IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) : I move, That the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time. This bill has received broad support in its progress through the House, and because of that broad support the Business Committee has seen fit to circumvent the Committee stage and go directly to the third reading. I thank the Business Committee for that decision, which assists in getting the bill through the House. The bill is, both on the face of it and in fact, fairly technical and non-controversial, but that is not to say it has been without some question and some controversy. I will address that issue in a moment.

Just to go through the basics of what this bill is about, I say, firstly, it provides for the transfer of the management and control of the land that comprises the Palmerston North Showgrounds from the Palmerston North Showgrounds Board of Control to the Palmerston North City Council. Secondly, it allows for the dissolution of the Palmerston North Showgrounds Board of Control. Thirdly, it repeals the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act 1974. This bill has basically come about because the organisers of the local A and P show no longer wish to use the Palmerston North Showgrounds. Indeed, for some time they have not been using the showgrounds for that purpose. The A and P show has shifted over to Feilding and is now hosted at Manfeild Park, and the organisers do a fantastic job of running it there. The Palmerston North Showgrounds are used for a whole host of other reasons. They are effectively being managed by the Palmerston North City Council, and this bill simply certifies that position and brings it into law.

There was one question mark over this bill, and it has been sitting over it right from the start. It was initially raised, and has been raised repeatedly, by the Māori Party, and is the question of Ngāti Kauwhata’s Treaty claim and their concern that by passing this legislation, the land comprising Palmerston North Showgrounds would become inaccessible and more difficult for them to make a claim on through the Treaty settlements process.

I know this question taxed the Local Government and Environment Committee. The committee took it very seriously, and looked very closely to see whether Ngāti Kauwhata’s concerns were valid and there was anything that could be done to relieve their concerns. I know from the former chair of the committee, Steve Chadwick, that the committee took it very seriously and looked for some solutions. I know that the current select committee in this term, chaired ably by Mr Auchinvole, who is sitting across the House from me this afternoon, also took the submission from Ngāti Kauwhata very seriously. But the committee came to the conclusion that this change does not essentially make any change to the status of the land, and therefore Ngāti Kauwhata’s claim is in no way damaged. It does not really change the situation for them at all. Although I note that the Māori Party continues to voice Ngāti Kauwhata’s concerns, I hope that it will see that the select committee’s decision is appropriate and that Ngāti Kauwhata will be able to continue in their Treaty claim process and get what they are seeking out of that.

That is probably the most important point that needs to be addressed in relation to this bill. But it is worth noting something else that is going on relating to the Palmerston North Showgrounds. The showgrounds host all sorts of activities. Just this morning I was at a diabetes expo. People like the primary health organisations and non-governmental organisations that are involved in diabetes prevention were there, offering their services and advice to people. We have basketball and volleyball facilities there. A number of concerts are hosted there. The Robertson Holden International Speedway is hosted there, and that brings people from all across the North Island to Palmerston North on a regular basis. So the showgrounds serve an inordinate number of purposes, but probably the best-known use and the one that the Palmerston North and Manawatū communities engage with the most involves our local provincial rugby team, the Manawatu Turbos, which has its home ground at Arena Manawatu, the showgrounds. And there is—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: I’m afraid I’m from another district.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I have a colleague sitting next to me who says she is afraid she is from another district.

Hon Member: She’s got only one eye.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: She does not have her eyepatch on today, but that is OK. There are provinces in the country other than Canterbury, I say to Ms Dalziel, and I will talk about what is happening in my province: the fight to keep the Manawatu Turbos in the top division.

Unfortunately, for reasons that are lost on us in Palmerston North, the New Zealand Rugby Union is looking at axing a number of teams, and it seems as though our team is on the chopping block. I think we have been putting up a pretty sound argument against that. I will go into that briefly, if I may, with the indulgence of the House. One of the main concerns of the New Zealand Rugby Union has been about the financial stability of a number of unions, and it is worth pointing out that the Manawatu Rugby Union is projected to be back in the black by the end of this year and forecasts healthy surpluses in the years to come. In fact, the Manawatu Rugby Union has never been bailed out by the New Zealand Rugby Union, and that is something that not all provinces can attest to. The Manawatu Rugby Union is proud of that, and the New Zealand Rugby Union should note that. The second point is that weakening the game in the provinces weakens the game of rugby right across the country. The provinces are the grassroots for our All Blacks. They are where young people get their grounding in the game. If we do damage to the provincial rugby competition, then we will do damage to rugby in our nation.

We get great numbers coming along to the rugby; usually around 10,000 people come along to watch our team. There is huge support for the Manawatu Turbos. It is common for around 10 percent of the local population to turn up for games. I do not think that even Christchurch can claim it has a higher percentage than that one. I think Wellington is quite good at getting people along to its games, but Auckland certainly could not claim to get anything like that percentage.

Hon Member: We’ve got other things to do.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Sorry, what was that? The member has other things to do? Well, that member lost a football team, because he could not get along to—

Hon Darren Hughes: To Wellington.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes, to Wellington. I will come back to that football team in a minute, actually.

The proposed new division one—the lower division—really does mean huge losses for the teams that will be dropped down, because we will see the sponsors walk away. We will see our great players go. At least three Manawatu Turbos players have really shone this year, and they have caught the attention of the Hurricanes’ selectors. I know that others are potentially in the draft to go to other Super 14 teams, as well. We will lose those players.

Paul Quinn: What’s this got to do with the bill?

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It has everything to do with the bill, because this happens at the Palmerston North Showgrounds, I say to Mr Quinn. It is of serious concern to our community that we will lose our local players.

Do members know what might just happen? The New Zealand Rugby Union needs to pay attention to this. Not so long ago, our national football team had a sensational win: they got themselves to the World Cup. I can see a lot of youngsters getting interested in football. We have a sensational football team in Palmerston North, as well: YoungHeart Manawatu. It is one of the powerhouses of the competition. I can see a lot of young people shifting away from rugby and paying more attention to football. Indeed, the Phoenix—that Wellington football team—is coming up to play its first home game outside of Wellington at the Palmerston North Showgrounds on 12 December. It will be playing against Sydney FC.

Hon Darren Hughes: Will the member be there?

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The member will be there. I think the message to the New Zealand Rugby Union is loud and clear. It needs to pay attention to the detriment and damage that it is doing to provincial rugby by making it clear that the union wants to axe the Manawatu Turbos from the competition. We have put a huge effort into getting our team into the right shape so that it can stay in there. Over $300,000 has been raised to get the team into that position. That is an important point, which I think needs to be made.

Coming back to the bill, I say in conclusion that I thank the parties who are supporting the bill. I thank the select committee and the chairs of the select committee for the work that they have done. I also thank the Palmerston North City Council and Ngāti Kauwhata for their submissions and for taking the time to submit to the select committee. It is a great pleasure to see this bill in its final stage in the House.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) : My compliments to Iain Lees-Galloway on a remarkably long speech on a very, very short subject. It is interesting the way football keeps creeping into the bill.

Hon Member: Rugby!

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Rugby football, yes—one has to be particularly careful nowadays. I notice that National’s senior whip Mr Tremain spoke on rugby during the first reading, so there is something that brings it about.

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill. The bill was referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we returned it to the House with no amendments at all. However, I will say that in returning the bill with no amendments, it certainly does not mean that we did not give the matter our serious attention. It was not treated lightly at all; we were conscious of the local content of this sort of legislation, so it was quite the reverse. The bill does three things: firstly, it provides for the transfer of the management and control of the land that comprises the Palmerston North Showgrounds from the Palmerston North Showgrounds Board of Control to the Palmerston North City Council; secondly, it allows for the dissolution of the Palmerston North Showgrounds Board of Control; and, thirdly, it repeals the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act 1974.

There was only one particular issue the committee concentrated on, and that was the question raised in the first reading by Te Ururoa Flavell relating to Ngāti Kauwhata’s Treaty claims in the Palmerston North area. We checked through all the appropriate sources of legal information and we found that essentially the land as it is at the moment would be inaccessible to a claim. With the change that is proposed in this bill that status will not change, so there was no issue there.

Looking back over the first and second readings, I note that the bill was introduced by the Hon Steve Maharey. As I mentioned, the senior whip for National has spoken on it, mentioning rugby as well, as has the member for Rangitīkei, the Hon Simon Power. The bill is currently in the control of Iain Lees-Galloway, the member for Palmerston North, who is apparently looking forward to seeing what Palmerston North City Council staff will say to him when he goes back there, because up until now they have been able to ask him how the bill is going. Well, to assist it going rapidly, I will call it a day at that.

STUART NASH (Labour) : I rise to take a very short call on the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill. I stand in support of the bill for a number of reasons, but first and foremost because it is a common-sense bill introduced by my colleague and friend Iain Lees-Galloway, who has proven himself to be a very able and capable replacement for the Hon Steve Maharey. In fact, it is good to see that Mr Lees-Galloway is in the process of once again turning Palmerston North into a Labour Party fortress.

I will make one comment, however, on Mr Tremain’s general debate speech. He talked about the wonderful things that he had done for the provinces. Well, Mr Tremain and the House will be disgusted to know that in fact unemployment in Hawke’s Bay is at the highest rate of any region in this country. In 2 years’ time Mr Tremain and the National Government will be called to account for that.

I come back to the bill. Last time Mr Lees-Galloway spoke on this bill, in its second reading, he spoke about the Manawatū rugby team. He said that he was about to head across to my home town of Napier to watch the Manawatu Turbos play the Hawke’s Bay Magpies. This bill has gone very well for Mr Lees-Galloway. However, something that must have caused him some difficulty is the fact that a couple of months ago he had to walk down the main street of Palmerston North—and no doubt around the showgrounds—wearing a Hawke’s Bay Magpies rugby jersey as a result of losing a most challenging bet when the Hawke’s Bay Magpies thrashed the Manawatu Turbos. Mr Assistant Speaker Barker, as a former rugby player and a proud supporter of the Hawke’s Bay Magpies, will appreciate the discomfort of losing such a bet.

That aside, and coming back to the point at hand, this bill was first introduced into the House by the then member for Palmerston North, Steve Maharey, basically because the A and P show that had previously been held at the showgrounds had moved to Feilding. It is a pity that Mr Lees-Galloway is not the local member there, as he would be a much more appropriate MP than the current offering. There is no doubt about that. In Feilding, as those members who know the place as I do will know—my partner grew up there; lucky thing, she has now seen the light and calls Hawke’s Bay home—there is a very large and suitable area called Manfeild Park, where large shows can now be held.

Feilding has won the award for the most well-kept and prettiest town in New Zealand 13 times. The reason for that, of course, is that Napier has not entered the contest, because we in the Bay believe it is only fair to share these awards around. Most else that needs to be said on this bill has already been said a number of times. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

NICKY WAGNER (National) : I rise with pleasure to support the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill. It is right and proper that legislation should support the day-to-day reality that the Palmerston North City Council already owns the relevant land and most other assets, and that the council staff have effectively taken over the day-to-day management of the showgrounds for the last 2 years.

When the Local Government and Environment Committee received the bill, it seemed a very straightforward bill, a mere ratification of decisions made by the Palmerston North community. Simply put, the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural and Pastoral Association had disposed of its property to the Palmerston North City Council, because it did not need it any longer for the show. There had already been a transfer of ownership back in 1974 through the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act. At that time the agricultural and pastoral association, unable to finance desired improvements and additions to the showground facilities, did a deal with the city council: the council could develop the land for recreation, as long as it could be used for a specific number of days a year by the agricultural and pastoral association.

Although we have evidence that the showgrounds property was first acquired on 1 June 1886 and was vested in the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural and Pastoral Society Inc. by the Governor of the colony of New Zealand, William F Drummond Jervois, at Government House, Wellington, under the Public Reserves Act 1881 for the site of an agricultural and pastoral showground, that is not the end of the story. Ngāti Kauwhata challenged the legitimacy of the ownership, claiming it to be part of their lands and Treaty claims.

The select committee heard a submission from Ngāti Kauwhata and sought further details from the original Government purchase. We discovered that in 1864, when the original block was purchased from the Rangitāne people, there was a local dispute over the ownership. So the select committee sought further information, finally concluding that despite Ngāti Kauwhata’s claim—even if it was successful for the Waitangi Tribunal—the Waitangi Tribunal would have no jurisdiction to recommend the return of the showgrounds. Therefore, the select committee decided that this bill affects only the management and control of the land, and its enactment will not result in prejudice to any Treaty claimants. We, therefore, all support the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : Arena Manawatu, the venue at the heart of the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill, hosted a massive 2,064 events during the year, an increase of 132 on the previous year. Yet in reports to the Palmerston North City Council’s Finance and Performance Committee just 2 days ago, it was revealed that the organisation had an $85,480 deficit in the financial year to the end of June. In comparable figures, Arena Manawatu’s equity is now down from $99,600 to just $14,121. Apparently, the deficit is due to the bad weather as nine speedway nights were affected by the weather, with six cancelled outright and three transferred, incurring low attendances.

But there is another cost that drives us to oppose this legislation at this third and final reading of the bill, and that is the cultural cost, the community cost, of neglecting and rejecting the relationships with key mana whenua throughout Manawatū. A significant submission received during the course of the Local Government and Environment Committee’s deliberation was that of Ngāti Kauwhata. Ngāti Kauwhata pointed out the disappointing reality that some 3 years on from the passage of the Manfeild Park Act, the Crown is again enacting another Treaty breach against Ngāti Kauwhata by means of this bill. One would have thought that a very basic assumption of Treaty justice would be that we would not seek to create fresh breaches on top of pre-existing claims. We recall that the submission that Ngāti Kauwhata made on the Manfeild Park Bill included the request that representation for mana whenua be provided on the Manfeild Park Trust board. That did not happen. However, Ngāti Kauwhata continued with their quest for representation both at Manfeild Park and now, in this case, with the Palmerston North Showgrounds.

I put to the House the simple question I raised at the first reading of this bill: what would be so wrong with receiving the request from Ngāti Kauwhata, with listening to and considering their point of view? What would be so wrong in letting Ngāti Kauwhata be part of the governance structure? The reality is that there are many longstanding reasons for understanding that mana whenua are committed towards upholding their responsibilities as tangata whenua to protect the land and natural resources of their district. In the case of Ngāti Kauwhata, in order to be able to honour these duties and responsibilities, there must be a clear understanding of the history of the people. It is a history in which Ngāti Kauwhata has been marginalised from their lands and trapped in poor health to forever keep them dependent on the Crown as beneficiaries. We remember the well-established advice from my whanaunga and Ngāti Kauwhata member, Professor Mason Durie. Basically, the lack of access to tribal land must be woven into explanations for the chronic poor health status of Māori.

Ngāti Kauwhata contend that the land in question is part of the Te Ahu-tūranga Block taken from them by proclamation and is subject to two Waitangi Tribunal claims, Wai 784 and Wai 972. Ngāti Kauwhata did not sell interest in the Te Ahu-turanga Block. In their view, it was taken by stealth and under devious purchasing practices by the Crown and its agents. At the select committee, Ngāti Kauwhata members were quite clear and they asked that the bill be delayed until the status of the land in respect of ownership can be determined. There are other reasons, too. Various Treaty claims are ongoing, including a new claim Wai 1461, regarding the Rangitīkei-Manawatū Block. This is a conjoint claim between Ngāti Kauwhata, Ngāti Raukawa, and all of Ngā Iwi o Te Reureu.

The Māori Party continues to oppose legislation that will allow the Palmerston North City Council to take control of Arena Manawatu. We understand that the council has effectively managed Arena Manawatu in the past 2 years and that this bill is merely a formality, but the adage that possession is nine-tenths of the law is not correct and possession of ownership does not make it right. The council, in its defence, has undertaken public consultation on the change and has received no submissions in opposition. However, it does seem as though there have not been any specific efforts to engage iwi. The council advised that iwi-specific consultation is more on environmental and cultural matters, rather than regarding strategic economic assets. The council’s submission to the select committee did not discuss any consultation that it may have had, or not had, with local iwi, including Ngāti Kauwhata.

However, one of the key assumptions made about the way this bill enacts with the heritage and research of Ngāti Kauwhata is that they believe they have the right to at least have the land in question considered as part of their claim. In the end, that is for the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate, consider, and determine, not the select committee or this Parliament. We cannot, in good faith, support this bill.

Dr CAM CALDER (National) : It is a pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Palmerston North Showgrounds Act Repeal Bill. It is a modest bill—small perhaps, but perfectly formed.

It has been known for me, on occasions when speaking in the House, to take the opportunity to lambaste the late, unlamented Labour administration for year after year of supervised neglect, perhaps suggesting that Labour members were legislative sybarites embracing a default position of lassitude, languor, and inaction. It is not my intention to do so today.

This bill, in fact, reflects cooperation across the House, with a sterling effort from the Hon Steve Maharey and an able picking-up of the ball by Iain Lees-Galloway. I acknowledge the hard work the latter has done to bring the bill to its final stage in the House. I acknowledge also the inspired chairmanship of the Local Government and Environment Committee by my colleague Chris Auchinvole.

One of the other things I should say about the honourable member Mr Iain Lees-Galloway is that he is a very able member of the parliamentary rugby team. Unfortunately, he was unable to make the recent trip to Rarotonga, although I am sure he would have made an able contribution. But I am hopeful that in the years ahead he may perhaps arrange a rugby game on this particular ground, because, as we know, everything will remain the same; it is just a matter of transferring ownership. I commend the bill to the House.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I move, That the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill be now read a second time. This is a private bill, and it was my privilege to introduce it to the House on behalf of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, which is centred in my electorate of Christchurch Central. That is home also to the mighty Crusaders and Canterbury rugby teams, but unlike other members we do not need to dwell on their various glories.

The Methodist Church, as every member of this House will know, is a very well-respected religious institution. It has had a very long and proud history here in New Zealand, dating back to the earliest days of European settlement. It has a very strong role and purpose in our communities, in terms of sharing resources and assisting the poor and the disadvantaged, and that very proud tradition continues to this day, with a wide range of services and interventions provided by the church.

Over the years the Methodist Church has attracted a large number of benevolent contributions, and some of these have been preserved in the form of trusts for charitable purposes. As a consequence of that long history, the Methodist Church now holds some of those trusts for purposes that have become obsolete. Of particular relevance to this bill is that a large number of trusts have been held in the past for Methodist orphanages and children’s homes. The Methodist Church, like all other churches now, no longer undertakes the care of children, and there are no such institutions still in operation. The amount of money held in trust is generally quite small, and unfortunately it cannot be utilised for the purposes for which those trusts were established—hence the requirement for this bill. At the moment, the only real alternative for variation to the purposes of those trusts is by way of application to the High Court, which is an expensive, lengthy, and sometimes impractical way to deal with trusts and changes to trusts.

The purpose of this bill is twofold. Firstly, it provides an alternative process to the one under the Charitable Trusts Act of 1957, to vary charitable trusts in general held by the Methodist Church, and, secondly, it widens the purposes of the children’s trusts, to allow those trust funds to be used for the benefit of children in New Zealand.

At this point I thank my colleagues on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, under the chairmanship of Craig Foss. I am also grateful for the support we received from the Parliamentary Counsel Office and from the Ministry of Justice, and indeed for the submissions received from the Public Trust and Trustees Executors. They were very helpful in terms of shaping this bill. The select committee gave the submissions considerable consideration. At times it seemed to take almost as much time as some of our more omnibus and sizable tax bills, but I think we have ended up with a bill that we can all be relatively pleased with.

I should note that a number of changes have been made to the bill as introduced. The original clause 12 specified that trusts for charitable purposes would be referred to the Attorney-General for his oversight and consideration, but we considered that such specificity might exclude some church trusts. Our suggested recommendation, then, makes it clear that all schemes prepared under Part 2, relating to any church trust, would have such oversight. In relation to trusts dealing with orphanages and children, we are making some suggested changes to clause 18(1) in Part 3, as the clause applies to trusts, funds, and trust properties held for Methodist orphanages and children’s homes in New Zealand, or for the care and welfare of children. The amendment we are suggesting removes any doubt as to whether the funds could in future be applied for non-charitable purposes.

Perhaps the most contentious change that has been suggested by the Finance and Expenditure Committee relates to clause 21, which we suggest be removed and replaced by new clause 19A. This clause provides that if trustees of those trusts, who have in the past been delegated to look after the interests of children by orphanages and other institutions, are to be appointed or removed, then that can happen only after consultation with those trustees. There was a view in the select committee that if clause 21 had proceeded as originally devised, it may have given a rather unfettered power to the Methodist Church. That is perhaps not a very likely prospect; as I said in my introduction, the Methodist Church is a very long-established church with a very proud history of service to the poor and needy in our community. But obviously legislation has to be framed in a way to make sure that any possible contingency has to be covered.

Again, I thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its support of this bill and its passage through the House. I ask the House to support the bill through this second reading and the bill’s remaining stages. I hope that the House is able to conclude the progress of this bill before a particular date in December, which all good Methodists and other Christians will be celebrating.

CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) : I take a very brief call on the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill. Picking up on the sentiment and words of the previous speaker, Brendon Burns, I say National will continue to support the bill. As members—particularly those on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—are aware, we are very supportive of the intent of the bill on its way through the House.

Members will note that the Finance and Expenditure Committee recommended a few changes to the bill, under advice from the officials, particularly those from the Ministry of Justice, whom I acknowledge and thank. The previous speaker alluded to some of those changes regarding the definition of property—trust property, at least—and we had an inquiry and discussion with the Attorney-General about some matters, which members will know are picked up on in the commentary on the bill. We will obviously touch on that during the Committee stage.

I quickly note a couple of points. This bill is quite different from a normal bill in that the select committee received it from the House on 6 May 2009, and the way in which we ask for submissions on a bill like this is that we ask for submissions from particularly affected parties: those that are listed as interested parties in the petition from the promoters of the bill. I congratulate the member on picking this bill up; I think Tim Barnett originally ran this bill. Is that correct? Yes, it is. [Interruption] OK, I give my apologies there if that is incorrect. But anyway, I congratulate the member on getting the bill through as far as this, and I also congratulate the members of the committee, who have helped to steer it through. They have raised some interesting points and have effected some amendments to better the bill. One point I would flag is that it was very interesting to note the support that the member opposite, Brendon Burns, had from his colleagues when the bill was finally deliberated on in our committee.

On that note, I say I look forward to this bill progressing through the House quite rapidly. I look forward, hopefully, to achieving the same date that the previous member alluded to. Thank you.

Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) : Kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. I am quite humbled and honoured to stand in this House to support my colleague Brendon Burns, the MP for Christchurch Central, who is sponsoring the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill, and I am also pleased to speak to the bill’s second reading. The group that is critically important to this bill is the Methodist Church of New Zealand, Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa. I thank the Methodist Church, which has been in place since the early 1820s. Just about every New Zealander is affected by church or the history of missionaries, including those from the Methodist Church.

This bill is quite visionary, because it follows a precedent that has already been set with Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians. The main aim of this bill is that where the original objects or purposes are now impossible or impractical or where it is inexpedient to carry them out, we can remove that legal technicality, so that we can carry on with the business in terms of supporting those most in need in our country and in our society.

I also acknowledge the Methodist Church in terms of its commitment to Māori and also to Pacific people. All over the region the Methodist Church has contributed enormously to those countries and to those people when they are in need.

We are very pleased with the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I thank its members so much for doing the great work they have done on this bill, particularly to do with the amendments that my colleague Brendon Burns has alluded to.

We really look forward to seeing the passage of this bill through the House. It will be a welcomed bill, particularly by all the Methodists, who comprise the fifth largest Christian church in New Zealand. I also acknowledge the wonderful contribution that they make to those in need. Thank you.

AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) : I am very happy to rise this afternoon and take a call on the second reading on the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill. I echo the words of the speakers who have already spoken, setting out that there appears to be broad support in the House for the bill. Certainly, when the Finance and Expenditure Committee considered the bill there was very wide-ranging support for the bill from the outset, and the time that the committee spent on the bill was very much, as Mr Burns has said, about making sure that the bill was in as good a legislative state as we could get it. No committee should ever take that matter lightly. No matter what support a bill has, I think it is the duty of all of us to ensure that the laws we pass are as good and as correct as they can be. Although when we are dealing with an organisation like the Methodist Church we have no reason to fear its motives, my view has always been that the legislation has to stand alone, and we cannot give any law a free pass on the grounds of the particular people involved.

From my perspective, and from my background in trusts law, I was particularly concerned in our work on this bill to ensure that we set the parameters correctly. As has been said already in this debate, this bill was about ensuring that the church did not need to go through what would otherwise be the normal process for amending trusts. We recognised that this particular set of circumstances warranted the Methodist Church having a cleaner, simpler, cheaper way of tidying up some obsolete trusts. Given that we were providing it with, effectively, an easier path through than other trusts would have, I think it was incumbent on us to ensure that we did not let that provision go too far, and that appropriate safeguards were in place.

As Mr Burns has already described, we worked on a number of amendments in committee to ensure that was the case. We have talked about ensuring that all amendments under Part 2 would need to go before the Attorney-General. I think that provides an important check and balance to ensure that if there were any improper conduct there would be the potential for some oversight. The other important change that the committee recommended is about the appointment and removal of trustees. The width of the provision was the subject of some debate. I take responsibility for being the main proponent for requiring the change, and my view was that the ability to appoint and remove trustees, which goes right to the heart of controlled trusts and trusts law, should only extend to the sorts of trusts that the church came before us to seek help in amending—that is, the obsolete, impractical, out-of-date children and orphanages trusts that we all recognised it had a problem with. In terms of the way that the bill had been originally presented to us, the concern was that it would give the church an unfettered ability to change trustees in any trust with which it had an involvement. I think that would cut across too many important principles of trust law and the rights of the settlors of those trusts when they were set up.

We spent some time on it, but I make no apology for that. I think it is important that we get these things right. I think we got to a very good result, and I note that through this bill the Methodist Church has been brought into line by being given similar powers to those this House has already given to the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians, and the Anglicans. It is certainly something this House has done before. That notwithstanding, we looked at this bill on its merits and on its face. As I said, I think the committee has done some very good work in ensuring the appropriate safeguards and checks and balances are in place. I think they are now.

I conclude by saying that this bill always had our support in terms of the objectives it was trying to achieve. I think the committee has done excellent work in refining the detail of the legislation, and I am very pleased to support it.

• Bill read a second time.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) : I move, That the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. He mihi nui ki te Whare Pāremata. I am proud to introduce my very first bill, the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill, and I would like it to be referred, at the appropriate time, to the Local Government and Environment Committee. The bill has a clear purpose, which is to regulate the import of timber and timber products at our border. Only products that are both legal and certified to be sustainable by a robust certification scheme will be accepted. Deforestation of the planet requires countries to do more than invent voluntary codes and labelling schemes. We must stop wasting time and must set up a regulatory framework before we have lost the rainforests and the other old growth trees of the world for ever.

As we stand on the brink of the Copenhagen talks, we have this opportunity to take a specific action to reduce world climate emissions by saving forests. The carbon storage capacity from these forests, which are often described as the lungs of the world, is vital to the whole of humanity. Daily, forests are being logged and that land is then replanted as palm oil plantations. We are the customers for these unsustainable products from countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, and Myanmar, as well from the old growth forests from Tasmania and across Africa. Regulation can help us end a war against the natural world, against the forest peoples, and, ultimately, against ourselves. This could sound like an exaggeration, but it is worth thinking about the 137 different species of plants, animals, and insects becoming extinct every day as a result of forest destruction. This collapse in biodiversity includes our remarkable second cousin, the orang-utan of Borneo and Sarawak. It includes the colourful cassowary of West Papua and all those tiny, unique, unknown species that are lost as a direct result of our refusal to see the bloodstains on the barbecue furniture and decking in our very own backyards.

But primarily I am motivated by the statistic that 60 million forest peoples globally depend on the forest for their survival. The forest is their entire world. It may not literally be genocide to cut down their forest, but it is within a hair’s breadth. I came to understand the extent of this loss when I met a West Papuan woman who is now living in exile in Melbourne. Paula Makabory showed me recent pictures of the citizens of West Papua who had tried to resist illegal logging and who were macheted to death for their courage. As their kwila forests are devastated and sold into our retail outlets, the people in the way, who are standing up to the Indonesian military and the corporate forestry companies, are literally risking death. In that country, which is not far away, no foreign journalists are allowed, there is no International Movement of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, and people can be jailed for 15 years for raising the Morning Star, which is the West Papuan flag. Illegal logging is steeped in blood and in phoney certification paper trails, and we need to cut the link that fills the pockets of the people who are controlling the trade.

One other exceptionally good reason for stopping this devastation is to help our own forestry industry, which is undermined to the tune of $270 million per year by the effects of illegal and unsustainable logging. While cheap and nasty timber is widely available and can cross all borders, our own bona fide products are undermined and can be seen as being expensive by comparison. There is a 2008 Cabinet paper based on research undertaken in 2007 to assess the economic impacts of illegal logging on our forestry producers. The total revenue by 2020 to the New Zealand forestry sector could be around US$178 million per year if cheap, illegally logged wood products were removed from international markets.

Not surprisingly, this bill has the strong support of forestry organisations, environmental groups, and the tropical timber importers group. Those groups have a legitimate self-interest in ending this trade and in supporting good wood products. They include the New Zealand Forest Owners Association, the Wood Processors Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association, the New Zealand Pine Manufacturers, the Forestry Industry Contractors Association, the Douglas-fir Association, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Greenpeace, the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand, the World Wide Fund for Nature New Zealand, and the Ecologic Foundation.

But why legislate? Why not just educate the consumer, the importer, and the retailer? At this time it is extremely difficult for all these parties to even identify where timber products have come from. Trees logged in West Papua or Borneo may be processed in Viet Nam and marketed from China. How can we be sure, without any border regulation, where these items have been logged? A great deal of dedicated work has gone into educating retailers and consumers, and I particularly commend groups such as the Indonesia Human Rights Committee, the Green Party members, the Auckland Rainforest Action Coalition, and the leadership of the Ecologic Foundation—Guy Salmon—on these issues. I also commend the totally dedicated Wellington rainforest activists who have worked with me on the bill since it was drawn from the ballot. I have also been inspired by the campaign led by Russel Norman nearly 2 years ago that named and shamed the ANZ for investing in companies whose involvement with rainforest destruction is legendary.

But my special thanks must go to a man who was born on the denuded Hauraki Plains and who has given so much of his life to forest protection in the Pacific. Grant Rosoman is a champion of robust forestry certification. Thanks to Grant and to Greenpeace, forestry certification has stayed on the agenda through years of Government inaction and denial. Grant is the first to say that education is not enough. It has lifted the performance of companies such as the Warehouse and the BBQ Factory. It has led them to recognise that robust certification must meet the standards of the internationally rigorous Forest Stewardship Council certification scheme, known as FSC, but that is not enough.

In the new schedule 11 proposed to be added to the Customs and Excise Act by clause 7 of this bill, that scheme and other robust schemes would be listed, so that customs officers can be sure that any product entering the country meets the schemes’ requirements. These requirements are that a product is ecologically, economically, socially, and culturally sustainable, and not something made up in the offices of dodgy corporate raiders. However, if the timber outlets can start taking steps—and I have visited many of them, and many of them I have congratulated on starting, and they have expressed their confusion—we have to ask why the Parliament of New Zealand cannot help them out and save the rainforests.

I acknowledge the support of the Māori Party and Labour on this matter. It is high time that we took action to protect the climate from change, to protect biodiversity, and to protect indigenous people’s rights, as well as to protect our own forestry industry. As somebody with some vague political influence was once heard to say: “Yes, we can.”

I am asking everyone in this House to do the right thing tonight, and to please support this bill. We need it to go to the select committee. We need it to be improved. We are not saying that this bill is perfect in its form; we are saying that we need to support our industry without the competition of the bloodstained trade. It is an opportunity for this House to do something that the consumer already wants. The Prime Minister already knows about it, because more than 700 people, through Greenpeace and through our e-card, have been writing to him and to the Minister of Forestry about this issue. It is high time that people listened to this issue and stopped using excuses, such as world trade. We already have opportunities under the World Trade Organization for acknowledging environmental issues, so it is high time that something was done about this.

I am horrified to see on the World Wide Web that one can still buy kwila that is not certificated and one can still buy mahogany and teak from Myanmar. We know for sure that most of this product is being logged at the point of a gun. We know for sure that what happens after the logging is the planting of palm plantations. We know for sure that we are colluding with this trade if we do not legislate. We cannot wait; we must take action now. I would not have been so motivated about this bill, which I inherited from the Green Party, if I had not met the people of West Papua, whose lives are on the line while we sit here and decide whether we think it is possible that we might be brave enough to make a decision in favour of the climate and the people. It is high time that we took that stand. I ask members to please support this bill and to remember, as Barack Obama said: “Yes, we can.” Thank you.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) : I rise on behalf of the National Party in opposition to the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill. It was interesting to listen to the member who has just resumed her seat, Catherine Delahunty, talk about the tragedy—and I agree entirely with her that it is a tragedy—of the clear-felling of indigenous rainforest on the scale that has taken place internationally. I absolutely agree that it is unsustainable, and that it should not be allowed to continue. But to introduce a layer of compliance on our forestry sector, the one sector that can help New Zealand with its greenhouse gas position, is beyond comprehension.

I say to the member who brought this bill to the House that when she uses terms like “the denuded Hauraki Plains”, and in the same speech uses comments like “this is about the environment and the people”, there is something that she is missing out of the equation in this debate. It is that the triple bottom line is just that; it is social, economic, and environmental considerations. If the Hauraki Plains were put back into native forest, the economic production that comes out of that area would be missing from the equation, and that would make New Zealand less sustainable. The export loss we would have from that area would be amazing.

I have to ask the Green Party to be consistent in what it brings forward. I admire the fact that the Green members are champions of environmental debate, and I think that is worthwhile in this Parliament. To farmers the concept that we should leave our land in better condition than we found it in is absolutely ingrained in us. I find it offensive that those who do not plant trees, do not invest their capital, and do not have an active role to play in environmental enhancement or sustainability, and who have an urban lifestyle and enjoy all the trappings of urbanisation, travel the world to conferences, expending huge amounts of fossil fuels in doing so. Then, when they come back to New Zealand, they say to the foresters of New Zealand that they want them to meet a whole layer of compliance, because they want to save the rainforests on the other side of the world. That is not the approach we should take.

I say to Ms Delahunty and the Green Party that we have international agreements through the World Trade Organization (WTO). We do not use them as excuses; we negotiate each agreement. I was recently at a conference in Africa. If members want to see a place that is denuded and that could benefit enormously from some of the agricultural policies that we employ in New Zealand, they should visit Tanzania. That is what I invite the member to do. I invite her to go and ask the people there what they think of the notion that further compliance should be placed on them to develop things like a forestry industry or an agricultural industry, and then come back to me to tell me how that works. We negotiate within the WTO; that is not an excuse. I invite members to listen to the discussion at those conferences on issues of global climate change and economic change, and on some of the tragedy of experiments that have been carried out there, both by the West and by African Governments themselves. If they then come back and say the WTO process is not the process that we should be signed up to, then I am sorry, but we will have to agree to disagree. We should look at the tariffs that those countries pay to get their exports into wealthy Western nations. New Zealand is by and large successful—well above its weight—in its ability to export into some of those nations, because we have always continued to carry the argument in support of free trade around the world, sometimes at huge cost to ourselves. That is the best thing we can do for small, undeveloped, Third World countries and large continents like the African continent.

We oppose this bill on that basis, and I look forward to further debate as we move through this process.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) : Let me start by congratulating the Green member Catherine Delahunty on bringing the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill and its associated issues of illegal logging and associated trade to the attention of this House. The Labour Opposition will support the first reading of this bill. We are adamant that an issue like this should be discussed widely by a select committee, and to that end we will be supporting it.

I am not surprised at National’s position on this bill, but I am stunned—flabbergasted, actually—at the comments from the member who has just resumed his seat, Shane Ardern. He presented some bizarre examples to the House in terms of Catherine Delahunty’s reference to internal matters. He referred to the Hauraki Plains and said that, had there not been any development in that area, it would have had an economic impact on that area. The bill that Catherine Delahunty introduced will not turn back the clock. If it could, we might as well say that if it had not been for a meteor coming out of space and hitting the Earth, we would still be talking to Jurassic creatures or dinosaurs. It is a bizarre example of what this bill is intended to do.

I understand that the purpose of this bill is to make amendments to the Customs and Excise Act 1996 to prohibit the import into New Zealand of timber and wood products produced illegally and unsustainably. This is consistent with the position taken by the previous Labour-led Government in 2006, 2007, and 2008. That position is still held by the Labour Opposition in 2009.

The key elements of the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill are outlined in the explanatory note and the clause by clause analysis at the beginning of the bill. In particular, two key clauses set out how the legislation would ensure that all wood products imported into New Zealand are sourced from sustainably managed forests. Clause 5 inserts two new sections into the Act. New section 54A makes it unlawful to import into New Zealand timber and wood products not certified under a new schedule 11. That is a very important matter for this House to consider, and I hope that the select committee considers it very seriously.

New section 54B provides that the Minister may add or omit certification schemes from the list in schedule 11. It also provides for the matters that the Minister must have regard to when making a recommendation by Order in Council for changes to schedule 11.

This bill will be properly scrutinised by this House and carefully considered by the select committee. Should any Minister in the future decide that changes to schedule 11 are necessary, then that particular Minister will have to undertake a thorough process before any changes can happen.

Of course there are potential benefits in this bill to this country. For example, it will confirm New Zealand’s position in terms of reinforcing the message that New Zealand will not support illegal logging, that New Zealand supports producers and suppliers who are legally and sustainably producing wood products, and the list just goes on. There are some practical difficulties and, if I have time, I will touch on those. But to continue with the potential benefits, the bill provides exporters with the opportunity to have legal conformance labelling on exported wood products. It also provides a less resource-intensive type of regulatory approach, because the point of intervention rests with the supplier. The industry has a stake in ensuring that it all works and that a system of regulation may occur.

The bill also offers flexibility in terms of the implementation of the sustainable timber documentation approach, and it allows changes to the regulations to be gazetted relatively easily. It is a very straightforward process. I do not see any reason why National members would have difficulty with these compliance requirements.

In particular, the bill does not discriminate against the country of origin. Often it is the case that the country of origin is not necessarily aware of illegal logging activities—and many countries deny that they are aware—but under this bill a country will not be discriminated against in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.

The bill also reduces the likelihood that suppliers that are already verifying the legality of wood products will be undermined by other suppliers selling cheaper wood products that cannot be verified as being legally sourced. As members will understand, the Labour Opposition is keen to support this bill’s referral to a select committee.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : As the previous speaker for the Government, Shane Ardern, mentioned, we will not be supporting the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill, for a number of reasons. To start with, I draw to the House’s attention that over the last 150 years we, as a nation, have cleared the majority of our land. We have turned it into what is today primarily pastoral land, which contributes massively to our country’s economy. It would also be worthwhile to mention that in about the year 2000 sustainable indigenous logging was stopped on the West Coast. As a consequence of that action, we saw a perverse effect happen. We had to weather a flood of unsustainable forestry from other countries. There is no doubt that the Green member, Catherine Delahunty, has introduced this bill with a view to controlling that effect. So from that point of view this bill does come to the House with a noble sentiment, but we do not believe that it is workable.

In the present context this legislation would create immeasurable problems for those people who presently import forestry products. If it was to become law, we would find that people would be subject to prosecution. On that basis, the bill is lacking a transitional provision, and that would need to be a serious part of any consideration. The main point that I make is that, from the Government’s point of view, it would be impossible presently to enforce this legislation if it became an Act, because of the way that timber is traded as a commodity. It, effectively, goes from one country to another in a manufactured state. When we consider that this bill covers all wood products, I do not find that it is possible to support this bill, because we would not be able to enforce it.

STUART NASH (Labour) : I applaud Catherine Delahunty for introducing the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill. I think it is a great bill. I think it is a principled bill. It has a lot of real-world application.

One of the main reasons I support this bill is the fact that the previous Labour Government did a lot of work around the issue. I will let the House know what the Labour caucus and the Labour Cabinet were doing with regard to this issue before Labour met its untimely election defeat. It will be only another 2 years before we are back; I think everyone knows that. The last Labour Cabinet invited the Minister of Forestry and the Minister of Trade to report to the Cabinet economic development committee by February 2008 on actions to address the sale in New Zealand of illegally sourced wood products. Given the linkages between international and domestic measures to address illegal logging and deforestation, this report back was broader in scope to include the proposed international engagement.

Our international engagement on forestry connects three components emerging in international forestry. If they had been acted on together, the Labour Cabinet believed that had the potential to make a significant difference to the global environment and global wood markets. The components were reducing deforestation and forest degradation, addressing the trade in illegal timber and wood products, and capacity building and technology transfer for sustainable forest management in developing countries. Action on deforestation and capability building may prove to be the key in the long term.

In the absence of action to address illegal logging, global efforts to reduce deforestation and promote sustainable forest management are likely to continue to be undermined. When we are debating in this House an emissions trading bill, I would have thought that every party in this House would support any measure that promoted sustainable forest management and reduced deforestation.

The proposed approach to international engagement on illegal logging is part of the wider forestry strategy. That strategy includes engagement on and leadership in the development of international financial mechanisms for reducing deforestation in developing countries; active support and advocacy for regional and multinational solutions to address the trade in illegal wood products; ministerial-level bilateral engagement with key producer and consumer countries and, in particular, Australia; commissioning research to assess what further steps can be taken at a global level or by countries over and above current efforts to effectively address international trade in illegal wood; supporting efforts to have kwila listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; and participating, where appropriate, in key multilateral fora addressing issues directly related to international logging and engagement with the wider New Zealand forestry sector—this includes the industry, non-governmental organisations, and Māori—to elicit their support and involvement, both domestically and internationally, in progressing this strategy.

As members of this House will ascertain, the Labour Cabinet was a long way down the road to addressing this issue, and that is why I applaud Catherine Delahunty for this bill. It is a very good bill, and it should be supported for a whole raft of reasons. For New Zealand, a single species, kwila, is estimated to represent up to 80 percent of the illegally sourced wood products sold in New Zealand. Officials therefore evaluated a range of options to address the sale of illegally sourced kwila wood imported into this country. The Minister of Forestry sought Cabinet’s guidance on which domestic action or combination of actions it considered New Zealand should initiate to address the sale of illegally sourced kwila products. This action would be a consumer awareness campaign, focusing on illegally logged kwila and the development of a voluntary pan-industry practice to encourage the verification of legally sourced kwila imports; and/or the mandatory labelling of all kwila products sold in New Zealand at point of sale, requiring disclosure of wood species and whether the supplier has verification of the legality of the wood; and/or immediate ministerial-level bilateral engagement with key countries to develop bilateral mechanisms to prevent illegally logged kwila imports from entering New Zealand.

This is a very good bill. It is a principled bill. It is a practical bill. As I said, because of the emissions trading scheme and the global awareness around these sorts of issues, everyone in the House should be supporting this bill. Labour definitely supports it. I support it as a past forester, and I think the National Government should support it. My personal belief is that it would be foolish not to. I congratulate Catherine Delahunty and I thank her for a fine bill. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Kia ora tātou katoa. Kia ora koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill, as other speakers have mentioned, amends the Customs and Excise Act 1996 to prohibit the importation of illegally and unsustainably produced timber and wood products into Aotearoa. The sponsor of this bill, Catherine Delahunty, talked about doing the right thing tonight. When we think about the right thing, the Māori Party knows that what is right is to keep our natural resources and environment healthy, safe, and intact for everyone and for future generations.

Forestry, of course, is extremely important to Māori. Some estimates put total Māori forest interests at more than 1.2 million hectares. We have a unique interest in forestry within the distinct context of collective ownership and management. But we know also that the economic benefits of international trade agreements need to be balanced with the considerations of local, regional, and national progress and environmental enhancement. In thinking of the other values that might be useful in this debate tonight, I think of the concept of our forest and the significance of it to our identity. We have many names in Māoridom that symbolise the importance of the forest to our identity, ngāherehere, nehenehe, ngahengahe, waonui, and waoku. We treasure the forest for the scope of its beauties, its spiritual presence, and its bountiful supply of food, medicines, and weaving and building materials.

We have been alarmed at the issue of illegal logging in the context of the value that we, as Māori, place on forestry. We share the views of indigenous peoples around the world that the tropical forests are critical to the survival and well-being of people all round the world. We appreciate that many people depend on the forest for food, shelter, income, medicine, and clean water, so we are greatly concerned at the laundering of illegal timber from some parts of the world’s most endangered forests. The report Sharing the Blame: Global Consumption and China’s Role in Ancient Forest Destruction documents illegally logged timber, particularly from the “Paradise Forests” of the Asia-Pacific region, being shipped to China. When it gets there, it is made into furniture, floorings, and plywood for domestic consumption and for export to satisfy the rising global demand for inexpensive wood products.

This bill makes it illegal to import into Aotearoa timber and wood products that are not from a verified, legal, and certified sustainable source. We in the Māori Party support the move to establish a new schedule that lists verified, legal, and certified sustainable timber and wood production certification schemes. Finally, we are aware that Greenpeace is urging China and the other 187 signatory nations to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to protect the world’s last ancient forest by establishing a global network of protected forest areas, to ban the trade in illegal and destructively logged wood products, and to introduce a legally binding mechanism under the convention to combat illegal and destructive logging. We welcome that move and, in light of that, we welcome this bill and we support it to go through to the select committee to allow all of that discussion to proceed. Kia ora tātou.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) : I am proud to rise to support the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill and to congratulate my colleague Catherine Delahunty on the huge amount of work she has done on this issue. It is one that has been important to the Green Party for many years. We have put a lot of work into it. We have tried to get previous Governments to take the action set out in this bill. We did get some engagement from the previous Labour Government, but, although there were some discussions and sympathy, in the end it did not take any action, either. That is why this bill is necessary.

Let us be clear about what we are talking about here. New Zealanders, as consumers, are supporting the destruction of old-growth tropical forests, home to a vast richness of huge trees, luxuriant shrubs, the remaining orang-utan, and other mammals and invertebrates not yet even described by science. We have seen the pictures of the slaughter of 50 orang-utans a week in Indonesia. We cannot pretend, as parliamentarians, that we do not know what it is we are supporting. These forests are the lungs of the world, producing our oxygen, storing carbon, holding soil together, and cleaning the air and water that flows through them. They are the home of millions of forest peoples, who depend on them for their food, shelter, medicines, building materials, and, in fact, for their whole sustenance. Those who are not killed in the deforestation end up living in urban slums, where they are unlikely to survive and probably wish they had not. We are supporting their destruction by buying furniture and decking made from that timber that makes that logging economic.

Often we are doing it without knowing. We are buying kwila, ramin, yellow balau, Asian mahogany, and Burmese teak, which used to be the home of countless people and endangered wildlife. We are supporting the destruction of these forests by providing a market for the palm oil grown in place of these forests. We have just persuaded Cadbury’s to stop using it in chocolate, but there are countless other food-related uses, and there is nothing stopping it coming into the country, being made into bio-diesel, and getting a Government subsidy. The Greens have a bill at a select committee to set some standards around that.

We are supporting these forests’ destruction by providing the main world market for palm kernel expeller, the solids left when the oil is extracted, and we are using that to make our dairy industry more and more unsustainable. My colleague Kevin Hague has demonstrated that there are severe biosecurity risks for New Zealand in that practice.

Let us be clear: those who are speaking and voting against this bill tonight propose that we should go on doing all those things. They are voting for accelerated climate change, because 20 percent of that is now coming from the destruction of old-growth forests. They cannot be put back. Once they are gone, they are gone for ever—for eternity.

Let us look at the rather pathetic arguments that have been raised tonight, such as compliance costs for foresters. This bill places absolutely no compliance costs whatever on foresters. It does not require New Zealand foresters to do anything; it simply prevents these products from coming into New Zealand. Of course the Government is concerned that, under the World Trade Organization this might be an interference in free trade. So are we in favour of free trade in blood? Two-thirds of our forestry industry is already certified sustainable; the rest could get there very easily.

I take offence at the suggestion from Shane Ardern that we in the Greens are urban people who have never planted a tree. I have planted thousands of trees, along with the natives I have watered and released and the timber trees I have thinned and pruned. It is an insult to suggest that we do not have practical experience of what we are talking about.

Those members talked of difficulties for importers. I ask how that compares with the people who are losing their lives and their homes. We have beautiful timbers growing sustainably in this country. We stopped logging our own native forests and we have a range of other species that are fit for beautiful furniture and decking, but those who are voting against this bill want to see those New Zealand businesses undercut by imports of tropical timber, because it is always cheaper to get timber that one did not have to plant and where there are no rules about how to treat the local people, or about what happens to the wildlife, the soil, and the water.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to get up and speak on the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill. I fully endorse all the comments made by my most learned colleague Shane Ardern. Mind you, perhaps the bit about Jeanette and the Greens planting trees might have been a bit off the mark. But he was absolutely right when he said this bill is about trade. Here we have a bill that is just about timber, but it is about timber that is growing in another country. We cannot isolate out the fact that whatever importers bring into this country is part of our trade between nations. We cannot isolate out an item like timber to the degree that this bill does without having some effect on our trade negotiations with other countries. For that reason, I think it is very sound to take the position not to support this bill.

The bill covers both raw and processed products, so we are talking about a huge range of products. This bill talks about trade with another country, and before we start to go down that track we have to talk to that country first. Once we start to do that with regard to timber, another country might say it will do the same to us with regard to another product, and it would start to escalate—

Stuart Nash: You’ve missed the point!

SANDRA GOUDIE: No, this is not about missing the point. We are not allowed to sustainably log our own native timbers, even though that could be done. This bill is to make amendments to the Customs and Excise Act—I understand that—to prohibit certain imports into New Zealand. Imports are products that are traded from another nation into ours.

Stuart Nash: For 8 years?

SANDRA GOUDIE: If they are not, I fail to understand that member—this is nuts.

I think it is absolutely marvellous that we have taken a pretty sound position. We can justify that position quite well. Shane Ardern did that, so I will leave it there.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) : I really was fascinated by the responses to my bill, the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill, and also by the strange description of me and Jeanette—who have spent most of our adult lives living in rural areas, working on farms, supporting farming, working with forestry, and planting hundreds of trees—as if we have absolutely no idea of how the rural economy functions, nor of the importance of looking after our land. As Sandra knows, having spent 10 years working in a shearing gang and planting many different trees I have a great passion for forests—forests with justice. This is not a light matter. It is not a matter of debating who in this House understands it best; it is a matter of understanding what is going on in the world, and taking this country’s responsibility on illegal logging seriously.

I thank Mita Ririnui, Te Ururoa Flavell, Stuart Nash, and Jeanette Fitzsimons for their constructive comments on what is a very, very serious matter. In my meetings with the current Minister of Forestry, he conceded that voluntary efforts are not working to control illegal and unsustainable wood products. So doing nothing is not an option unless we want to collude with basic and well-documented vandalism. Even the rules of the World Trade Organization acknowledge that there are environmental reasons for regulation in specific instances, so there is no need for National to panic about having no ability to negotiate this. For example, when dolphins are found in tuna nets, or rainforests lie in the path of bulldozers, it is possible, even under that Draconian institution, to negotiate environmental protection.

It just takes some leadership to identify that this is an opportunity to help our own industry. Far from being something that our forestry industry rejects, the industry has written to the Minister. In my previous speech I listed the names of the foresters and the forestry organisations, alongside the environmental ones, that stood up and said to the Minister that it was time to do something. The importers of tropical timber asked the Minister to support my bill; it is not as if the Green Party is in isolation or asking for something outside the agenda of the forestry industry. The forestry industry wants this bill, because it will benefit New Zealand forestry.

The bill, as defined, is not perfect. In order to improve it I urge members to send it to the select committee, where work can be done to make it more practical and workable. In terms of international best practice, a number of countries are working to regulate illegal and unsustainable tropical timber. These include the United States, where the Lacey Act bans the sale of illegal and unsustainable timber within the United States, and the European Union, where a number of countries are working on bilateral agreements with timber-producing nations.

This effort of the Green Party may not appear significant, and I am aware that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry thinks it could impose compliance costs on our own timber. But Jeannette Fitzsimons asks members to read the fine print of the bill, where they will find nothing that actually disadvantages our own industry—nor does our own industry think that anything in there does. I believe that the bill could be modified at the select committee to negotiate a way through the compliance issues within Aotearoa New Zealand.

As Jeanette also said, our forestry industry is embracing the opportunity for there to be robust certification. Other speakers have mentioned that it is obviously important to be able to demonstrate certification in the world market, and the countries we trade with that make up, lie about, and distort what is going on in their own timber industries should not be colluded with in the name of trade. We stand for fair trade and we stand for trade without blood on its hands. Ultimately all timber products need to meet a robust standard in order to stabilise the climate, protect biodiversity, support our forestry industry, and—most of all—protect the people who still live as one with the forests. Their human rights are on our conscience, and their relationship with the forest holds a line that we should resolutely uphold for the sake of us all. I have been privileged in the last few months to talk to the forest peoples, and they are watching tonight to see whether members of this Parliament have the courage of their convictions; some of us do. Kia ora.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Green) : I move, That the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill be now read a first time. This bill is a climate change bill. It is about making some small progress on reducing New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and it is about the Government providing a small amount of leadership on reducing emissions from the Government’s vehicle fleet.

There has been a lot of misconception about climate change. One of the things that I think is the hardest for people to get their heads around is the effect of climate change in 2100, because 2100 seems a long time away. Yet if the children who have been born today—and there were lots of them—live to be 91 years old, they will be alive in 2100, so the actions we take today will affect the lives of children who were born today. In fact, the longevity of greenhouse emissions—in particular, carbon dioxide emissions, which have increased dramatically from New Zealand over the last 15 years—means that they will affect not only children born today but children born for many generations to come.

If we do not take action now to reduce emissions both in New Zealand and globally, then we will be stuck, particularly with the carbon dioxide emissions, for generations and generations to come. There are those who say that the cost of reducing emissions is too high. If we were to take one of the most pessimistic views about the cost of reducing emissions, which would be that it might cost, say, 1 percent of GDP by mid-century, then we need to put that in context. By mid-century the New Zealand economy might grow by, say, 40 percent or 42 percent of GDP. If the most pessimistic projections around the cost of climate change emissions are true, it will mean that the New Zealand economy, instead of growing by 42 percent of GDP by 2050, will grow by only 41 percent. That would be the cost of our taking action to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions under the most pessimistic scenario of the cost of cutting emissions.

So when people say that the cost of reducing emissions is so expensive, and that it might cost, say, 1 percent of GDP, what they mean is that instead of 42 percent per capita GDP growth by mid-century, we might have only 41 percent per capita GDP growth by mid-century. In this debate about the future of the planet and about the kind of world our children—in fact, the children born today—will inherit, I think it is very, very important that we put the costs into perspective. I think that in this debate around the emissions trading scheme and elsewhere the cost of taking action on climate change is, over and over again, completely exaggerated.

The Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill is a very modest bill. It aims to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases by requiring the State sector to purchase or lease only those passenger vehicles that are energy efficient through having a better than average emissions performance of 170 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, or approximately 7 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres, which is the same efficiency standard that is set out in the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy of 2007 for the New Zealand fleet as a whole. Measuring fuel economy in terms of carbon dioxide rather than mileage has many advantages as it makes no prescription concerning fuel or technologies, so we will stick to measuring fuel economy like that. So it is a very modest proposal whereby the State sector must purchase, or lease, only passenger vehicles that can reach 7 litres per 100 kilometres, or 170 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.

Transport produces 20 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and has been the fastest rising source. It is one of the main areas in which we can improve environmental sustainability. The bill targets the low-hanging fruit of economy-wide emissions reductions. It does not address the broader issue of the investment in roads. We have seen a kind of road obsession over the last 15 years in New Zealand, as Government after Government has prioritised spending on new motorways rather than on public transport, walking, and cycling, which would actually produce the mode shift that is required to reduce emissions.

This bill very modestly targets one part of the vehicle fleet, and the fuel efficiency of that fleet, by requiring the Government to run an energy-efficient Government fleet. It seems to me to be a very modest bill. The Current Government Fleet and Procurement Practice report of 2006 found that “except for the district health boards, there is significant potential to reduce vehicle size across the fleet”. The current average emissions performance is 210 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre or 9.2 litres per 100 kilometres—that is, the current average emissions performance is quite poor. This bill seeks to achieve a modest 20 percent improvement in carbon dioxide emissions over time. That is a saving of approximately 22,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum across the Government fleet of 21,000 vehicles.

This bill is a very small start, but start we must. Some Government departments are already demonstrating leadership in this area. District health boards lead the way with fleets of small-engined, highly efficient cars—the Toyota Echo and the Honda Jazz, amongst others—to enable their staff to do their work. Other departments are not doing as much. Their fleets are full of the large-engined Ford Falcon and Nissan Maxima, amongst others, to achieve the same purpose—moving one person, on average, 40 to 80 kilometres per day.

These significant potential emission and fuel savings do not come at the cost of flexibility in purchasing decisions. This bill is an extremely practical bill that provides specifically for exemptions for special needs. Within the bill there are exemptions for vehicles used by firefighters, the ambulance service, the Defence Force, and the Department of Conservation. Those special-purpose vehicles will not be required to meet these fuel-efficiency standards.

This bill targets the low-hanging fruit of emissions reductions—our vehicle fleet. It is about the Government taking small, practical steps to reduce emissions, which, in turn, will influence corporate fleet-buying decisions and, ultimately, private vehicle ownership. It is about creating a culture of change in our car-buying habits, starting with the Government’s fleet of 21,000 vehicles.

New Zealand’s light motor vehicles use, on average, over 10 litres of fuel to travel 100 kilometres. That is 210 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. By comparison, the EU fleet is currently at 170 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre on average, and has notified a standard of 130 grams to be achieved by 2015.

The situation in New Zealand is not getting better. Although technology is improving, the vehicles coming into the country are getting bigger and their carbon emissions are increasing. New vehicles entering our country are more fuel consuming than second-hand ones, which is an extraordinary fact.

The International Energy Agency recently warned member Governments that there will be a serious oil supply crunch in 2015 and a peak in oil production around 2020, both of which will occur in the lifetime of any new vehicles purchased today. Rapidly rising oil prices are just around the corner, so it makes sense to ensure that we buy the most efficient vehicles now to save the taxpayer from a fast-growing fuel bill in the future. Using the best car for the job will save taxpayers at least $30 million a year in fuel costs.

This bill uses standards to drive efficiency gains and desirable economic outcomes without compromising the flexibility of Government departments to buy vehicles that are fit for purpose. We need to use the right combination of market signals, standards, and regulations to achieve the very best outcome from our market economy. We need to use vehicle efficiency standards.

This bill is to be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which I think is the best place for it. So far we have received support for this bill from the Labour Party and the Māori Party, which I appreciate. I hope that the other parties will support this bill. It is a very small, practical step towards achieving our climate change goals and towards the Government providing a small amount of leadership on climate change reduction.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) : The Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill aims to decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases by requiring the State sector to purchase or lease only energy-efficient passenger vehicles. The bill proposes that all passenger vehicles—vehicles designed to carry six or fewer people—purchased or leased by State sector organisations must be greenhouse gas emissions efficient, emit no more than 170 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, and be amongst the top 10 percent for fuel efficiency in their class. The purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions both from State sector vehicles and from elsewhere in the New Zealand transport sector.

National opposes this bill, while, nonetheless, recognising the worthy sentiments, as did the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in her commentary on the Biofuel Bill, which is currently before the Local Government and Environment Committee. However, the worthiness of this bill, including recognition of the changes that are proposed, falls short of the requirement to do the job. Although the bill contains worthy sentiments, it potentially would impose high costs on the State sector and be impractical to implement. We accept that transport is a major contributor to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the main areas that we can move on, but we do not feel that this bill is the way to do it. The reporting requirements in the bill may be onerous and would need to be clarified substantially.

It is not clear that sufficient vehicles exist to meet the practical needs of the purchaser whilst complying with the carbon dioxide requirements of the bill. There are relatively few vehicles in the top 10 percent band and the bill could reduce purchase choices to one or two vehicles. In reading through the bill this afternoon I recognised that clause 7(2) allows for exceptions, and it lists them as applying to law enforcement vehicles, conservation vehicles, and emergency services vehicles, but I suggest that the topography of some regions, such as my own electorate of West Coast - Tasman, which I have the great privilege of serving, requires consideration beyond simply regulation. It requires consideration of what the vehicle requirements might be for the topography and the terrain.

The bill does not take into account other important considerations such as the safety of passengers or pedestrians. The bill’s prescriptive regulatory approach is not consistent with the Government’s statement on regulation or the Bluegreens’ vision on managing traffic impacts by using incentives to ensure that transport choices are priced to reflect their true impacts. We feel that legislation is not needed in order for State sector organisations to adopt the vehicle procurement policies suggested in the bill. It does not require a fixed piece of legislation. National does not believe that the legislation is the appropriate way to determine Government procurement policy.

At the last election, if I just might reflect, the requirement from people was for change. This bill takes us back to the way that Labour did things, and it is a disappointment. Major improvements have been made in Government vehicle procurement practices since the 2006 report that Russel Norman referred to. In 2007 the Government fleet procurement guidelines were introduced, which stated: “Public Service departments must: require that tenderers submit fuel economy information in their responses, and to include fuel economy as a criterion in tender evaluations for all new tender exercises for vehicles to be purchased, leased or hired.” National is already putting in place policies to encourage a reduction in emissions from the transport sector, and our approach to reducing emissions from the transport sector is through the New Zealand emissions trading scheme.

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: To continue—

Grant Robertson: Why?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Well, because I think it is important that we explain to the House that we recognise the sentiment of this bill. I have recognised the merits of it throughout my speech; we just do not think that legislation is the way to go. My colleague Charles Chauvel will probably speak next and I know that he too has an aversion to this Stalinist sort of thinking. We will be making something against the law when it is not necessary. Prior to the dinner break we debated the fact that there are ways of achieving regulation without legislation. We are talking about Government procurement. We recognise the influence that Government has—it is a big purchaser—but we also feel that incentives are a better way to go than making obligations through the law, which was the sort of thinking that occurred before the present National Government.

We are doing quite a lot. We are putting in place policies to encourage a reduction in emissions from the transport sector. Our approach to reducing emissions from the transport sector is to use the New Zealand emissions trading scheme, which will expose transport fuel to a price on carbon from July 2010. We have invested $36 million into a bio-diesel grants programme to promote bio-diesel production and kickstart the biofuels industry, and it started on 1 July. The new policy provides the sustainable bio-diesel and ethanol industry with the same incentives and encourages it to maximise that opportunity. We have also moved to exempt electric vehicles from road-user charges as of 1 October 2009, in order to encourage their uptake. We are also—wait for this bit—investing in rail, with $39.2 million allocated to upgrading passenger carriages on the Tranz Scenic route. As one who has the wonderful experience of that train passing my house in Moana twice a day, I can say that the carriages certainly need upgrading in order to reach the level of scenic beauty that the train travels through. That work is being done at the Hillside workshops in Dunedin, so it is providing a local benefit. Another $75 million is being spent on 20 locomotives that are being built in China. A major upgrade of the Auckland rail network, including double tracking and electrification, is costing $1.6 billion, and we are providing more than $258 million for the Wellington commuter network.

We on this side of the House believe that people change their environmental practices for the better when there are sensible incentives to do so. We are quite determined that this is the way that Government policy will work. The explanatory note states that: “The cost and emissions savings obtainable from the Government fleet are worthwhile, but the real value of a Government commitment to purchasing fuel efficient vehicles is the potential influence on purchasing decisions for company fleets and, in due course, vehicles owned by private individuals.”, and although we respect that, we feel that incentives can do that rather than legislation. This legislation would restrict State sector organisations to purchasing or leasing passenger vehicles with an emissions performance better than 170 grams per kilometre of carbon dioxide, unless those vehicles are wholly or partly used for certain law enforcement, conservation, or emergency purposes. As discussed before the dinner break, that does not take into account the topography of certain parts of the country, notably West Coast - Tasman. All sorts of unforeseen circumstances could occur as a consequence of this legislation, so, from that point of view alone, National will not support this bill. We oppose it.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I am delighted to speak in support of the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill. I offer my congratulations to Dr Kennedy Graham and Russel Norman on putting forward this measure.

Given the size of the wider State sector proportionate to the New Zealand economy—it is about one-third in overall terms—it is a very good move for the Government and the State sector to show some leadership across areas of society. Transport is an excellent place to start. We need to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases, and requiring the State sector to purchase or lease only energy-efficient passenger vehicles is an excellent way to start that. It is good to see a bill that would require such vehicles to have a better than average emissions performance of 170 grams per kilometre of carbon dioxide, which is basically, as we heard from Dr Norman, the same efficiency standard set out in the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy 2007 for the New Zealand vehicle fleet as a whole.

The reality is that emissions from the transport sector are our second-largest contributor to the greenhouse gas problem, and they are growing—20 percent of our total emissions come from this sector. In 2007-08 the Labour Government came up with a suite of measures to deal with our emissions problem. I will take a moment to reiterate those measures, because we regularly hear from members opposite the Crosby/Textor spin that Labour did nothing in this area. Well, let us remember the facts for a change. The New Zealand Energy Strategy set out a very clear pathway towards a 90 percent renewable energy generation target for baseload generation by 2025. It set out a very clear pathway, over a number of years, to get to that goal.

Shane Ardern: How well were we going on it?

CHARLES CHAUVEL: We were going very well on it. Well, we would be going really well if Mr Ardern’s Government had not, under urgency last year, repealed the strategy and got rid of the target, which was a key part of getting to where we need to go in respect of energy emissions. We had the New Zealand Transport Strategy, on which I will speak more in a moment. Then we had the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. And, of course, the emissions trading scheme was legislated into being in September last year. Unlike the scheme we are seeing emerge from the interesting negotiations between National and the Māori Party, that scheme actually would have been fit for purpose.

What has happened since? As I said in response to an interjection from Mr Ardern, the New Zealand Energy Strategy was effectively repealed in respect of the 90 percent renewables target. The emissions trading scheme has been gutted. What has happened to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy? It was just scrapped one day. There was a notice in the New Zealand Herald from Mr Brownlee, the Minister of Energy and Resources. We do not have an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy any longer.

All that is left of that suite of measures is the New Zealand Transport Strategy. It is useful to recall the elements of that strategy. It sets out an overall target of reducing transport emissions—which, as I said before, cause 20 percent of our emissions and are growing—by 50 percent by 2040. How would we to do this? Firstly, we would invest in rail, and, secondly, we would invest in coastal shipping. Those two areas are absolutely key in terms of getting big amounts of freight off roads; we know how destructive it is to roads to transport huge amounts of freight on them. We would have had the biofuels obligation, but that has been repealed and, instead, $36 million of our scarce resources is to be spent promoting biofuels. We would have had a massive increase in public transport investment—ten times what was being spent in 1999—and would have supported electric vehicles. That is how we would have got there.

This bill contains the sort of complementary measure that we ought to see being put in place under the New Zealand Transport Strategy. The criticisms of it that we have heard from members opposite are completely invalid. It is a pleasure to express the Labour Party’s support of this measure. What a shame that the comprehensive and sensible suite of policies that was put in place by the last Government is not still in place!

NICKY WAGNER (National) : I really support the principles behind the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill. I absolutely agree that transport is a major contributor to New Zealand greenhouse gas emissions. That is an area of focus for all of us.

The problem with this bill is that it is just another layer of legislation, another layer of expensive bureaucracy, and another layer of red tape. It is a classic Green Party response to any problem: legislate, legislate, and legislate again—add some more rules, add some more red tape, and add some bureaucracy. I have a lot more faith in the people of New Zealand to make intelligent choices about transport, and to do the right thing, than the Green Party does.

I will give members some examples to prove my case—examples of people making carbon-saving transport changes because they want to do the right thing and want to be environmentally sensitive, and not because we have legislated it. Of course, the new emissions trading scheme will reward their low-carbon behaviours. A couple of months ago a taxi driver from a luxury taxi company visited my electorate office in central Christchurch. He was complaining that the Government had instructed the public sector not to use his company, because the cars were too big and too carbon intensive. It was ruining his business. I had to explain to him that the National Government would never make arbitrary rules to ruin his business, but we were certainly encouraging better environmental practice, and that the public was very keen to do the right thing.

We need to look just at the growth of the Green Cabs taxi company to illustrate that people really want to respond and make good environmental choices. I also explained to the taxi driver and his luxury taxi company that to compete, he needs to understand that many New Zealanders have moved past gas-guzzling luxury cars. Since then he has faced the music, he has recognised the need to be more environmentally sensitive, and his company has created a carbon-mitigation tree-planting scheme. Similarly, right across the country other taxi companies are doing the same thing. Members will have noticed the cooperative of Wellington Combined Taxis has gone carbon neutral. It has gone in with Landcare Research New Zealand, and the taxis have the little tūī on their cars to tell us that they are doing the right thing.

We also need to note that the sale of hybrid cars has gone through the roof. There has been no legislation, no expensive bureaucracy, and no stifling red tape. I will give members another example. Last week I visited Progressive Enterprises, the company behind Woolworths, Countdown, and Foodtown. I spent a morning with its representatives talking about its environmental initiatives. The representatives showed me their new methods of handling food, which gets rid of tonnes of polystyrene, cardboard, and plastic wrapping. They talked about their upgrading of refrigerant technology to cut emissions and their strategies to cut energy use. But the initiatives that are particularly relevant to this bill are those actions that are focusing on cutting the emissions of their transport. Their latest transport contract uses the newest Euro 5 energy-efficient and emission-efficient trucks, and computer scheduling to ensure the most effective loading and routeing, which are dramatically cutting costs and emissions.

The most telling change at Progressive Enterprises, and the signal that its company wants to walk the best environmental practice talk, is that the members of its management team have traded in their big corporate cars for energy-efficient, small-engined car alternatives, with a resulting 30 percent drop in emissions.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : It is a pleasure to rise in this debate and further Labour’s support for the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill. As Dr Norman said when he spoke at the bill’s introduction, it represents a small, practical step to meet our obligations. No one is pretending that it is the answer, the silver bullet, but it is a small, practical step that could help New Zealand move towards meeting its obligations. It really does feel in this debate, listening to the National members’ contributions, that they think New Zealand will be able to meet its obligations without really having to do anything—that we will not actually have to change anything about the way we live our lives.

National speakers said that they do not see the need for any legislation. Well, here we are talking about the way that Government purchasers obtain vehicles. We all know that in order for Government departments to go ahead and know with confidence that this is the direction they should be going in, we need legislation. Mrs Wagner can stand up and tell us all the examples of private sector companies that do this kind of thing—and good on them; good on them for doing it—but when it comes to giving direction to Government agencies and Government departments, this bill is the appropriate mechanism to put forward. I congratulate Dr Norman on doing so.

Labour supports this bill, because under Labour we made great strides towards the goal of halving New Zealand’s per capita transport emissions. Mr Chauvel already spoke about that. What I find amazing is that National, from the very first day that I entered Parliament, has set about undermining New Zealand’s place in the world on the environmental stage. National is undermining it. The very first things we saw in this House were National rejecting the biofuel obligation and removing the thermal energy ban. National thought those things were priorities to address under urgency before Christmas. Since then we have seen a shambolic performance from National on climate change, a shambolic performance led by Nick Smith. I know that the Prime Minister said that he gave Nick Smith the job of handling climate change because he had “a brain the size of the South Island”. The problem is that his brain seems to be about as populated as the South Island is, as well. We have seen from Dr Smith a shambolic handling of this process, the latest example of which is his $110 billion blunder.

The Prime Minister said to Federated Farmers today that they need to support the emissions trading scheme because New Zealand needs people across the world to buy our products, and if we do not have a robust scheme, they will not do that. Well, what about all of the other things that National has done—or has not done—to make sure that we look good on the world stage? We have to live the brand. We have to stand up and say that if New Zealand wants to be 100 percent pure, we have to set an ambitious target for reducing our emissions. If New Zealand wants to be 100 percent pure, we have to set an ambitious target for renewable energy. It was an outrage to see John Key stand up on the Letterman show and proudly talk about our renewable energy, when National has no commitment whatsoever to meet the 90 percent goal.

Nicky Wagner: You might not.

GRANT ROBERTSON: I ask Ms Wagner whether that is National’s policy. Are we going to see a 90 percent renewable energy target by 2025? Are we going to see that? She nods; we are. So what will National do to get us there? We do not see any positive action. This bill is one very small, practical step National could actually take to say “We take some responsibility. We are currently in Government. We take some responsibility for how the Government procures its vehicles.” It is a very simple, small, practical step. But, no, National will not take it.

We have seen it time and time again. We saw it in the very early days of the Government when National walked away from the Govt³ programme. That is another example of how the Government could have showed leadership in improving environmental performance, but instead walked away from that strategy. We have seen shambolic handling—a fiasco, some might say—of climate change. This bill is one opportunity for National to do something about climate change, but it has failed to take the opportunity tonight. Its members should be ashamed.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : The Māori Party has supported all previous legislation that seeks to address the duel crises of peak oil and climate change. Within this, the Māori Party is committed to ensuring tangible outcomes, in the national interest, in respect of four areas. First and foremost, we want to relieve the burdens placed on whānau and assist whānau to adapt to climate change. Secondly, we seek to enhance environmental outcomes consistent with the kaitiakitanga that our people are responsible for discharging over their whenua. Thirdly, we want to give effect to the Treaty relationship between the Crown and iwi/hapū. Fourthly, we want to take actions that support the Māori economy. We apply these four principles to any interventions that seek to make changes that more broadly contribute to positive responses to climate change.

So we come to the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill, recognising its very specific focus on targeting State sector organisations to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions by ensuring that when purchasing or leasing cars, they meet the efficiency standard set out in the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy 2007. It is a very specific technical requirement that will demand that Government vehicles emit no more than 170 grams per kilometre of carbon dioxide, and that they are among the top 10 percent in terms of fuel efficiency in their size class.

The Māori Party has consistently argued the case for a host of fuel efficiency measures. We have made the commitment that we will investigate the case for reducing the speed limit to maximise fuel efficiency, for fuel rationing systems, and for the bulk purchasing of fuel-efficient vehicles to lease or sell to low-income earners at prices they can afford. These policy goals of the Māori Party are a specific and targeted approach to reduce the overall energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand’s transport system.

This bill makes good sense. How many of us have had the misfortune to drive behind an old, inefficient, clapped-out vehicle as it emits huge clouds of paru into the environment? Older vehicles tend to have higher exhaust emissions of harmful pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and the oxides of nitrogen. This is partly due to deterioration in the engine’s efficiency, but is also due to the older technology used in earlier engine designs. As an example, I say that an air quality study that sampled the emissions of 40,000 vehicles in the Auckland region found that carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions from a 2003 vehicle were approximately five times lower than the emissions from a similar vehicle 8 years older. That is pretty good proof to us that if we can do something about vehicle emissions, then we should. Older vehicles may also have poorer fuel efficiency, and therefore create more greenhouse gas emissions for each kilometre travelled than similar, newer vehicles do.

The justification for this bill is clear. Although the Māori Party firmly believes that collective responsibility for environmental and social outcomes is the only way to respond to climate change, we say that legislation plays a big part in that. Sure, we need to have education programmes in place, and we need to encourage private enterprise to lower its greenhouse gas emissions profile, but we also need to have the example set by the State sector. The State sector is governed by legislation. We have heard Ministers say time after time in this House that they cannot require this or that to be done because it is an operational matter, which they cannot interfere in. In order to get State sector vehicles that have better fuel efficiency Ministers need to have legislation, because they cannot tell their departments to purchase the more fuel-efficient vehicles.

No one piece of legislation can ever be the whole answer to New Zealand’s response to climate change. The real answers can only come from people, as whānau, communities, and enterprises, deciding to change how we live and interact with the environment. This bill is only a small part of the change that is needed. But if we are really committed to focusing on the real challenge of addressing our collective responsibility for carbon emissions, then what better place is there to start than with the State sector? If we want to set ourselves standards to live by and expectations to aspire towards, then the Government, through the means of the State sector example, is the most appropriate place to start. Thank you.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) : Along with my colleagues, I rise in opposition to the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill, and there is a range of reasons why we oppose it.

First of all, I will start with a personal story of what happened on our farm in the mid-1970s when we were hit with two oil shocks. At that time the mode of transport on the farm was a Holden Ute with about 400,000 miles on the clock and a 3-litre engine. Petrol consumption used to get down to about 18 miles to the gallon when we were towing farm trailers and other such things with it. Because of the price of petrol going up to $1 a gallon, our employer decided that we should get rid of the big gas-guzzling old Holden Ute, and trade up to a new Mazda B1600 flat-deck ute, with a 1600cc engine, which was described as being much more suitable than the old Holden that it replaced. Guess what? This brand new Mazda utility did 5 miles less to the gallon than the old Holden Ute in the same application. Why would that be? We went from a 3-litre engine that was worn out, down to a 1600cc modern, efficient engine that was in perfect, tip-top order, and the fuel consumption went up. How did that happen? How could that be possible? The reason was simple. The application it was being used for, the amount of weight we were pulling with it, the trailers we were towing with it, meant that that little B1600 was going at full revs the whole time, and it used more petrol than the old Holden did lumbering along at lower revs per minute. That is an example of why the one-size-fits-all approach prescribed by the socialists and the Greens cannot fit and will not fit.

Landcorp, which is one of our Government departments, is the biggest corporate farm in the country. Why do we not change all of the Landcorp vehicles from the big gas-guzzling Nissans, or whatever they might have now, with their 3-litre engines, to vehicles with 1200cc engines and expect them to pull the same hay-balers, farm trailers, tractors, and goodness knows what else that are pulled around by those vehicles, and double their fuel consumption as well? I bet that is what would happen. Not only did the good old Mazda add substantially to the fuel consumption—it did not double it; I do not want to exaggerate—but it lasted about a third of the time that the old Holden did. By the time it had done 100,000 miles equivalent it was worn out; it was shot. It was absolutely unroadworthy in fact, and it was dangerous throughout most of its life because for most of its life it was overloaded. That is an example of why it does not make sense to prescribe by legislation a one-size-fits-all approach for Government departments, or any other department, or any other person, for that matter.

Let us look at some of the things that National has done since it has been in Government. We have heard a bit about what Labour proposed to do in its 9 years in office and never quite got around to. We also know that during that time our carbon emissions went up substantially across most sectors, except the agricultural sector, of course, which is the sector the previous Government wanted to hit the hardest. I had a little bit of a personal campaign against that, as most people will remember. What has National done? The first thing National did was to put $36 million into the biofuels grant programme promoting bio-diesel production. In my own electorate, we have the Holden family, who are very entrepreneurial. They are the custodians and managers of the Ruakuri Cave, which is a great tourism venture. They could not get their bio-diesel plant off the ground, under the previous Labour Government. Guess what? That plant is now thriving and prosperous in the small town of Te Kūiti. It is producing bio-diesel from waste material, oils, fats from cooking, etc., and it looks as though it will grow and continue to thrive. The family came to me many times when they were trying to get the business off the ground, under the previous Labour Government, and they were not successful.

National opposes this bill. There are a lot of other things I could talk about, but I understand there is not time for that. That is my contribution. National opposes the bill.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) : It gives me great pleasure to rise to support the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill and to congratulate my colleague and co-leader Russel Norman on bringing it to the House. I thank the Labour Party and the Māori Party for their support of the bill. We would gain no inkling from the debate tonight that people in this House understand that New Zealand has the fourth-highest climate change emissions per capita in the whole developed world; nor would we have any inkling that people understand that peak oil is very close and oil will become enormously more expensive in the near future, as well as becoming scarce.

With those two crises, vehicles are our Achilles heel. Our vehicle fleet is hugely inefficient. But it also means in a positive sense that this is our lowest-hanging fruit. If we want to reduce our dependence on oil and our climate change emissions, then vehicles are the place to start, because it is with them that we can make a lot of progress. That is why the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy proposed to set a standard of 170 grams per kilometre. I looked up the Automobile Association’s magazine and found that 129 models are on the market in New Zealand now that meet that standard, which is the same one we proposed for Government vehicles in this bill. Certainly, there is plenty of choice there.

That strategy is still the law. It is still in force despite what Charles Chauvel said, because under the law it is in force until it is replaced. The Minister cannot repeal it; he can only replace it. God knows what he will replace it with! Last year Labour was on the way to setting fuel efficiency standards for the whole country, but it did not quite get there in time. The officials were opposing it. Holden and Ford were lobbying very hard, so no legislation was brought to the House. I thank them for their support tonight, but they could have actually made this happen last year. Now Steven Joyce has announced publicly that there will be no fuel efficiency standards for vehicles.

I want to look at some of the arguments put forward tonight—some very pathetic arguments. Nicky Wagner used a number of individual cases to show that people will do the right thing—we do not need to legislate. But they are patently not doing the right thing. The EU vehicles coming into the EU are at 130 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. Ours are at 210 grams. The fleet fuel use appears to be trending down for the new vehicles, until one realises that the Government has removed diesels out of the tables so that it looks better than the old tables used to look. The vehicles coming into New Zealand are more wasteful each year than they have been in the past. So if regulation is such a bad thing, if all we need is a bit of education and guidance and we do not want to tie down the country with red tape, why do we not replace the law on murder and fraud with education and guidelines? That makes perfect sense as well; people will simply do the right thing if we tell them to! That is what the Government’s argument leads us to.

Shane Ardern made an excellent point that energy efficiency is not necessarily related to the size of the vehicle, and that is why we do not talk about vehicle size in the bill. That is why we talk about fuel efficiency measured in grams of carbon dioxide. He did not tell us anything about the fuel efficiency of his tractor, which we had occasion to see at Parliament some years ago, but we sympathise with him getting conned over the Mazda. It is not about engine size, it is about fuel efficiency.

Clearly, some of the speakers tonight have simply not read the bill. It is a constant frustration that people come down here and speak on members’ bills without having read them. If they had read them, they would discover that the bill makes specific provision for vehicles to be fit for purpose. If one is on a Landcorp farm, then different rules apply compared with someone in a health board running the district nurse around a city.

This is a very sensible bill. It would not just benefit the Government and its fuel use. It would not just show leadership. It would bring into the country a better set of vehicles that would save the future drivers—who would be ordinary New Zealanders after the Government spins them off—a lot of money on their fuel bills in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I am very happy to take a call on the Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill. I congratulate the Greens on bringing another excellent bill to the House. I notice there is another ballot for members’ bills tomorrow; no doubt there will be some more Green bills coming out of the ballot, given their recent run of very, very good luck.

I will pick up on a number of the points that other people have made in this debate. It is hard to look at the particular issues of this bill in isolation from the wider issues around climate change and energy efficiency that the Government is currently dealing with—or, should I say, not dealing with, as the case may be. I pick up the point that my colleague and friend Grant Robertson raised. He said this Government appeared to be taking the approach that we can reduce our emissions without doing anything at all; that we can do absolutely nothing and somehow miraculously New Zealand’s carbon emissions will diminish and will decrease. We know that will not happen.

This fairly small bill, a realistic bill and quite a practical measure, is just a small thing that we can do that would make some difference. Even if the Government is opposed to the bill, why does it not at least send it to a select committee so that it can get a hearing, so that the debate can be had and arguments can be put forward? If the Government decides to vote against it when it comes back into the House for its second reading, it can do that. But why is it afraid of the debate? Why will it not even listen to the evidence and allow people to have a say on the bill? I tell members why that is the case: the Government simply has no idea of what it is doing about climate change.

Shane Ardern talked earlier about his farm vehicles being inefficient because they were carrying loads that were beyond their capabilities. That sounds a lot like the Minister for Climate Change Issues, Nick Smith. He is overloaded, much like Shane Ardern’s farm vehicles, and he is completely losing the plot. The way the Government is dealing with climate change is a total debacle. It is an absolute fiasco.

Let us go back to the very beginning, to the very first things that this Government did when it came into the House after the last election. The first thing the Government did was to repeal the obligation on the fuel companies to use biofuels. It repealed the obligation and replaced it with a form of corporate welfare—a subsidy. It thought that rather than having the cost of biofuel development put on to the oil companies, which were making massive profits, it would be better for hard-working Kiwi taxpayers to pay a subsidy to the fuel companies. That is what the National Government thought. When Gerry Brownlee finally gets around to answering the questions I put to him—the answers are now several weeks overdue—it will be interesting to see whether any of the oil and gas companies have taken up the subsidy, or whether it has turned out to be yet another fiasco on the part of the National Government.

The second thing that the Government did—and this is quite relevant when we talk about the potential future of electric vehicles—relates to the thermal moratorium or thermal restriction that was put in place by the last Government. It was removed immediately upon National taking office, as well. If we are going to move towards more electric vehicles, we need to think about where the electricity comes from. If the electricity is coming from non-renewable resources, from burning more coal or burning more gas, will we end up any better off at all? Actually, we probably will not. Why is the Government so opposed to renewable energy? Why is it so opposed to this bill, which will require State sector vehicles—21,000 State sector vehicles, I believe—to be fuel efficient? This bill is a very practical measure. It needs to fit in with other measures that the previous Labour Government had in place, with support from the Greens—for example, the two that I have just mentioned, the biofuels and the thermal restriction.

Then there was the transport strategy. Significant investment was made in repurchasing what is now KiwiRail to get some of those big trucks off the road, to get more freight on to rail, and to get more passengers on to rail. Instead, the Government seems to have wound back the clock on that; it would rather see the rail system run down as it was in the 9 years National was in Government in the 1990s, when the private sector simply ran the rail network into the ground.

I commend the Greens for bringing this bill to the House. I think it is a practical measure, a small step but a positive step none the less. I urge the National Government to consider sending this bill to a select committee so that it can be properly debated.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) : This Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill is a practical bill that makes a small but significant improvement in the energy efficiency of our vehicle fleet by setting certain basic standards for the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per kilometre by the Government fuel fleet. It is a very simple measure. If we are to make the transition that our children and great-grandchildren demand of us towards an economy with low dependence on carbon and oil, then we need to use all of the levers that are available to us. One of those levers is the use of prices and markets, and that is a fine lever to use. Another lever is the use of education and individual consciousness to change behaviour, and that is also a fine lever to use to make change. However, there is a third lever as well, which is the use of State regulation. This is an essential component in any transition towards a low-carbon economy. All three levers need to be used and all three levers are necessarily part of the transition that we need to make.

I will address a few arguments that were put up by National. The first is the suggestion that this bill would put high costs on the State sector. One of the paradoxes is that the Govt3 programme, which this National Government abolished, saved the Government money. The Inland Revenue Department reported to us that it saved many hundreds of thousands of dollars because it implemented Govt3. That was what the department told us. This measure would save the Government many hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, in fuel, because we would use the most fuel-efficient vehicles that were fit for the purpose. It does not cost money; it saves money. But for some reason this Government would rather spend money than save money just so that it does not have to regulate. Another argument raised was that the emissions trading scheme will do it all. Well, I am afraid that the emissions trading scheme, be it the old one or the new one, will never do all of the heavy lifting on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That simply is not possible.

In terms of this bill being some kind of terrible burden on Government procurement, there is already a set of rules and regulations around Government procurement, and this bill would simply add one further dimension. It would not be a huge problem.

In terms of the allergy that certain National members seem to have towards regulation, I have a two-word answer to anyone who opposes regulation. Those two words are leaky houses. This country currently faces an $11 billion bill because in 1991 the National Government passed the Building Act, which said that people can build whatever they damned well pleased and that we did not have to have rules around how people build houses. Now taxpayers, households, and councils have to pick up an $11 billion bill, because National does not like regulation.

Regulation works. I tell members to talk to the people in California. I was in California recently and I asked people how they had had such phenomenal growth in energy efficiency that the electricity use per capita has remained stable for 30 years, even though they have more computers in Silicon Valley and all the rest of it. They said they did it by having energy-efficient regulation. Every year they improved the regulations around energy efficiency and they drove innovation. They made industry in their sector the most competitive industry on the planet, because they drove innovation in energy efficiency through the use of energy efficiency regulations.

This is a very simple measure. It is something that our children demand of us—that we actually confront the fact that New Zealand per capita has one of the highest emissions of greenhouse gases on the planet. If we do not resolve this issue, then people born today, who will be alive in 2100, will live to curse the people now in this Parliament who vote this measure down. I say to every single member of Parliament in the National Party and the ACT Party who votes against this bill that their children and grandchildren will curse them for not making progress on climate change. They will curse them for allowing them to inherit a world that has out-of-control climate change, because people like those members in parliaments like this all round the planet knew the evidence, could read the science, and did not do what they knew had to be done. That is a disgrace.