Saplings, stalking, and spying: Government bills this week

This week in Parliament is a Members' Week, with Wednesday evening dedicated to debating non-government legislation.

Members' Days cut into government time for lawmaking, so they have now added Wednesday morning to the schedule (rather than the usual 2pm start time for a sitting day) to maintain momentum.

This week's bills are a mixture of unfinished business from last week and other bills plucked from the Order Paper that area waiting their respective next stages. Of particular interest are;

ETS reform

The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme-Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill is back in the House after truncated consideration by the Environment Committee.

The bill seeks to address growing concerns about the conversion of farms into "exotic" forestry land, under the auspices of the Emissions Trading Scheme. The word exotic may evoke visions of coconut palms or banana trees, but it is the mass planting of pine trees that has largely been at the centre of the issue.

Obviously not all farmland is the same, and New Zealand employs the Land Use Capability (LUC) scale to distinguish highly productive, arable land (LUC class 1) from very unproductive land (LUC class 8). This bill would determine a farm's eligibility for ETS registration based on its LUC rating and restrict the amount of exotic forestry conversion on farmland with an LUC rating between 1 and 6.

"The current settings in the emissions trading scheme have tipped the scales too far," said the minister in charge of the bill, Todd Mclay, during the first reading. "We're seeing entire farms converted into exotic forests under the ETS from Invercargill to Ruatōria. These are not marginal lands; these are productive farms supporting families, communities, and local economies. Once they are planted into exotic carbon forests, they are, effectively, lost to food production for decades, if not permanently so."

In that same debate, Labour offered what they have called very cautious support for the bill, citing the need to carefully work through issues in select committee.

Meanwhile, the Green Party, who are against the bill, have said the real issue is that the whole concept of carbon offsetting is inherently flawed. "The fiction of offsetting has the same practical impact as an alcoholic paying somebody to drink water and thinking that they have solved their drinking problem", said Steve Abel. "That is the distortion that we have in this country to this day, and what's more, the person who's drinking all the water's making a lot of money and thinking that they're doing something about alcoholism, but they're not at all."

Public works, stalking, and spying

There have been a number of bills this parliament relating to infrastructure, consenting, and public works, and getting those things done fast. This week's bill aims to speed up the acquisition of private land that is desired for projects listed in the Fast Track Approvals law, or under the Roads of National Significance programme.

The Public Works debate was one of the three (Government Bill) committee stages this week. In the committee stage, debate is not time-limited, so it took a while, but was eventually wrapped up by midday Wednesday, before the House moved onto the second committee stage - the Hauraki Gulf / Tikapa Moana Marine Protection Bill, which was interrupted part of the way through its third and final part.

The third planned committee stage was for a new stalking law (though the slow pace of debating makes progress on this bill this week unlikely). The last time this bill was in the House was for its second reading, when it received unanimous support from all parties after a robust select committee stage, during which several amendments were adopted.

"The committee recommended a broader definition for the pattern of behaviour," National's Erica Stanford explained. "The offence will now require two specified acts within two years, rather than three specified acts within one year. This broadens the pattern of behaviour by capturing fewer acts across a longer time frame. I agree that this change will better address strategies such as anniversary-based stalking. It will also make it harder for stalkers to work around the law."

Ginny Andersen is Labour's spokesperson on this. She applauded the adopted amendments but was worried that a remaining aspect might make prosecution difficult - intent.

"Currently, it must be proven that the stalker acted knowingly, that their behaviour is likely to cause fear or distress to their target, so it means that the stalker has to know that their behaviour is likely to cause fear or distress. Proving that intent of someone who is lying or is genuinely deluded about how another person feels about them may well be extremely difficult to prove in a court of law and this is concerning."

Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith has a second key bill up this week - The Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill, which may resume its second reading (interrupted last week), probably on Thursday afternoon (but only if the pace of debating is brisk).

It intends to fill gaps in criminal law concerning clandestine actions made on behalf of foreign actors intending to harm New Zealand, which the Government has said there has been an increased risk of. This law change would introduce treason, inciting mutiny or espionage - all on behalf of foreign actors - as new offences. Only the Green Party voted against the Bill at its first reading, although Te Pāti Māori were absent for the vote.

Finally, among Thursday's bills is a brand new government bill, the recently announced bill to prohibit mounting protests outside someone's private residence.

You can listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the link near the top of the page.

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