Peters Winston: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 23 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4733. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Some people have 30 years of experience and some people have 1 year’s experience 30 times over. I will leave it to you to decide which category we just heard from John Banks. But where is this place called “Oh-ta-huhu”? You know there is a suburb in Auckland called Otahuhu but it is not “Oh-ta-huhu”. After all this time in 2012 we really should be doing better than that. I want to say that whether a believer or a sceptic what matters to New Zealand as an export-dependent nation is how the world sees us on this issue and more particularly what our international customers’ and markets’ perceptions are of this country. That means an irrational response to international concerns could cost New Zealand dearly. 
But let us be honest. What you get in this Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill all 79 pages of it and its size and its complexity leads you to conclude one word: Kafkaesque. This is the master of the absurd. Have a look at it—79 pages. This will keep an army of lawyers busy for years. Anybody in the legal profession or at Victoria University Canterbury University Auckland University or Otago University law schools be assured you have got a job certainly when you leave university because if we have this sort of mishmash of nonsense then it will be a lawyer’s lifeline. Whether it will help stop climate change is entirely doubtful. You have heard about the law of unintended consequences and that law of unintended consequences comes through on every page. Climate change is happening it is a serious issue and New Zealand First is not in denial about it but all strategies to address the climate change issue must be practical fair clearly understandable and comprehensive. This emissions trading scheme as amended here falls well short on every count. Trying to patch up the emissions trading scheme is not the answer to climate change. 
We maintain that the role of the State must be to strike a balance between economic progress and appropriate environmental goals. The climate change response debate is about where that balance should be and whether the emissions trading scheme is the best tool. Our policy as we campaigned on with the last manifesto is that we are against the emissions trading scheme in principle because it does not decrease emissions; it just moves them around to those economies that can afford to buy carbon credits. That is all it does. It does not decrease emissions; it just moves them around to those economies that can afford to buy more carbon credits. It is like making petrol more expensive instead of funding the technology to make cars that are more fuel-efficient or making cars that do not use petrol in the first place. The emissions trading scheme devised by this Government is unsustainable. Adopting an approach of market forces on this issue will not work. The emissions trading scheme is just another tax on people and production. 
I want to ask my friends in the Green Party: why have you gone for a scheme where all the capitalists get to run the whole show? How foolish can you be—to give it to a bunch of New York people to run. How silly is that? Will we be advantaged as a nation? No we will not be. We do not subscribe to a Wall Street takeover of the environment and profiteering out of just one more distortion of market forces. Carbon credit banks that turn environmentalism into a speculative business is not the pathway for New Zealand. New Zealand First advocates that this serious issue be handled by Government and industry working together. Industry and agriculture would be far more cooperative with a fair domestic regulatory regime. Why are we paying a fortune to some other country? In this well-understood situation— 
Hon John Banks 
: Are you going to support it? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Look we are not going to support what the ACT Party says. And fancy mentioning John Boscawen! Ha ha! Boy I have heard of a few John the Baptists but not John Boscawen. 
Back to my point: in this well-understood situation and with many sustainable energy sources being available negotiated performance standards Government-assisted research and development and a carbon tax incentive to change are much better options than the uncontrolled financial machinations of an emissions trading scheme where there will be no opportunity for a long-term plan of managed change and improvement. The bottom line is it is going to cost about $2 billion - plus. That can be much better used to pay and repay debt. We are in need of a national understanding of the importance of climate change but we say to those sceptics and cynics your customers will decide what you do. You can take the arrogant attitude and you can forget about it but if your customers internationally say “Sorry we won’t deal with you.” then you will change overnight. 
We are against having a Wall Street - type of operation on this critical issue. It was all in the manifesto at the last election and we did do—what—seven times better than the ACT Party with no resources no financial resources and no man in a yellow jacket running around spending money like an eight-armed octopus. No we did it all with a simple appeal to the ordinary people of this country and if we had got a fair go we would have hosed in. We all know that. 
Hon John Banks 
: Where are the real members? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Where are the real members? Well I tell you what: we packed in our opening a hall of 800 people and that party had a telephone booth for its launch. There were 800 at our meeting and in its telephone booth—in fact it was a disgrace. 
I want to say something. One of the reasons that I personally pushed for and established the New Zealand embassy in Stockholm Sweden was that we have a lot to learn from the Scandinavians on these issues. They are light years ahead of us on the environment and they are light years ahead of us in terms of economic performance. They have managed to do both so I sought to establish a connection with the Scandinavian countries—all the four successful ones: Finland Norway Denmark and Sweden—in the biggest city there in Stockholm and there we got under way with a lot to learn from them and now they have the Government keeping on saying “Oh look Norway does this. Why don’t you people agree with that?”. But here is the point. In its petulance the Government shut it down—just got in and shut it down all of a sudden. Now it mentions Scandinavia like any port in a storm on the issue of development because it suits it. And Mr Groser will know full well that whilst he might be travelling around the embassies they cannot wait to put arsenic in his tea or in that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs because they are enraged at what is going on in that department. Scandinavian investment would have been very very sound for this country and when we get back which will be very very soon we are going to re-establish the embassy. 
Hon John Banks 
: Ha ha! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh do not worry about that. I would not laugh. Mr Banks the last person I would laugh at is New Zealand First because our track record is to have been within one seat in nearly every election of either having the balance of power or holding the balance of power. 
Hon John Banks 
: I’ve got the balance of power. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Within one seat—within one seat. No no. Mr Banks says he has got the balance of power. Look a bought man is never going to have any power. A bought man is always powerless. When John Key says: “Jump.” John Banks says: “How high?”. Where is the power in that? Where is the power in that? No there is no excitement-filled majesty. It has actually destroyed the steel and the spirit of that ACT Party. It is on a rollercoaster to oblivion. I am so sad that Mr Banks decided that it was a good idea to come back to this Parliament because it must be oh so lonely—oh so lonely. 
Hon John Banks 
: The caucus meetings are easy. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Now some of us—I know caucus meetings must be easy but every now and again when you are rattling around the office all by yourself you must think to yourself: “What on earth did I ever do coming back here? First of all I am a bought man; second I’ve got to do what I’m told; and third I have nothing to contribute any more because nobody in the country is interested in what the ACT Party has got to say.” On all three things— 
Hon John Banks 
: I’m here to keep you there Winston. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: —on all three things—that is a sad indictment. 
But back to my point on this legislation. We are against a scheme where the operators of New York can use a critical issue like the environment to their personal advantage. I know why the ACT Party would support it I know why the National Party would support it but I have got no idea why anyone on this side of the House would support that. There is one party in this Parliament that knows what is going on and we have set our mind against this because it is against our national interests and it does not advance the cause that it seeks to address in the first place. Thank you very much.