Hughes Darren: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6217] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on Part 1 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. It sets out the amendments that the Government seeks to make to the principal Act in order that our country can face the most significant challenge of our time which the Opposition is finally waking up to. 
It is very interesting to follow Dr Nick Smith’s contribution because in recent times he has talked about wanting to take a great bipartisan stand on this issue. Was that speech not a great example of bipartisanship? He criticised every initiative the Government has taken to date he criticised the personalities of the Ministers involved he said the Government was not doing enough and he bagged our own country in relation to the United States and Australia—and this is the great example we have today of bipartisanship! This is a very interesting way for the National Party to behave. 
It was interesting that Nick Smith said that the National Party despite all these things would be supporting Part 1. He started off by saying that National wanted to be bipartisan he bagged all of Part 1 then he got to the end of his speech and said National would support the bill because he was now a Bluegreen. 
It was interesting to note that when the bill was read for the first time in the House the putative leader of the National Party John Key said with regard to the clauses in Part 1 that he was rising on behalf of the National Party “to give the good news to the people of New Zealand—that is the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is a load of rubbish and the National Party will not be supporting it for very very good reasons indeed.” John Key the member for Helensville who is prancing around at the moment and getting ready to take over the National Party leadership came to the House and said National would be opposing Part 1 because it was a load of rubbish. 
Then the expert on rubbish Dr Smith criticised the Government’s policies said he wanted to be bipartisan then said he would vote in support of Part 1. It is pretty clear that the National Party’s approach on climate change is all over the place. 
The clauses we are implementing in Part 1 came under direct attack by the National Party during the election campaign. National members went around belittling climate change by linking it to only the Kyoto agreement. They made jokes about Kyoto the whole time. They ridiculed and made puerile and infantile remarks about the so-called “fart tax” which was a scientific research response to try to cope with the fact that half of our emissions happen to come from animals—which is obviously not the animals’ fault but we have to try to do what we can in our own country. 
Once that topic was dropped National members went around saying they also opposed the carbon tax. So every single climate change initiative that has come before Parliament has been opposed by the National Party. It has ridiculed these initiatives and said the problems do not exist. But all of a sudden a few National members saw a movie made by Al Gore and now they are great converts to the theory of climate change. I am sure that such thinkers and luminaries as Mark Blumsky went to the late screening at Rialto came out as absolute converts to the theory of climate change and said we have to do something about it. 
I pick up on one point that Dr Smith made when he was demeaning our country in relation to Australia and the United States. The fact is that New Zealand’s emissions are lower in total than in those two countries and on a per person basis and on a per unit of GDP basis. New Zealand’s emissions are lower. Why the National Party persists in trying to criticise us in relation to the two countries of the developed world who have not signed the Kyoto Protocol is an absolute mystery to me. The reality is that even if we were not implementing the changes in this bill—and I am glad we are implementing clauses 3 to 29 of Part 1—New Zealand has a much better chance of meeting our 1990 emission levels than Australia does. This country is doing very well in regard to our response to climate change and I pick up on the member’s points on forestry— 
Eric Roy 
: Oh baloney! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: The member for Invercargill has not proposed one single climate change response policy. He has opposed all the things the Labour Government has wanted to do. National put out a brochure in the last couple of weeks and it wants to be congratulated on being the great thinkers on climate change. Where has National been? National members have been absolutely nowhere on these issues apart from opposing them and making jokes out of them. But all of a sudden they have decided that something should be done even though they are not quite sure what. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: They have only just got Ian Ewen-Street on board; give them a chance. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: The great success of Ian Ewen-Street he having gone from defecting and scabbing on the Green Party to going over to the Nats is that he has managed to put out a brochure about climate change. National members want us to congratulate them and say they have now invented environmental awareness. According to National Party members we do not need Part 1 because they are now the guardians—the kaitiaki. Those members cannot use Maori words so that is a slight difficulty but if they did use Maori words they would be the kaitiaki of the environment. 
This is just an absolute joke. There are also references in Part 1 to the permanent forest sinks initiative which the Minister will no doubt want to comment on as we move through the debate on Part 1. But I thought it would be useful to put on record that the Government and parties that have been awake to these issues for a long time will be supporting Part 1 of the bill and will do so with pride.