DairyNZ submits on Emissions Trading Scheme Reform Bill

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Last week DairyNZ appeared before Parliament's Environment Select Committee to make a submission on the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme Reform Bill.

Due to its highly technical nature, this Bill might not be as "sexy" as the Zero Carbon Bill in terms of the hype and media attention, but it is still of huge significance for both farmers and the rest of New Zealand as a part of the climate change framework.

"The Emissions Trading Scheme Reform Bill, most people probably haven't heard of it ... but this is kind of where the rubber hits the road on some of these targets" DairyNZ National Policy Manager Paul Melville told The Country Early Edition's Rowena Duncum.

In many ways, this Bill is the first step to putting the decisions in the Zero Carbon Bill into practice said Melville.

Listen below:

"They both amend the same Bill and it gets very complicated very fast".

The detail around emissions trading settings was released in late December, while submissions were due January 17.

"About two weeks later we were in front of the committee" said Melville, who mentioned it was "a bit of a scurry over the Christmas break to pull this together."

There were also only three MP's available to hear submissions from sector organisations like DairyNZ, Federated Farmers, Beef+Lamb.

"It was a bit of a low-showing in our minds [considering] how much impact this could have".

Also in today's interview: Melville looked into the financial implications in terms of carbon prices and what the next step is for emissions pricing.