The Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill, to amend the emissions trading scheme—a move for the New Zealand economy that is described by the member who has just resumed his seat as being as significant as the introduction of GST—has been in the hands of members for some 10 to 15 minutes. We have not seen the content of this legislation until now. To make matters worse, the Government will not even release the Cabinet papers and the officials’ advice concerning the costs of this revised scheme. We asked for that information to be provided on an urgent basis under the Official Information Act, but the Minister has made it clear that it will not be made available until well into the select committee process, and no doubt there will be many redactions from the material that we will have to go to the Ombudsman about. This material should not be hidden from the people; it should not be hidden from the Opposition; it should not be hidden from the Parliament.

It is shocking that this behaviour comes from a Government that parades what it calls its fiscal rectitude. It is introducing changes to the New Zealand economy that it says are equivalent in magnitude to the introduction of GST, yet it is denying people the right to see the basic costings and the official advice behind the legislation and the changes, and it has tabled the bill just when the first reading speeches have to be made.

We have seen the problem with that in question time this week, because we have a Minister with responsibility for the passage of the legislation who uses figures to suit himself. Papers were tabled in the House on Tuesday that purported to detail to the people the cost of this legislation. We now see, on page 33 of the explanatory note of the bill, the true table without the omissions that the Minister made when he tabled the document in the House. That is why the people need to see the official costings, the analysis, and the Cabinet papers. As Labour has learnt to its peril over the last couple of weeks, the Minister is not one who can be trusted on the assertions he makes, unless the material behind those assertions can be seen and tested.

The Minister mentioned that there was a desire to send this legislation to the special Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee, but that Labour had declined to cooperate in that, and I say we certainly have. The Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee was a complete waste of time and money. That is demonstrated by the fact that although its specialist advisers ate up the entire Office of the Clerk’s budget for advice to select committees in 1 year, at the same time the committee could produce only four minority reports as well as what the Government came up with as a result of that exercise. It is appropriate that this legislation should simply go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This is not a measure that will have anything to do with the environment. It will certainly not help to protect the environment; it is simply a measure that is designed to extend subsidies to emitters. As such, it is appropriate that the expertise brought to bear on the legislation should be that of the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

As I said, we are considering a measure that has an impact on the economy equivalent to that of GST, and we are considering it under urgency. Members ran out of work yesterday at 6 o’clock and went home, but the Government has us back here today, sitting under urgency on a major initiative.

The existing emissions trading scheme puts a price on the emission of greenhouse gases, which New Zealand has to account for under the Kyoto Protocol. In order to emit such gases on a continuing basis, different sectors of the economy, on a phased-in basis, would, under the existing scheme, receive a defined level of free credits in order to continue to pollute for a defined period of time. If emitters needed or wanted to pollute over that level, then they could basically buy a limited number of credits in order to do so. When they bought those credits the Government, from the revenue it gained from that purchase, would fund a series of complementary measures designed to help our economy to transition to the lower carbon using economy that we all know we need to have. It would fund home insulation, the transition to electric vehicles, and so on.

Under the amendments contained in the legislation that the Minister has just introduced, a very different scheme emerges. Under that scheme, emitters will get a much longer transitional subsidy to allow them to continue to pollute. Those emitters are allocated ongoing rights to pollute, on a so-called intensity basis, but without a cap—unlike the proposed Australian scheme. It means that emitters are incentivised to continue to increase their pollution, rather than to decrease it. It is the complete opposite of the intention of an emissions trading scheme. There is no cap in this so-called “cap and trade” scheme—no cap. The emitters have the dates on which they will enter the scheme pushed out by up to 2 years.

In the short term, the analysis in the explanatory note of the bill indicates that there will be, to 2013, an extra cost to taxpayers of about half a billion dollars as a result of those changes. Then, for the 4 years between 2013 and 2017, the costs will go down slightly, but that seems largely to be because motorists are to be brought into the scheme up to a year earlier than they would be under the existing scheme. So there will be revenues for the Government that otherwise would not have been available. But if we look at the out-years, which the Minister has blithely dismissed by saying we cannot make reliable estimates as to what will occur then, and if we look at the full table—it ought to have been tabled in the House on Tuesday—that appears on page 33 of the explanatory note of the bill, we see that the missing two columns for 2020 and 2030, which the Minister did not table earlier in the week, show a very hefty additional cost to taxpayers. By 2030 that is estimated to be an additional $2 billion a year. That is serious money. Even discounting it back in today’s money, and after 2030 it is half a billion dollars a year, in every year thereafter. We are talking about the cost of the accident compensation scheme or the prison system, about one-third of the education budget, or the entire cost of the police service being given away each year to polluters, and we will be paying for it as taxpayers.

This is neither environmentally nor fiscally sustainable, and it will have to be rolled back. Polluters like Methanex and Rio Tinto will be laughing all the way to the bank. To use the example of Methanex, it will get a billion dollars over 10 years to increase its emissions by 5 percent. That is basically the effect of the amendments that have been tabled today. This is just madness; it is utter madness.

There are another couple of matters that I want to turn to. If we look at the explanatory note of the bill, we see Treasury says the alignment with Australia, which this legislation attempts to make, is very bad public policy. Treasury points out that Australia does not even have a scheme. Treasury asks, in essence, why on earth somebody would try to harmonise with a country that does not even have a scheme and might not even have a scheme if the legislation there does not get up in the Senate in November, and that it asks why on earth public policy would proceed on that basis.

We were also told by the Minister last night, in the briefing he offered to us, that a Treaty clause is to be inserted in the final version of the legislation. But this amendment will not be introduced by the M?ori Party until the Committee of the whole House stage, which therefore means that the Finance and Expenditure Committee will not consider it and the public will have no opportunity to submit on it. The other alleged concessions to the M?ori Party that we have heard about will not be included in the bill, but will be done by way of variations to Government policy later on.

Labour will have no option but to roll back these amendments when next in office. National could have had a deal with Labour, if it had negotiated in good faith, that would have endured and would have given ongoing certainty over climate change policy. Instead, we are seeing fiscally irresponsible legislation that will harm, not help, the environment. This is a day of shame: shame for the National Government, shame for the M?ori Party, and a shame for New Zealand.