Boscawen John: General Debate 
Boscawen John: General Debate 
[Volume:664;Page:12315] 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 Tomorrow New Zealand will be introducing the emissions trading scheme. We will be world leaders in climate change despite the Prime Minister’s promise not to be. I say that because no lesser person than the Minister for Climate Change Issues the Hon Dr Nick Smith told this Parliament on 24 September last year and again on 24 November that we would be the first country in the world outside of Europe to have an emissions trading scheme and that it would be “the most comprehensive in the world”. Those are not my words; those are the words of the Hon Dr Nick Smith. 
The ACT Party has led a campaign to try to build political awareness and political support for the postponement of the emissions trading scheme. I stood in this Parliament and spoke in the general debate on 24 March this year and I was optimistic. At that time France had just abandoned its own proposed carbon tax. Over the last 3 months Rodney Hide and I have held over 40 public meetings on this subject. We were optimistic and we were particularly optimistic when Australia announced that it would be deferring its emissions trading scheme until at least 2013. Now on 30 June—the eve of 1 July—it is obvious that our scheme will proceed. 
What is the cost to New Zealanders of New Zealand taking this leadership position? What is the cost to use Dr Nick Smith’s words of having the “most comprehensive” emissions trading scheme in the world? Well the price of electricity will rise the price of petrol will rise the price of heating will rise and the price of pretty much everything else will rise. The very food that we eat will increase in price. In particular our exporters and our businesses will be exposed. 
The Government says that the cost to New Zealanders will be $3 a week but we know that that is a gross underestimation. The cost will be at least $5 a week. Some people can comfortably afford $5 extra but for hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged New Zealanders on low incomes that additional $5 a week will be substantial. The increased costs of electricity and petrol alone are a consequence of the emissions trading scheme. 
That figure of $5 extra is very easily justifiable; one simply has to look at the very numbers that Dr Nick Smith has tabled in the House. He has quoted the example of the average household using 8000 units of electricity at an additional price of 1c a unit. That same household he says drives 28000 kilometres at a cost of 3c a litre. I say that it is simple mathematics to deduce that the cost of the emissions trading scheme to the average household of electricity and petrol alone is $165 a year or $3.17 a week. But the Minister for Climate Change Issues the Prime Minister and the whole of the National caucus seem to misunderstand that they are grossly underestimating that cost. One needs only to look at the very website of the Ministry for the Environment to find that the ministry actually acknowledges that the cost of the emissions trading scheme is more than $3.17 a week. That appears on the website of the Ministry for the Environment. If the National Government its Ministers and its backbenchers think that New Zealanders are fools then they will have to pay a very big price for that at the next election. The emissions trading scheme will cost more than $3.17 a week and that is very obvious simply by looking at the website of the Ministry for the Environment. 
Whether it is $3 a week extra or $5 a week extra we know that dairy farmers will pay about $75 a week and that sheep and beef farmers will pay $35 a week. That is another fact that the Government chose to try to hide or deny in the early stages of the campaign the ACT Party has run over the last 3 months. National members tried to treat farmers as fools. The Minister of Agriculture David Carter turned up at Mystery Creek on 5 May and said to DairyNZ that the emissions trading scheme would “cost 2.5 cents per kilogram of milksolids. Not a cost you will welcome but it’s hardly a cost that will drive you off the land.” Well Mr Carter treated dairy farmers as fools because the cost will not be 2.5c in 2015 as Mr Carter tried to assert it will be three times that amount. Dairy farmers and other farmers up and down the country feel as if they have been treated with contempt by this National Government just as I am sure do many hundreds of thousands of householders. Thank you.