Smith Nick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Smith Nick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1098] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 It was interesting in the late 1990s when National was seriously in the pickle that the research speech notes told us that the last bastion that we could find was to criticise the then Opposition for talking New Zealand down. And so that speech from Harry Duynhoven confirmed to me just how deeply in the pickle this Labour Government has become. 
One of the things the Prime Minister said in her speech this afternoon was that the Government would meet New Zealand’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Well I have to say yeah right! We have about as much chance of meeting the commitment to the Kyoto Protocol as of putting a man on Mars. Just as Don Brash Gerry Brownlee Bill English and John Key have exposed the incompetence and the dishonesty of the Prime Minister’s address I too want to expose just how out of step Labour is in terms of the mess that it has created around Kyoto. 
The Government in its own official advice last week received this paper from Treasury from the Climate Change Office and from ministry officials. It stated: “To meet the projected Kyoto Protocol first commitment requirements through domestic emission reductions will cost more than purchasing the units on the international market.” Now what does that mean? It means that it is better and easier for New Zealand to write out a cheque for $2.5 billion—and the only people we can borrow off are the Russians—than to adopt any of the other policy options that the Government has available to it. So I ask the question: what credibility can the Prime Minister have rolling down to the House this afternoon and saying that New Zealand will meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol when the Government has not one iota of an idea as to how it will do that? 
Let us just remember what took place. In 2002 Helen Clark trotted around her socialist mates of the world proudly proclaiming that New Zealand would be the very first country in the southern hemisphere to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. She pooh-poohed John Howard and the Australian Government because they were more cautious than her. She ignored the advice of the National Opposition that it was unwise in 2002 to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. But gung-ho the Government went on and did that. It promised—Darren Hughes and Pete Hodgson promised—that New Zealand would make hundreds of millions of dollars as a consequence of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. In fact Pete Hodgson said that we would have 50 million tonnes of credits if we went ahead and ratified the Kyoto Protocol. 
Well we caught Pete Hodgson with his trousers around his ankles last year when he had to confess that there was not a 50 million - tonne credit but a 36 million tonne - deficit. Pete Hodgson in the House today said that at the time that figure was conservative—that we could rely on it getting better. That was the worst case scenario—a 36 million - tonne deficit. What did Treasury have to say last week? I will read what it said. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: A big burp! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes a bit of a biological burp. Treasury stated: “Under present conditions latest indications are that foresters intend to deforest 47000 hectares of forest. If this level of deforestation occurs it will add another 32 million tonnes of deficit nearly doubling the figures from last year to 68 million tonnes.” 
Listeners may be asking what 68 million tonnes means in terms of the cost to Kiwi taxpayers. How much has Helen Clark and Pete Hodgson’s folly cost them? Well this week the Minister said that it will cost about $500 million. So we asked the Minister what carbon price he was working on. He said it was $7 a tonne. Well let us hang on a moment. On the international marketplace today in Europe carbon is at $37 a tonne. This is not a $500 million problem. It is actually a $3 billion problem that Helen Clark and Pete Hodgson have got us into. 
There is something else that I have not accounted for and the Minister had to confess this to the  
New Zealand Herald 
: those calculations assume a reduction of 13 million tonnes in carbon use from the carbon tax. But hello hello we do not have a carbon tax any more. That was one of the ideas that Labour abandoned. It listened to National. But what Labour has not said is that that would actually make the figure not 32 million tonnes worse than they told us last year but 55 million tonnes worse. Now that is a monumental botch-up. In my 15 years in this Parliament I cannot remember a cock-up of that scale. 
But the situation is worse than that. The Auditor-General told the select committee in December that the Government had breached the Public Finance Act in not disclosing the size of those losses. In fact I will read quite specifically what the Auditor-General told the select committee: “The ministry has incurred unappropriated expenditure of $309 million. This has been notified to the Minister of Finance and will require validating legislation.” That means the Government broke the law and now it will retrospectively pass a law to fix that up. 
It is even worse than that and I want to put this in the context of the debate that occurred prior to the last election. Mr Hodgson stood up in this Parliament and said he had no updated figures in respect of New Zealand’s liabilities under the Kyoto Protocol. Two weeks earlier he had received official papers showing the extent of his cock-up. What makes the situation even worse is that the ruling from the Speaker with regard to Mr Benson-Pope that a member cannot lay a privileges complaint if it applies to the previous Parliament means I cannot lodge a privileges complaint against Minister Pete Hodgson for misleading the House about what was known. What we have now in this Parliament is a recipe for Ministers to lie like troopers in this House. Prior to the election— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As you might expect I take offence at the member’s remarks and ask that they be withdrawn. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has taken offence under Standing Order 116 “Personal reflections”. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is not a personal reflection. I am just stating the facts of the case. What I said— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am on my feet. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am speaking to the point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am on my feet at the moment. The member has taken exception under Standing Order 116 to a personal reflection. I ask the member to stand and withdraw. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: You can ask me to withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker only if you are specific about what I said that caused offence. I outlined the situation relating to what Mr Hodgson told the House and I pointed out the advice that the select committee had received. I think you have to be specific about what caused offence. The Minister cannot just stand up and say he does not like what I said and that he does not actually care whether it is true or not. Nothing that I said was outside the Standing Order. You need to be specific about what it is I need to withdraw and apologise for. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is my understanding that Mr Hodgson has taken exception to what was said because of the inference that he was not telling the truth to the House. That is as I understand it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I did not say that. 
Hon Member 
: You did. You said he lied like a trooper. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No I said that the recipe we now have whereby it is not possible to lay a complaint of privilege about a matter that occurred in the previous Parliament is an invitation for Ministers—of whatever political persuasion—to lie like troopers prior to an election because there is no means of account for doing that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. The member has actually compounded the situation by using the word “lie”. He knows that is absolutely out of order in this Parliament because it is not an inference against the member but against the whole House. I ask the member to withdraw and continue. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I think you are incorrect Mr Speaker but I withdraw. All I am saying is that we have created an awful precedent for this Parliament. There is now no means of recourse when the record is absolutely as plain as day in respect of Ministers. 
I ask Government members how they are going to meet the Prime Minister’s commitment in respect of the Kyoto Protocol. You have done a U-turn on the “fart tax” you have done a U-turn on the carbon tax you have had to completely abandon the numbers that you gave to the people of New Zealand and I say— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Please do not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is very clear that the Labour Government has misled the people of New Zealand by saying there would be hundreds of millions of dollars of credits from the Kyoto Protocol. It was wrong. Nobody from the Government has put a hand up and said that he or she was to blame for that. It is nobody’s fault and what we see—as was so eloquently expressed by Don Brash today in the House—is a Government that has no credibility. On no issue is the Government so lacking in credibility as on the very serious multibillion-dollar pickle that New Zealand now has itself in over the Kyoto Protocol. 
The truth is that the Prime Minister has absolutely no idea how New Zealand is going to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol which she has locked us into. She has no idea at all. It is little wonder that the headline in the  
Nelson Mail 
 tonight is that Weyerhaeuser is completely abandoning the forest industry in New Zealand and is pulling out of investing. How can this Labour Party talk about transformation of the economy with the sort of con the sort of dishonesty and the sort of incompetence that we have seen over the Kyoto Protocol? This Government has done its time; it is time it went. I invite this Parliament to back the vote of no confidence because the scale of this cock-up deserves nothing less than that.