The Settlement Systems, Futures, and Emissions Units Bill is designed to help facilitate trading in emissions units through the development of carbon markets. It will apply regardless of whether the units are issued by the New Zealand Government, via international protocols, or by other Governments. The bill allows for a broadening of how an emissions unit is defined—this is very important given that carbon trading is still in its infancy, particularly in this part of the world. The bill also provides a basis for establishing the legal title to emissions units, much like the title surrounding, for example, tradable shares. Participants in the carbon trading system—which is voluntary—who wish to become designated and then maintain that status must ensure that their operating rules meet certain standards, including international standards and those of the joint regulators, the Reserve Bank and the Securities Commission. This provision concerning joint regulation is the result of a change recommended by the Commerce Committee.

This bill would help—but is no means vital—to set up and implement the emissions trading scheme. The bill was before the House last year, because it was introduced by the previous Labour Government in September 2008, but since then we have had a change of Government and seen a drastic shift in policy surrounding climate change and emissions trading. It has not been a shift to the country’s benefit. Because of this Government’s lack of direction on climate change, we have missed out on—but could have had—a world-leading carbon market. That could have placed us at the forefront of environmental and climate change policy and reinforced our place as a role model in the international community. However, the Government’s lack of direction on climate change has limited the possibility of our making any gains on the environmental and emissions trading front. We have seen dithering from this Government in the areas of climate change policy and emissions trading.

To begin with, the Government’s delaying of the emissions trading scheme has already caused our emerging carbon markets to grind to a halt. The forestry sector has suffered hugely from this, due to a documented lack of international investment. Foresters remain unsure of whether to sell their credits, trade them, or just sit on them—assuming they took an allocation of credits when the allocation became available. The dithering over forestry, combined with the repeal of the preference for renewable electricity generation, the removal of the biofuels obligation, the replacement of the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy—for which there is still no alternative—and the confusion in generation policy, caused by the confusion evinced by the Minister of Energy and Resources, Gerry Brownlee, over the existence, or not, of the 90 percent renewables target, has left New Zealand well down the order when it comes to climate change initiatives. So this bill is important and needs to be brought forward quickly in order to allow us to salvage what we can out of the carbon trading space. It is a real shame that it was not brought forward much more quickly. This is just another example of how this Government is mucking around in the important area of climate change.

I welcome Ms Shanks back from Europe. I am sure she would have heard much criticism of New Zealand’s backsliding when she was there. This bill provides us with yet more evidence of that backsliding. I do not know what the Government thinks that it will get by way of a welcome at Copenhagen—[Interruption]—apart from the “Fossil of the Year” award, perhaps, as my colleague Moana Mackey just said. It certainly will not be a warm welcome, and it certainly will not accord with the Government’s wish to get policy concessions in important areas like forestry and land use. That is certain, given the reputation we seem to have garnered in the last year of not taking this area seriously.

The other disappointment is that this bill has not been given higher priority on the Order Paper—even though the House, I might add, has been under urgency for the last 6 parliamentary weeks. This is a concern, because the bill should have been treated with more urgency. It is one of the few in the urgency motion that actually merits its place. The Government is intending to ram through an undermined emissions trading scheme, yet it is dragging its feet on implementing the necessary regulatory framework to create a sound environment for the emissions trading scheme to operate in—namely, this bill. If the Government’s attitude to consultation over the emissions trading scheme—which has been to avoid consultation and democracy, as we have seen over the last couple of weeks in the select committee—is carried over to bills such as this one, which supports an emissions trading scheme, then we should be seriously worried that, in setting up such a framework, stakeholders may not be able to have as much input as would be desirable and beneficial.

We are fortunate that the financial sector has been helpful in making submissions on this legislation to the Commerce Committee, which is so ably chaired by my friend and colleague Lianne Dalziel. I hope that it will continue to make that sort of constructive input, because the Government’s attitude to input so far really does not offer much encouragement. If the passing of this bill had been expedited and there had not been the dilly-dallying over climate change policy that we have seen over the last year, New Zealand would by now have a leading carbon registry. National could have taken up the previous Labour Government’s initiative on the emissions trading scheme and pushed through supporting legislation such as this.

Let us look at what this has cost us, apart from the forestry example I gave earlier. TZ1 could have been the prototype of an international carbon registry. It could have given us a huge competitive advantage, given where we were moving in climate change policy and our geographical advantage. Mr Lotu-Iiga knows about this, because he has experience in this sector. Given our time zone, it could have been of great advantage to us to have a leading international carbon registry. But now that has been sold to overseas interests. Perhaps the outcome reflects the Government’s lack of confidence in managing things, or perhaps it reveals, more worryingly, the fact that it really does not care about implementing sound climate change policy. The tragic truth is that it is probably a bit of both.

Labour will continue to support the progress of this bill through the House, but with reservations in regard to the Government’s treatment of it and the issues that surround it. We reflect with regret on the consequences I have outlined—the loss of a chance to be an outstanding and forward-thinking international citizen and the loss of the opportunity, through TZ1, to be a global leader in carbon registries. It is important to record, here and now, that the blame for those two issues lies fairly and squarely at the feet of the National Government, supported on this shameful occasion by the Maori Party.