Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Green) Link to this

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) Link to this

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.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) Link to this

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.

NICKY WAGNER (National) Link to this

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) Link to this

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.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

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) Link to this

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) Link to this

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) Link to this

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) Link to this

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.