The Emissions Trading Scheme Bill is scheduled to return to Parliament this Thursday, and the Govt will be wanting to make the deadline because Parliament doesn’t sit again after this week until October 13. Climate Change Minister Nick Smith will be wanting Select Committee hearings well under way and possibly even wrapping up by about then.

A regulatory impact statement is expected to be tabled with the Bill, much of which was already drafted by officials. John Key was unable to give a timetable for the Bill’s return to Parliament, but if it’s to be law before the Copenhagen climate change summit starts on Dec 7, it could well end up being passed under Urgency in sittings set down for the last fortnight of November.
The biggest loose end appears to be the detail of a deal with the Maori Party. While the Bill to be introduced this week will have a clause spelling out some principles around Treaty settlement assets whose value is affected by the ETS, Key is indicating plenty of haggling to come in the Select Committee phase. It’s also here the Govt still hopes it can get Labour to pick up the phone again. Smith is less than convinced Labour was ready to play as straight a bat as it’s claimed after it was jilted in favour of the deal with the Maori Party, which Labour’s climate change spokesman Charles Chauvel is describing as “a breathtaking abandonment of principle” by Labour’s former political allies.

Chauvel says Labour remains committed to a bi-partisan consensus, but is “at a loss as to how this would happen now.” For Labour, the bottom line is still it cannot accept an intensity-based method for free allocation of emissions units unless there is a cap on emissions growth built in. Otherwise, it says there is too little pressure to change industrial and farming production processes imposed on industries, while consumers and taxpayers will pay full whack for NZ’s obligations under whatever global treaty emerges after Copenhagen.

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Smith, however, acknowledges the Govt’s ETS annoucements do not rule out an intensity cap. Asked whether there could be a cap placed on such a scheme at some point, Smith agreed “there could,” but pointed to the first formal review of the ETS, scheduled for 2011. Smith told NZ Energy & Environment Business Week he is “not necessarily opposed” to a cap on intensity-based emissions allocations, but the Govt’s priority had been to settle things for 2013. “It is very much a transitional measure to deal with leakage for a small country that is quite trade-exposed.”

Chauvel is particularly irked at the secret process which has led to Treaty settlement forests becoming a special class of assets. The Maori Party itself is tight-lipped on negotiations, referring media inquiries to members of the powerful Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group, which includes Ngai Tahu CEO Mark Solomon, Paul Morgan of the Federation of Maori Authorities, Apirana Mahuika from Ngati Porou, and Tuwharetoa aristocrat Timi Te Heu Heu.

Disbelief among Labour and Green MPs over the Maori Party’s actions is fuelling speculation there may be a wider deal between National and the Maori Party, relating to the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

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