Hon PANSY WONG (Associate Minister of Energy and Resources) Link to this
Good morning to you, Mr Assistant Speaker Barker, and to my fellow parliamentarians; and good morning to all the listeners and viewers.
I remind everybody that we are debating under urgency the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill. This bill is a clear indication that John Key’s National-led Government is fulfilling its election promises. During the lead-up to the election National campaigned on dumping the Labour Government’s Biofuel Bill. We intend to apply a consistent tax incentive for sustainable biofuels, exempting ethanol and bio-diesel from excise and road-user charges in proportion to the blend. We are also committed to developing a process for approving the tax exemption of sustainable biofuel, taking into account the impact of the net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on biodiversity and food supply.
National is committed to encouraging the development of the biofuel industry, but unlike the previous Labour Government we listen to and trust New Zealanders. We know that New Zealanders will make informed choices. We are not like the Labour Government, which believed in compulsion and did not place any trust in New Zealanders to make the right choices. Even before the introduction of compulsion in relation to the sale of biofuel, New Zealanders could purchase biofuel.
We all know the negative impact of rushing into new territory. We know that the first generation of biofuel sources had a devastating effect on many economies when people turned food crops into biofuel. We also understand and have seen the impact on deforestation of rushing headlong into pushing biofuels. We believe that in order to encourage development and place trust in New Zealanders to make those choices it is important to dump this last piece of compulsion. I congratulate the Hon Gerry Brownlee on diligently putting the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill before the House.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) Link to this
There is a saying that it is an ill wind that blows no good. It gives me no pleasure to rise in this debate and reflect on what is going down in New Zealand at the moment under this National-led Government. I think it should send a chill down the spines of all New Zealanders that New Zealand is now backtracking on sustainability initiatives across the ambit of the environment, whether it is through changes to the Resource Management Act or measures to deal with climate change or water quality. We will see New Zealand’s environment going backwards at a time when most of us accept that the world has serious environmental problems.
I have long had a strong environmental ethic, and I think that most New Zealanders do. About one-third of our country is in national parks. We are one of the first countries in the world to do something about truly trying to make our fishing sustainable in the deep seas and our inshore fisheries. I personally did a lot of work around water protection, and trying to stop the degradation of waterways over many years was part of my work. I was not one of the first in the world to come to the conclusion that climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed. Others in this House, like Pete Hodgson, Jeanette Fitzsimons, and Simon Upton, were ahead of me in that regard, but eventually I got there.
I became convinced—like the National Government pretends to be—by the scientists who overwhelmingly tell us that climate change is a real and pressing problem that could change the world as we know it. It is not an exaggeration to say that climate change could change the world as we know it, and this has been proven to such an extent that it is now the responsibility of politicians and Parliaments like ours to do something about it and to moderate emissions so as to not let climate change get as bad as it could get.
I personally see climate change as an indication of a wider ill. I am personally convinced that we on this planet are living in a way that is beyond the environmental means of our ecosystems to cope. Our planet is filling up with greenhouse gases in a way that is unsustainable. There is undue pressure on our waterways; there are dropping aquifers; there are collapsing fisheries; there are dying coral reefs; there is desertification, not just in Africa but also in Asia and in large parts of Australia; there is pressure on food production; and there are rising sea levels that are starting to threaten atolls. If there is even a metre of sea-level rise there will be 30 million people on the move in Bangladesh.
These are serious problems. What worries most of us about what is happening is the truth that the world is living beyond its environmental means. More than that, an international response is required in order to do something about it. Underneath that international response, action by individual countries is required. It saddens me to realise that if New Zealand cannot get these problems under control, then the world is doomed to a future that is not as good as it could be.
If we look at our country, with our wealth of natural resources, our environmental ethic and our wealth—and we might not be as wealthy as our Australian cousins across the ditch, but, by God, we are very wealthy compared with the world average—our low population density, our climatic advantages that we already have, and our richness in renewable energy, we see that it is probably one of the wealthiest countries in the world when it comes to renewable energy sources. If New Zealand cannot get this right, then the conclusion to draw is that the world will not. We really are, to that extent, the canary in the cage. We should reflect on this reality: if New Zealand does not get these issues right, then the world will not. That is a very, very sad conclusion to reach, because that will affect our children and their children. Millions and millions of desperately poor people in developing countries will be more affected than most, and it will make their futures even bleaker than they currently are. For people in developing countries who are poor, their future is already bleak.
Against that background I think it is very, very sad—and I am somewhat ashamed—to be in a country that is turning its back on those problems when we can fix them, or our share of them, comparatively easily. That is where this bill fits in. To deal with climate change, we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Half of our emissions come from agriculture. It is pretty hard in that space. Things can be done to reduce agricultural emissions—I am not letting agriculture off free, because some things can be done—but they cannot be reduced by a lot. The rest of our emissions come from the use of energy and from process emissions from things like smelters that use coal in the production of metals.
If we cannot do much in the agricultural space, we have to do our fair share in the area of energy. Our energy emissions come from two main sources: electricity production and transport. Transport in New Zealand has a big share in that; we are already pretty green in our electricity production, and we are starting to do even better. However, in transport we can do only three things: first, improve the efficiency of vehicles; second, change the modes of transport to more efficient modes, such as more freight on rail and more freight on bigger trucks, which sometimes is a good idea; and third, substitute out the existing fossil fuels that we burn to produce greenhouse gases for new sources of fuel that are carbon neutral and do not produce greenhouse gas emissions.
The two most likely candidates in that field for New Zealand are electricity substitution and biofuels. This bill deals with biofuels. Other people have talked about the terrible injustices that have been done by this bill to Mr McNicholl and others—the job losses and the multimillion dollar losses that have been caused to industry. I am not going to focus on those things in this contribution; I am going to focus on the environmental aspects.
Every country in the world has a problem with transport emissions; they are very hard to fix. But given that we pour billions and billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels for transport, we have to do something about it. If we do not do anything about it, we may as well give up on the ambition to reduce emissions, because it will not work. Transport emissions are such a big part of the problem, and that is where biofuels come in. They are not a universal panacea and they are not the answer to everything, but they are an important part of the solution. They are something we can use now, they make economic sense as well as environmental sense for the country, they are affordable, and they are achievable.
We have heard the Minister of Energy and Resources, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, saying in this House and on the radio that the Government is putting forward this legislation because of sustainability concerns. The Government is actually taking out of the legislation the sustainability controls that control the import of unsustainable biofuels. Already the legislation requires the oil companies to now report the source of their biofuels. So if they are importing unsustainable biofuels they get dinged now, because the public sees that and the companies will not want to risk their brand value by doing something silly during this short intervening period while more detailed and prescriptive standards are worked out.
On top of that, the Act—which this bill repeals the relevant part of—already includes more than the normal amount of detail seen in primary legislation concerning sustainability principles. It sets out three principles relating to greenhouse gas reductions on a life-cycle basis, including competition with food—because, of course, we do not want to put up the price of tortillas in Mexico City by turning corn into ethanol—and it addresses biodiversity concerns so that people cannot knock over rainforests and orang-utan habitats in Indonesia, for example, to produce palm oil for New Zealand biofuels. That is not allowed under New Zealand legislation. The Minister is stripping out those environmental protections by the repeal of this part of the Act. I think that might be a mistake on his part, and he does not realise it. I will be promoting amendments at the Committee stage to fix that particular omission in this bill.
More fundamentally, the Minister knows—and the National Government knows—that the biofuels that are starting to be produced in New Zealand from tallow are the most sustainable sources of biofuel in the world according to the United Nations, and he is killing that industry. Not only do we have the loss of jobs and the loss of money for those people who have invested their life fortune and done the right thing—and I feel very sorry for those people—we see that the Minister is ruining the environment, and that should be on his conscience. It is the wrong thing to do and it sends a chill down my back.
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast-Tasman) Link to this
This is just a brief call. I was most interested to hear the previous speaker because he covered a range of discussion that probably we should have started this debate with, because it includes very important features. I suggest, though, that the weak part of the Opposition’s argument is the compulsive nature of the regulation; that is the bit that is being changed. The previous speaker ended on the subject of tallow and how efficient it is at making biofuels. Tallow is a by-product in many cases, but I wonder what happens to those products that would normally be made of tallow. We cannot introduce—
It is a serious point. It is just as serious as biofuel’s taking away food production from Mexicans is a serious point. For those who use tallow, the matter of tallow production is a serious point if suddenly those people do not have that base product any more.
However, the previous speaker concentrated on the sustainability aspect and the standards that are being torn out by this bill going through. The reality is that they are not: the standards will continue to be developed, they will be developed by the officials, and that will be done in exactly the same time frame as, or even sooner than, would have been possible through the legislation that is now being changed. Therefore, the central objection to this bill is void, because the standards will be made, they will be achieved, and, furthermore, they will be produced by people who actually want to produce them. The whole business will not be based on the compulsive, negative aspect, and it will benefit from the change.
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) Link to this
This bill, the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill, is in its second reading before the House. It is a very sad bill from a sad Government on this very important topic of climate change. Our country, as the Hon David Parker has said, has to take some pretty firm measures in response to climate change, because we have so little influence over the profile of our greenhouse gas emissions. That means that every measure we take has to be thoughtful, has to be resolute, and has to actually mean something and do something. But this repeal bill takes away the real chance for New Zealand to be able to do something constructive with regard to climate change, and it is a huge shame and a wasted opportunity that this Government has brought this bill before Parliament for debate today.
It makes one wonder what the Government now says New Zealand is doing, at all, with regard to climate change. For a while, after a movie called An Inconvenient Truth came out, the National Party decided that climate change was a popular topic, and so there was a bit of a flurry of activity. That led to a very brief period of time when Dr Nick Smith thought he was relevant again, and he was allowed to put out a Bluegreens discussion document.
Hon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
Actually, just about the only thing that National stands for in terms of recycling was putting every copy of the Bluegreens vision document into the green wheelie bins around Parliament. That is the only thing those members have done in terms of the environment since the general election. We know that that document now is out of vogue and out of step, because the National Party has moved on to something else. The new buzzword is that everything must be “balanced”. We must have balance with everything. So if one does nothing on the one hand, one ought to do nothing on the other. That is the new, balanced approach that National is bringing to New Zealand’s response on climate change. National has decided that it is no longer a sexy topic, but the problem for National is that the science has not gone away. Of course, there is a question mark over that because the whole world now waits, with bated breath, for the New Zealand select committee of Parliament—
Moana MackeyHon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
—which was elevated yesterday to a high-level select committee, of course. I mean, how anything can be high-level without the Hon Gerry Brownlee’s intellectual firepower on it is beyond me! In fact, at the General Assembly of the United Nations they must be standing around the espresso machine saying that it is good of New Zealanders to decide for them what is happening about the science of climate change, but that it is a pity that Mr Brownlee is not involved. That is what they are saying while they wait for the high-level committee to report back on the balanced approach of how one can do nothing on the one hand and less on the other.
We will now have a ridiculous situation. People used to look at a little country like New Zealand—4 million people at the bottom of the earth—and see it as a bit of an honest broker. We have always punched above our weight on foreign policy; people have looked at what we have done and said that we have had a principled stand on things. They have said that we have always had good examples to back up our rhetoric on things. We have not just gone along and given the flash speeches heard at some international forums, where countries with dubious records on things have got up and lectured everyone else. New Zealand has always been one of those countries that have been able to get up and say, hand on heart, that “This is the stand we are taking, this is the reason for it, and this is what we are actually going to do about it in our country to give effect to what we are saying.”
Everything National has done since the election takes away from all of that. I can now see why it was so dismissive of, and derisive towards, the previous Labour Government’s ambitious goal of carbon neutrality for our country, which was a vision statement of where we could actually try to go. National poured scorn on that—I thought it was just for political reasons. I thought it was just attacking the Labour Government of the day, which is a fair cop in politics. Actually, though, it goes to something deeper than that. National does not want to do a blind thing about climate change, and this biofuels repeal bill is a classic example of that.
The problem is that this bill is not only bad for our response to climate change but it is also bad for jobs. This bill actually costs jobs in our economy at the very time the economy is in recession and job security is one of the things New Zealanders are worried about, first and foremost.
Hon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
My colleague Trevor Mallard makes the point: who represents the people of Waharoa in Parliament? Do National members know? Does the Minister know who the local MP for Waharoa is? There is a lot of silence. The Minister would not have a clue, of course. I want to hear from the local member of Parliament about what he will do to stick up for jobs in his electorate, because that is such a critical thing at this time. The National Government not only is weakening New Zealand’s reputation, and taking us down a path that is very disappointing in terms of what we are able to do on climate change, but also is stopping and cutting the feet from under New Zealand - based industry.
We know that this Minister loves to cut the base from under New Zealand industry, because one of his first bold moves was to cancel the Buy Kiwi Made Campaign, which is one of the small things we tried to do to give New Zealand manufacturers a chance to say there was something decent about what they did. There are jobs for hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders in that sector, and we wanted to show our support for it. The campaign cost very little for the good it did for New Zealand manufacturers, but the Minister has got rid of it. Now he is bringing this bill to the House. We know that Mr Tom McNicholl has put $10 million of his money behind the biofuels industry. He wanted to create jobs—47 jobs, I think, as a start. If that industry had got under way, there would have been more and more jobs, but the Government’s very clear message is that it sees no future for biofuels. That is what this bill is about.
Hon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
The Minister says “Rubbish!”, but where are his details on tax incentives? [ Interruption] That was not the question. Gerry Brownlee is barking away over there. That was not the question he was asked. I asked him why he does not have any details on tax incentives, if he is genuinely in favour of biofuels. Where is that information?
Hon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
The point is that that is the Government’s policy on climate change—“Just wait!”. The point about climate change is that we cannot wait. We cannot have that luxury of laziness, that conservative attitude of “She’ll be right; don’t worry about it. We’ll wait until Labour gets back in and fixes it up”.
This is bigger than being just a New Zealand problem; this is a world problem that requires leadership from the Government. The only leadership that the Government has given is to say, first and foremost, let us cancel everything that was put there by the previous Government, and let us talk about nothing that replaces it. The emissions trading scheme has been suspended, even though the Prime Minister could not tell the House yesterday exactly what part is suspended. The biofuel legislation is now being repealed, which will ruin any chance of a biofuels industry for New Zealand; it will ruin not only the jobs in that industry but also the chance for that industry to make a positive contribution to our economy in a clean and green way.
Of course, there is National’s disgraceful treatment of the forestry sector. We remember Dr Nick Smith coming into Parliament, question time after question time, screaming and ranting—that was just during the parliamentary prayer, actually—as he does, about the forestry sector and about his concerns about forestry. Yet National’s first thing here has meant that the new Labour Opposition’s first lobbyist friend is Dr Roger Dickie from the Kyoto Forestry Association. He is not somebody who normally sought meetings with Labour when we were in Government, but he has been knocking on the door to ask us what on earth National is doing.
In this climate change space the Government is very, very disappointing; its getting rid of the biofuel legislation that is currently on the books is such a wasted opportunity for our country. I cannot understand why more members of the National Party are not motivated to ask Cabinet Ministers and the leaders of their party exactly what they will do now. When Labour was in Government its members wanted to be leaders in climate change. We were out there, boldly saying that Labour thought New Zealand had a real role to be a leader in that area. The National Party disagreed with that because it never likes leading on anything. Those members said that they want to be fast followers. It was not actually their line; they waited for the New Zealand Institute to say that, and then they decided that it was their slogan. They wanted us to turbo-charge our way to a balanced approach by being fast followers. It turns out that the engine on the turbo has been turned off completely and we now will not be fast followers; we will be people who just trot along. What will happen is that New Zealand will be completely overtaken in the climate change debate.
We are a country whose economy is hugely dependent on primary industry and we require a stable climate in order to run this economy—not that we heard about agriculture, science, or exporting in the Speech from the Throne. National might like to work out that agriculture is the basis of the New Zealand economy; so much comes from it. We should be acting on climate change for selfish reasons. We should say that as an agriculture-dependent economy we should selfishly be worried about climate change, because our economy is one of the ones that has the most at risk if we do not get it right—not only in agriculture but in horticulture, in viticulture, and in all the areas of our economy that rely so strongly on a stable climate. The world’s planet is so important to the basis of our economy that we should be acting selfishly, if that is to be the only motivation. If that is the only way we can connect emotionally with National, we should plead for it to act selfishly: “Please act selfishly on climate change.” That kind of language might get those members to do something about it. We were always motivated by saying not only that New Zealand had a role to play in the world that was bigger than just our own interests, which were huge, but also that we were able to lead in this field. This is just another example of National needlessly taking us backwards.
Hon Dr Jonathan ColemanHon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
The Minister of Immigration mentions the food crisis, and I am very interested that he does so. With the obligation on the books right now, New Zealand has the ability to be self-sustaining in this area. We could now already use all the tallow that is generated in New Zealand and we could meet our obligations today from that. If the Minister does not know that, then it shows that not only has he not read the bill that is before the House but also he clearly did not pay any attention during the Cabinet committee or the Cabinet process.
Hon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
The member asked about Brazil. I am glad he has asked about the Brazilians, because National has not always been known for its open-minded foreign policy. If the Minister had read the legislation he would know that all of the concerns he is now yelling across the Chamber are covered by the legislation. Jacqui Dean shakes her head, but in terms of her worrying about the resources of the planet I say that that was kind of put in the box when she said she wanted water to be banned and that she is the leading light of the National Party in that particular regard.
This is a bad bill. The Labour Opposition strongly opposes it.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this
The Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill is probably the saddest thing that has occurred here, and we have seen the National Party approach to it in the way its members are concerned about it: they are not even prepared to get up on their feet to take a call in order to be involved in the debate. What is very, very clear to me is that National members have not spent their time getting their heads around this issue. They got themselves into a position, probably cajoled by the oil companies’ position of a couple of years ago, and lined up by Nick Smith trying to be pragmatic, but in the end they have not logically reasoned through what is necessary in this particular area.
People should think very carefully about the comments that David Parker made. I absolutely agree with him. We have a spectacular advantage in being a small, isolated country and a country in which experiments can occur. We can be a leader, and some of those experiments will be successful; we have to accept that some of them will not be successful. What has been made very, very clear is that in the area of tallow the research work has been done, the plant development work has been done, and we will be in a position to meet the obligations under this bill from July, given what had occurred.
I am very surprised that I have not yet heard Lindsay Tisch take a call in this debate. I think he needs to get up on his feet to say whether he thinks that jobs in his electorate are important. I know that if his opponent in the Waikato electorate Jacinda Ardern, who made a brilliant maiden speech yesterday, was the member for Waikato then she would be making some comments and she would be standing up for Waharoa. It is not a place where there are thousands of easy jobs to get. It is a rural area and a place where clearly there is quite a lot of dairy still going on, but there is not a factory and not a lot of jobs in the area.
Shane ArdernHon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Waharoa? OK, I apologise. I have my little towns out in the east Waikato mixed up. But the point that I am making is—
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
No, I did not. I tell the member what I did: I had more guts than any National Party Minister. If I was closing a school, I went there and I knew exactly where it was. I do apologise; I lived in Hamilton and I went through Waharoa occasionally. The point is that if I was the local member, then I would have the backbone to stand up in this House and defend Waharoa against Gerry Brownlee, who is stripping it of jobs.
The decision of Gerry Brownlee and the National Party is to say that jobs in Waharoa do not matter. That is what he is saying. He is also saying to Tom McNicholl that he does not care that he is 75 years old. He does not care that he has put 10 years of investment into this project, that he has lined it up following the international signals, following the signals from Government, and following the signals of what is possible. Tom McNicholl has done the right thing, and National is to take $10 million from him. National members are going to cause him to mothball his $10 million investment—the $10 million investment that can make an enormous difference to New Zealand’s reputation. I just ask how, the next time John Key meets Gordon Brown, if it ever happens again, he will be able to look him in the eye and say that he—Mr Key—not only is a climate change denier but also wants Mr Brown to take off his tax on people travelling to New Zealand. Not only is Mr Key denying climate change but also he is closing down plants that could make a difference. John Key is closing down a plant that could make a real difference to climate change in New Zealand—a $10 million plant; one that will employ over 40 people. It will make an enormous difference—
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I bet it will still be there, and it will be mothballed. It will not happen. I believe Sue Wood. I do not believe Gerry Brownlee; I believe Sue Wood.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
They are selling it raw to China for methane-producing chickens. It goes to methane-producing chickens now, or it could be used to cut fuel emissions in New Zealand. That is the choice.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Gerry Brownlee says that eating a chicken is the same as driving a car. He probably does both. He probably has a chicken from KFC on the seat beside him. He probably cannot drive without that on the seat beside him. He looks like he cannot go anywhere without it. I tell members that it is a major pity that the member does not live in Wainuiōmata. The Wainuiōmata KFC has just closed. If Gerry Brownlee lived in Wainuiōmata, I am sure that not only would we be driving decent fuel but also KFC would have survived because it—
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
What came first—the chicken or the Gerry?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We will not even get a “Gerry-can” of biofuel as a result of this bill.
I go back to the point that I was making. How can New Zealand hold up its head internationally? How can we argue against the outrageous things that—I agree—the Brits are planning to do? I do not think it is on for John Key to call Gordon Brown a hypocrite, as he did in the House yesterday. I think that is not conducive to good diplomatic relations. It is not conducive to good diplomatic relations to call the British Prime Minister a hypocrite. It will not help John Key as Minister of Tourism to get the next meeting in an attempt to wind back—and I agree with our Prime Minister—Mr Brown’s misguided approach in the tourism area.
National says that it cares about jobs. We are expecting later this week an enormous package from National; an enormous job stimulus package. I would just ask what those members are doing, when in this area their policy is costing jobs in the forestry sector, when their policy of throwing the emissions trading scheme to the wolves is costing jobs in the carbon market, and now they are taking out jobs in the biofuel industry. I cannot think of anything much better than the existing legislation. It is a win-win. It means jobs for Kiwis and less money spent overseas on importing fuels, which helps the balance of payments. It reduces our emissions and helps us with our Kyoto liabilities. I ask Government members what is wrong with any of that.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Well, I think it does get to that in the end. However, I say to Dr Cullen that I have driven up and down the North Island a couple of times in recent months and stopped at Bulls, where there is now 10 percent biofuel in the higher octane petrol at the Mobil service station. I do not know where else it is happening around the country. It is not happening in my local area yet, but I to say to members opposite that it is already happening. It is a good thing. It is a bit like a golden egg. Why kill the goose?
AARON GILMORE (National) Link to this
I rise to support the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill and, unlike the previous speaker, I will not talk about “our enormous package”. I know a little bit about the biofuels and bio-gas industry. I have been a director and entrepreneur in this industry for a number of years. I have sat here for the last day or so listening to some of the ridicule from members opposite, who have been talking about how National is dead against jobs in this industry and dead against issues that would prevent people going out of business. In fact, that is entirely incorrect. We are dead against the obligations that exist under the current Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Act. My own experience is that there has been a gold rush of businesses seeking tallow and other fuels to use for biofuel and bio-gas in New Zealand. A lot of work has been done on the so-called standards that were in the existing Act. When we look at them, we see that there are a lot of problems with those standards and that they are essentially unworkable.
I come from a perspective as a former entrepreneur in the sector in talking about some of those things. My own experience is that it has been possible to be successful in setting up bio-gas or biofuel businesses—these things are largely interchangeable because vehicles can run on liquefied petroleum gas that has come from bio-gas or from bio-diesel. We have done that with no help from the Government, no obligations, and no subsidies—and it works. Equally, the international evidence from organisations like the Royal Society is such that—
Metiria TureiWell, the member would know that, as I just mentioned, the companies I am involved with have no subsidies at all.
Hon Gerry Brownlee Link to this
That’s exactly what was in the law! That’s what the obligations are all about.
That is exactly what I am saying. That is what the obligations are all about—absolutely. The Royal Society in Britain has talked a lot about the issue of biofuels and the fact that many biofuels may actually cause an increase in climate change. That work has been released by the learned Royal Society of the UK. The use of specific percentages in the short run will only move to increase imports of biofuels from some of these places that we have talked about previously. Yes, there is a very good opportunity to create a biofuel and bio-gas industry here in New Zealand.
Well, the current Act does not help at all. That is for sure. All we can say is that there are many smarter ways to deliver what both sides want. We do want to deliver a biofuel or bio-gas industry in New Zealand. It does provide sustainable fuels, but what is quite clear is that the current Act with its obligations does not and will not deliver that in time. As I say, the current standards are unworkable and we need to make a change by introducing this bill to allow smaller companies with innovative technologies to not be obligated to operate under a system that is unworkable under the existing Act.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 62
Noes 59
Bill read a second time.