it became apparent that the carbon charge might never eventuate, and at the end of 2005 it was dumped. I felt a huge hole had been left in the Resource Management Act because we had neither one thing nor the other, so I introduced this very simple little bill to replace the clauses in the Resource Management Act just as they had been before. I was proved to be right, in that now in 2008 we still have no price on carbon. We do not know whether we are going to get one. But it became clear along the way that even if we do, there is no reason not to give regional councils the power to control carbon emissions as well.

There were 1,925 submissions on the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee. Admittedly a lot of those were form submissions, but they were nevertheless from people who felt strongly enough to put their name to a piece of paper and support the bill. The vast majority of the submissions did support the bill, and I want to thank all the people who went to the trouble of doing that. They were ordinary people who had just read about the bill, decided it was sensible, and put their name to a form submission, and also people who went to a great deal of trouble to bring us detailed, well-thought-out, and academic submissions.

The bill sat in the select committee for more than 2 years. It was not because it took very long to hear submissions—we actually heard only 33—and it was not the case that the committee gave it a huge amount of consideration either. The delay was because the report back was repeatedly extended. The committee went for repeated extensions because the Government could not make up its mind whether it was going to support the bill. I agreed to those extensions for a while. I was being told that we had to have extensions until it was clear whether we were going to have an emissions trading scheme, or that we had to have extensions until was clear what the emissions trading scheme was going to say. Then, when further extensions were asked for, it became blindingly obvious that the Government had no intention of supporting this bill at any stage and neither did the National Party. At that stage I said no, I would not agree to another extension. I said I thought 2 years was long enough for them to make up their minds, so it was time we brought the bill back to Parliament and they put on the record why it is that they are not supporting it. That is what we are doing tonight.

I disagree with the position that all we need in order to deal with climate change is an economic instrument. I have always disagreed with that position. Putting a price on carbon is a useful thing to do, but we actually have to deal with climate change at every level of the economy. We have to deal with it in regional and local councils, we have to deal with it in businesses, we have to deal with it as individuals, and we have to deal with it internationally. This bill would be a very useful supplement to the price on carbon that we may or may not get.

I will quote from a chapter called “Carbon Neutrality and the Law: the role of the Resource Management Act”, which was written by Klaus Bosselmann, the director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland, and a very learned professor at that. He wrote: “The recently announced emissions trading scheme and other proposed policies are insufficient to meet our Kyoto target, let alone to achieve carbon neutrality. The Government must pass the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill 2006, a private member’s bill. We need to develop national environmental standards and/or a national policy statement for achieving carbon neutrality. The purpose of the bill is to once again empower local authorities to consider the effects of greenhouse gases, and in particular CO2, on climate change when writing local plans and granting air discharge consents.” He goes on to say: “The current state of legal affairs is not without irony. While a system of air quality standards has been established, it protects people from certain toxins with an immediate effect on health, but almost completely ignores the biggest threat, climate change.”

Many submitters agreed with that view. Many of the people who disagreed with the bill were those with a vested interest in it not proceeding—those who wanted to get their air discharge consents rather more easily, without having to defend their carbon dioxide emissions, or those who did not want to be involved in the trouble of administering the system. But we had some interesting, very substantial submissions from others. For example, Meridian Energy put it to us that if it wants to build a renewable electricity station, using renewable energy, it has to fight through the Resource Management Act in order to get consent to use its fuel. Whether it wants to use water, air, or geothermal heat, it has to get consent to use that fuel. But if a company wants to build a thermal power station, there is no consent required to use the fuel. Nobody can challenge a company’s right to burn oil, coal, or gas in the way that it is possible to challenge the right to take water or use the wind. Meridian Energy said that that created an un-level playing field, and I agree with that. The removal from the Resource Management Act of the provisions enabling regional councils to consider climate change matters is one of the reasons why there is a problem.

But we are not just talking about power stations here; we are talking about anybody who builds a plant that needs an air discharge consent because the plant will burn fossil fuels. For example, I think of a new Fonterra milk-processing plant that wants to burn coal. One might say that the emissions trading scheme would take care of that. But hang on—Fonterra will be grandparented at the rate of 90 percent, until 2019, for its emissions. It will only have to face the price right at the margin, not for the rest of its emissions, and then that will phase out only by 2030. So for a long, long time companies that build fossil fuel - burning plants will not face the price on more than just the very margin of their emissions. A lot of people have become very concerned about the Genesis-proposed gas-fired power station in Rodney District, which really faces no great obstacle in terms of climate change emissions. The council up there is powerless to look at the fact that the power station would be a very heavy emitter of carbon dioxide.

Some submitters, including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who was one of our advisers, suggested that the bill would be strengthened if we added a provision for mandatory national environmental standards to be set for carbon dioxide emissions. As the hearings continued, a kind of consensus developed among many submitters—and even the committee was quite sympathetic to this view—that if we were going to pass the bill, it would be sensible to amend it in order to establish national environmental standards that councils could then use around the country in their land-use planning and in their air discharge consents. Unfortunately, that is not to be, because the committee has decided to recommend against passing the bill, and I think that is unfortunate. Even the Government admits that the emissions trading scheme will reduce emissions by less than 2 percent—less than 2 percent. Putting a price on carbon is a good start, but it will take us only a little bit of the way towards the destination. We need to have a whole lot of other measures that are complementary to that price, if it is actually to work.

Those who submitted against the bill were opposed to it because they said it would be complex and costly. That argument, of course, is used against anything one does that interferes with anything that anybody else wants to do—it will be complex and costly. Well, if people want something that is complex and costly, they should try the emissions trading scheme. It is hard to get much more complex and costly than that. Sometimes a measure that is complex and costly is OK if the outcome that we achieve through it is worth having, and that is what we still have to decide about the emissions trading scheme.

So I will be voting for this bill to proceed, and it is up to the House to decide whether it does so.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : National understands the frustration that the Green Party has with the lack of progress on the huge issue of climate change over the last 9 years. I remind the Labour members that when they were elected in 1999, they promised to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2005. But when the records came out for 2005, far from Labour reducing emissions by even 1 or 2 percent, we found emissions had in fact gone up by 15 percent. But not to be outdone by Labour’s promise of a 20 percent reduction in emissions, Helen Clark said the Government would go for a 100 percent reduction in emissions, and said the Government’s programme was for there to be carbon neutrality. Yet in every area of climate change policy over the last 9 years we have seen one policy debacle after another.

We had the energy efficiency strategy that was launched with great bells and whistles in 2001. Not only did that $100 million programme fail but the energy efficiency gains were less than those achieved in the previous 5 years, when we did not have a strategy. Then there was the debacle over the animal emissions levy and the projects to reduce emissions. Another big announcement from the Government was that it would support projects that reduced emissions by tendering carbon credits, but it shut that scheme down. We then had the policy initiative of a carbon tax, which the Government subsequently abandoned. There was an announcement around Switch on the Sunshine, where the Government was going to provide a programme to support the installation of solar water heaters, but within 12 months we saw the first drop in the number of solar water heaters being installed.

So National says to the Green Party that we understand its frustration. There has been one policy debacle after another, and emissions are going through the roof as never before. Interestingly, the rate at which emissions are going up by is even faster than the rate that they were going up by in the 1990s. They were going up by about 700,000 tonnes a year throughout the late 1990s; on average they have been going up by over 1,000,000 tonnes a year in the term of this Government.

If we take our record internationally, we see that the Prime Minister is saying New Zealand is going to be a world leader on climate change. Well, I went to a conference in Bali and numbers were tabled there on how much countries had increased their emissions by. Out of the 42 developed countries that had commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand’s numbers were the 38th worst—the 38th worst out of 42 countries. I say to members opposite that talking about Labour being a world leader on climate change is like saying that we are going to go to the Olympics and win gold medals when we have come last in the heats, right across the board, in policy terms.

Let us take another area. Labour says that we will have 90 percent renewables. Well, let us look at Labour’s 9-year record. We see that 75 percent of the new electricity generation built during the term of this Labour Government has been thermal generation. In fact, what is worse, the Government has actually intervened in the market to build thermal stations. It put an electricity levy on every consumer of electricity in order to build a new diesel power plant at Whirinaki, which is currently running at full bore. When it came to Genesis Power, the Government offered to provide a Government guarantee so that the company would build a new gas-fired power station, the biggest new thermal power station built since Huntly was born—the e3p. So National says that Labour's climate change record is awful, and we understand why the Greens wanted to introduce this bill.

However, understanding that is one thing, but making sure the legislation will work is another. Will putting provisions into the Resource Management Act—an Act that has already caused great difficulties for those who want to build new power stations—make a difference? Will it provide the sort of clear policy direction that is needed from this Parliament? National says the intent of the Greens is good, but this is not the right outcome. Let me explain why that is the case. If someone wants to have another car on the road, is it necessary to get a resource consent under the Resource Management Act? No. If a farmer wants to buy another cow to put on the farm, thank goodness the farmer does not need to go through the bureaucracy of getting a new resource consent, yet that animal adds to emissions. If somebody wants to put a gas burner in his or her home, it is not necessary to get a resource consent. So why would we say that in order to manage climate change we will use the blunt and arbitrary tool of the Resource Management Act?

What is more, the reality is that this was the law from 1999-2004. So between 1991 and 2004, when what is in this bill was the law of the land, did it help us to address climate change? No. It only created confusion. All that it did for the Environment Court or a commissioner, when considering a consent of some sort, was to leave the decision makers scratching their heads as to how they could possibly deal with an issue as big and as challenging as global warming and the huge amount of emissions. For instance, if an application is made for a new dairy plant and part of it is a drier, and it includes the burning of natural gas to dry the milk, should the decision makers give it a tick or a cross, as a consequence of making them take into account the effects of climate change? The reality of the milk plant is that the teeny-weeny amount of carbon dioxide it puts into the atmosphere would, in global terms, have a very minimal effect, albeit that globally we do need to address the issue of climate change. So National says this bill is an arbitrary, unfair provision in terms of the way we address climate change. It will have perverse effects. It did not work when this measure was there in the Resource Management Act, and it is the wrong policy instrument.

The right policy instrument for dealing with climate change—as they have in Europe, as they are currently debating in many states of the United States, as the Government in Australia has decided, and as we have decided in New Zealand—is a well-balanced and well-designed emissions trading scheme. That is why National, when the emissions trading bill was before the Finance and Expenditure Committee, had several cracks at trying to advance the development of an emissions trading scheme. Why is that a better instrument? The first thing is that the core concept of a well-balanced emissions trading scheme is that it would treat emissions equally. Whether they come from a car, a power station, a milk-processing facility, or a timber-processing facility, it would treat them equally, which this bill would not do. Furthermore, it is our view that if we can get an emissions trading system right, then it is the least-cost way to deal with the climate change issue.

We are frustrated that for 8 years the Government opposed an emissions trading scheme, and, in the last year, in a moment of panic, it is now trying to rush through Parliament an emissions trading system that has some key flaws. The record of climate change policy shows that this work is hard. It is difficult, and by rushing things we keep getting it wrong and we go backwards. That is why National says—as we said in our 10-page minority report on the emissions trading bill—that on the issue of the emissions trading scheme, yes, we back it, but by goodness we need to take the time and the care to get it right. That is why National says that that the emissions trading legislation needs to be amended. It needs to go back to the select committee. We need to address the major concerns that have quite legitimately been raised by a number of key sectors of the New Zealand economy, because with a well-balanced and well-designed emissions trading scheme, we have the right framework to deal with the enormous challenge of climate change.

This Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill is a signal of frustration from the Greens, but it is not the right policy instrument for dealing with such a complex issue as climate change.

PETER BROWN (Whip—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not want to interrupt the member, but I just want him to clarify something he said, because I think he made a mistake. In the Bali figures he quoted, he actually described New Zealand as being the 38th worst country. That makes it the fourth-best out of 42 countries. I think he meant 38th country from the top, did he not, rather than 38th from the bottom?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : The quote was in terms of an increase in emissions. New Zealand’s were ranked at 38th out of 42, which meant that we are the 38th worst in terms of the growth in emissions in the term of this Government.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I am happy to stand up and take a call on the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill. I want to start with the comments made by the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I will start off on a positive note and congratulate him on his impending nuptials, then I will make the comment that it is a little bit galling to be lectured by a member from a party that is only recently a convert to climate change and has a leader who, until very recently, said that he thought climate change was a hoax. Although I have no doubt that the Hon Dr Nick Smith himself is very passionate about these issues and is a believer in them, I suggest very respectfully that he might want to turn round and give that little lecture to a number of the members sitting behind him, including one in particular who, on the emissions trading scheme and during the submissions, showed himself to be very much a sceptic of the phenomenon of climate change. I respectfully say to him that he might want to look within his own party while he is throwing stones at many others.

I am very proud of the commitment that this Labour-led Government has made to climate change policy. It is not an easy area to advance, as we have seen with many different pieces of legislation. Saying we support climate change policy is one thing; actually supporting it when it comes to the House is entirely another.

If we just look at the emissions trading scheme, which was raised by the previous member, we can see his complaints are very reminiscent of a number of the captured interests who came along to our Finance and Expenditure Committee to say that they loved the idea of an emissions trading scheme and they thought it was the only way to go, but that they would never support one when they actually saw it down in words. The Finance and Expenditure Committee, which I am a member of, worked very hard on that scheme, and I believe it will make an enormous difference. It is already being looked at around the world in terms of what we are doing, and I do not accept the response that we should always just copy everything Australia does and never think for ourselves, particularly not when our emissions profile is significantly different from that of Australia. But coming back to this bill, despite that little aside, I do agree with a number of the points that the previous member raised about this bill.

Although I appreciate where this bill is coming from—and, again, this is another bill where as chair of the select committee I came in quite late in the piece—one of my big concerns is the regional inconsistencies that can arise from leaving something as important as this to regional councils. Different regional councils will approach this area in different ways. It is not like it is with us here in Parliament; there is a big concern out there in the general community about climate change, and a genuine desire for politicians to do something about it. A number of our regional councils believe this is something that central government should be doing. They are not saying that nothing should be done about climate change; they are just saying that they do not believe they are the appropriate people to do it. That is something that resonates on the election trail with many voters who believe that this is a national issue that should be approached from a consistent national viewpoint.

I will raise another very important issue. The transport sector is of huge concern when it comes to climate change. Of course, the Resource Management Act has no power to keep cars off the road, and it has no power to promote coastal shipping, rail, or other forms of more carbon-friendly transport. Again, when it comes to agriculture, the Resource Management Act has no power to control the number of stock that are grazed on land, so we see a very genuine imbalance between the different areas that are emitting carbon. Although I genuinely appreciate where this bill is coming from, I do not believe that the final result would be desirable.

I understand the frustration of the member in charge of the bill, Jeanette Fitzsimons, with how long this bill has been at the select committee. She is a former chair of the select committee that was considering the bill, and I do not believe there was any malice in her taking this bill away from the select committee—that was entirely her right. This is a very important issue for us to discuss in the House, and I believe that this debate will be very important in the greater climate change debate. Although I am very sorry that we could not do what she wanted at select committee, and that we were not able to find a way through, I completely appreciate that the number of extensions this bill had already had was significant and that she, as the member in charge of this bill, has used her right to bring this back to the House for debate.

In saying that, we have a number of bills dealing with climate change before many of our select committees. The Local Government and Environment Committee is currently considering the Biofuel Bill. As we have just said, the Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back the emissions trading scheme bill, and it is generally regarded that the emissions trading scheme would supersede a lot of this legislation. It really is a matter of timing.

The emissions trading scheme bill could have gone to the Local Government and Environment Committee, which perhaps would not have been appropriate because it is a small committee compared with the Finance and Expenditure Committee, but I think there are genuine arguments for a bill like that to go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, where every party in this House is able to sit in and have its say on it. If this bill had gone to the Local Government and Environment Committee, then perhaps it might have been considered alongside the emissions trading scheme, and that might have given the member in charge of the bill the opportunity to have it heard. Fortunately, that is not the way that it went. We were left with this bill at our committee and we had to decide what to do with it.

The majority of the committee decided that the emissions trading scheme covers most of the areas that this bill covers. A moratorium on new thermal generation for baseload is a very significant step, and something that obviously cuts across a lot of the issues raised in this bill. In saying that, clearly the Resource Management Act considers climate change - related or environmental issues; that is obvious. But Labour members on the committee felt that the danger of regional inconsistencies in the way climate change is dealt with was very real. We did not want to see some regions being penalised for having a very strict interpretation of the law, whereas other regions might decide that they would benefit from that and take those industries into their region because they do not interpret the law quite so strictly. We think that when we are looking at overall, global, or even national greenhouse gas emission reductions, we need to have consistency across the country. There is no point in simply shuffling them between different regional authorities, so that one authority gets emissions down but another authority lifts them by just as much. That does not do anything in terms of our Kyoto Protocol commitment and the monetary commitment we will have to meet if we do not reduce our emissions, or indeed the global emissions, in the environment.

Again, I say that I am disappointed that we could not do more with this bill at the select committee. I would have liked to hold it over for a bit longer at the committee so that it remained live—so that it remained in a position for us to do something with it if members felt that the emissions trading scheme did not quite cover off everything that this bill meant to, or for it to be retired with dignity if the emissions trading scheme did, indeed, cover it all off. But I have entire respect for the decision that the member in charge of the bill has made in bringing it back to the House now. It is an important debate to have and it is one that we are happy to engage in. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : Before I speak on the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill, I want to clarify what Nick Smith told this House. He told us that the figures he had obtained from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali made New Zealand the 38th worst country. In my language the worst is the worst, the second worst is not quite as bad, and the 38th worst is close to the top if it is out of 42 countries. But I do not think that is what he meant. I think he was saying we were the 38th from the bottom—

Eric Roy: From the top.

PETER BROWN: From the top, close to the bottom—fourth from the bottom. Would members agree with that? That is not 38th worst, is it?

Eric Roy: It can be.

PETER BROWN: It might be down in Southland, I say to Mr Roy, but it certainly is not normally.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: We’re in the southern hemisphere, Pete.

PETER BROWN: Oh, it is the southern hemisphere? There you are—that explains it. No, I have to say that the honourable member Nick Smith is quite confused. He is going to get married, he is engaged to a lovely lady, and he has got all excited about it. Let us put it down to that.

New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill, and I want to read from the report back from the Local Government and Environment Committee. It says under the heading “Submissions opposed to the bill”: “All submissions opposing the bill were substantive, and came from business and industry groups, local government, electricity generators, professionals, and academics, environment and community groups, and one from a transmission network provider. Most submitters considered climate change to be a serious issue, but expressed opposition to the bill because it made climate change a local government responsibility when submitters favoured a national response.” That is our position entirely. I think the member who just resumed her seat indicated that although local government could have control over certain aspects of certain emissions, it cannot have control over the number of cattle on a farm, ships coming into a port, and what have you, and that creates a dual standard.

I understand where the member who is promoting the bill is coming from. I understand the frustration that would result from the bill sitting there for 2 years; I think that is enough to frustrate anybody. But New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We believe that the emissions trading scheme legislation that has just emerged from the select committee and is under discussion by the Government and other parties is the way to go when it comes to climate change, emissions, carbon footprints, and all those sorts of things. We want one piece of clear legislation that everybody understands and works in with—that must be the aim of the game, surely. This piecemeal approach will not work and is not acceptable to New Zealand First. We will be opposing this bill.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : In the absence of someone else taking a call I will jump the queue a little bit, but I sense that Mr Deputy Speaker will cut me off about now.

• Debate interrupted.