Speech: Katene - Sustainable Biofuel Bill

Sustainable Biofuel Bill : First Reading
Rahui Katene, MP for Te Tai Tonga
Wednesday 29 July 2009

I am really pleased to be able to stand in support of this Bill to amends the relevant legislation order to ensure that biofuels supplied or sold in NZ from 1 May 2010 are sustainable biofuels.

The Maori Party supported the Biofuel Bill which introduced the biofuel sales obligation; and we subsequently opposed the bill introduced in the early days of this Government to repeal that bill.

In light of the repeal bill, we were really pleased when Minister Brownlee announced, as part of Budget 2009, $36 million was available for a new grants programme for biodiesel production.

We saw this as a great opportunity for rural marae communities to showcase their ability to use their traditional social and industry systems to be key players in the emerging biofuel industry.

I take a particular interest in the development of biofuels.

One of my iwi, Ngati Koata, is in the process of establishing a biofuel plant. Our original intention was that we would sell on the biofuels to users of static machinery, such as school boilers.

We started off looking for tallow, but we realise there are uncertainties around the supply, and so we are now investigating other sources.

Of course we are not the only iwi who have invested in biofuel manufacturing infrastructure.

Taharoa C Block Incorporation came to the Climate Change Review Select Committee and shared their experience, including the development of the Miscanthus species for biofuel production from marginal land which they considered to be a very promising bio-fuel project.

This Bill, then, has the potential to make an important contribution to climate change initiatives; to help provide options for employment, and to express energy rangatiratanga.

We are very interested in being involved in the interpretation of what is a sustainable biofuel, which the Bill recommends should be made by regulation by 1 February 2010.

The definition of exactly what we mean by sustainability is the crux issue.

We all know that importing biofuels is problematic given that fuel is required to transport the biofuel, in addition to the fuel required to create the biofuel. So, as the price of oil rises, so too does the relative price of energy alternatives.

We are concerned that the phrase, ‘sustainability’ can be tossed around, perhaps carelessly, as though merely using the word is sufficient to create a sustainable society.

We have been interested in the view of Dr Albert Bartlett - Head of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr Bartlett’s analysis leads us to look again at the concept of sustainable growth, in the sense of endlessly increasing. Because of course the resources aren’t unlimited, there isn’t an open-ended supply.

The finite size of resources, ecosystems, the environment, and the Earth, lead to the most fundamental truth of sustainability: that in fact the term “sustainable growth" is an oxymoron

And so while we support this Bill and the principles of sustainable biofuels, we must do much more than adjusting a regulation on paper.

We must look anew at the way we approach environmental management, the efficient use of water, and the conservation of energy.

The Maori Party has constantly promoted the importance of reducing our dependence on oil by strategies to reuse, recycle, repair, respect, replace and trade local.

We must do all that we can we support the development of renewable and sustainable energy resources, in order to protect and preserve limited resources such as oil, gas and coal.

And so this Bill is an important step along the journey

But we stress it is only a small step. Biofuel energy production is not energy production. With or without them, the critical fact is that we need to radically change how we live.

A safe, environmentally sound, and economically viable energy pathway that will sustain human progress into the distant future must be the horizon we all seek to achieve – and we must start to do something about it now.

In that spirit, we give our support to this Bill, and thank Jeanette Fitzsimons for her proactive initiative in putting it forward.

ENDS