Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:627;Page:21739] 
1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Hon Pete Hodgson Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Change; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Dr Don Brash 
: How can the Prime Minister continue to have confidence in the Minister responsible for making a billion-dollar bungle over New Zealand’s carbon credit position who repeatedly abused critics who accurately told him that his assessment of our carbon credit position was flawed? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Many members of this House over a long period of time have accepted officials’ advice about the projections. I assume that Nick Smith will be asking for his own resignation as National’s environment spokesperson. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister think it is OK for a Minister to go around the country selling a policy on the basis that its opponents would be “burning up a cheque for $200 million” only to be then proven completely wrong; and what does she have to say today to New Zealanders who have been seriously misled by the Minister? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I have said over many years many members of this House and Ministers from previous Governments as well have accepted the projections made by officials at the time they were made. Of course New Zealand did not ratify the protocol to make money; it ratified it because we do not want to be freeloaders. 
Dail Jones 
: Why does the Prime Minister still have confidence in the convenor when he advocates a Kyoto policy that will now cost New Zealanders and this Government on previous calculations at least in excess of $1 billion per annum which is in excess for example of the annual amount needed to implement New Zealand First’s policy to increase the retirement income of superannuitants from 65 percent of the average ordinary-time weekly wage to 72.5 percent as provided by section 16 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act and still have money left over? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member is throwing around figures a little loosely. I thought I heard the cost would be $500 million over 5 years. Given that under a Labour Government GDP growth has averaged $8 billion a year I would say that we are in a rather healthy position. 
Rodney Hide 
: How can New Zealand possibly have any confidence in a Minister who went down to Southland and assured businesses there that “the ACT party has been against this from the start but New Zealand could stand to make a couple of hundred million dollars from this. Would they set fire to a $200 million cheque?” and can she confirm that this cheque has now turned into a multi-hundred-million-dollar liability for the transition stage and that beyond 2012 the Kyoto commitments will cost New Zealand many billions of dollars when they fully come into force? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I will credit ACT with probably being the only party in the House that has consistently opposed ratification of the protocol. Other parties including the National Party have consistently accepted officials’ advice that New Zealand would be in a net positive position. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister believe that the Minister owes Dr Alex Sundakov an apology after he described Dr Sundakov’s methodology in his analysis of New Zealand’s carbon credit position as “at the bottom end of credibility” and the liability on New Zealand’s part as “unproven and unlikely” given that Dr Sundakov’s analysis turned out to be very much more accurate than the Minister’s? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I am not aware of the methodology Dr Sundakov used I could not comment. What I do know is that Governments for many years have employed officials to give advice and the fact is that Ministers act on that advice. Former National ministers did. Nick Smith did when he announced National’s policy. And now National has flip-flopped again. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister see any irony in proposals by some in this House to withdraw from Kyoto just as the Pentagon has advised President Bush that climate change is a greater threat to humanity than terrorism and would not abandoning our efforts to preserve a stable climate at this stage amount to economic sabotage? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Abandoning the ratification now would see New Zealand stand with a very small number of countries that have refused to ratify. To comment on the science the science academies of all the G8 nations now say that the projections about climate change and the damage it will do to our world are indeed valid. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Prime Minister be clear as to whether she is telling the House that she would have still ratified the Kyoto Protocol if she knew what she knows now which is that we have moved from being a net seller of carbon credits to having a huge liability—something in the vicinity of half a billion dollars; would she still have signed? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Absolutely because the reason New Zealand went in was not to make money. It was so that we do not freeload on other countries’ efforts. National may want to freeload; Labour does not. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Prime Minister think that New Zealanders sufficiently understand that according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s own figures even if all the countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol were to meet their promised commitments which in New Zealand could mean a taxpayer bill of $1 billion by 2050 that would reduce the estimated climate change temperature by only 0.02 percent or 2 degrees centigrade; if so does she think that that is worth $1 billion? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: If the member were talking about an effect of 2 degrees centigrade that is actually quite a lot. A country like New Zealand with its very significant pastoral and forestry industries and horticulture does need a mild stable climate. We have long term a great deal to gain from mitigating the effects of global warming. 
Larry Baldock 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister may have misheard me but I quoted 0.02 degrees centigrade. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you for that clarification. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that the figures in this officials’ report are still just projections based on the assumption that New Zealand will do nothing to reduce its greenhouse emissions between now and 2012; if so will she commit to a whole-of-Government programme to improve energy efficiency and to develop renewable energy if she is re-elected in September? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Yes I understand that that is the assumption—that nothing would be done. Of course a great deal can be and must be done. That is something I look forward to leading in my third term as Prime Minister. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Prime Minister agree with Philippe Sands the British law professor who is currently touring the country that countries such as Australia and the USA and the exempted countries of China and India which have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol will ultimately have to pay a tariff on their goods and whatever else; if so when will she start urging that that action should come into play? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I make two points. Australia and the United States are among the very very few Western nations that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Secondly China and India as I understand it have ratified it but their obligations are to be negotiated for future commitment periods. In response to the substance of the member’s question I think it entirely likely in future that countries that are not meeting international environmental standards and obligations could well find new kinds of trade barriers erected against them.