Ardern Shane: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20409] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 Those who were listening on the radio to the soon-to-be former member for Whanganui must have been absolutely amazed at that speech. 
I want to pick up on a number of areas in the bill. Firstly it does absolutely nothing—sum total zero—in terms of the environment. Secondly it does nothing to enhance the economy of New Zealand or the welfare of its people with regard to jobs and suchlike. 
John Key 
: It makes it worse. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: It makes it worse. It imposes yet another tax. I do not know whether it is new tax No. 36. My colleague John Key said that we were up to No. 35 so I suspect that this is tax No. 36. Guess what? Dr Cullen is supporting this bill only because it increases taxes. He does not believe in the concept at all. In fact he does not believe in the notion of global warming. I have seen evidence of that in his body language in this House when there have been questions from the Green Party. I have watched Dr Cullen crouch down at the thought that he may have to cuddle up to those members at some time in the future for the numbers. He ducks down behind his seat and pulls his papers up. I do not believe they are saying this in an open democracy like New Zealand but they are. 
But it gets worse. Our good friends in United Future are supporting this bill tonight even though they have campaigned up and down the country saying there are too many taxes. Those members have parroted on about the McLeod report on taxation yet tonight they will roll over. They will agree to send this bill to the select committee. There is only one possible reason—that is they signed up on confidence and supply with this socialist Labour Government so they have no option but to follow along because they have been whipped into line. I ask United Future and the Minister to show us the evidence that New Zealand has a carbon deficit. 
I have looked at some figures that I received from the Parliamentary Library. They say that agriculture has had an increase in carbon emission of 15 percent—from 31.9 percent to 36.8 percent. But the question that has not been answered and there certainly is no science around this matter is how much of an increase have we had in plantations on areas that would traditionally be described as farming areas—that is riparian margins that are carbon sinks. That is the increase in pasture growth which is an activity of photosynthesis—some members will understand that well—and a carbon sink. 
I cite the example of my own farm. Some 20 years ago it grew 8000 kilograms of dry matter per hectare per year. Last year it grew 14000 kilograms of dry matter per hectare. It increased from 8000 to 14000 in 20 years. That is a massive increase in carbon sink. I put this question to the Minister. He said that it is cyclical and that it happens very quickly so therefore I have a negative sum gain. I do not believe that because when we grow trees we cut them down. Exotic forests are cut down. I say to the Minister that if we put that wood into leaky homes the homes are rotten within 5 years the emission is back in the environment and we have a zero sum gain. It is just that the cycle is quicker. That is the only difference. It is every 30 days instead of every 5 years or it might be every 40 days instead of every 5 years. What is the difference? There is no science yet that I have been able to study or that anybody has been able to explain to me as to where that difference lies. 
The third point which certainly has not been raised to any great extent as far as I can tell is that the bill actually picks on forest owners. It isolates them and says that they will give up their property right and their carbon sink and the State will take it from them and there will be no compensation for that but then it turns round and puts a tax on all other industry. I say to Government members that if I am wrong they should take a call and explain to me why I am wrong. 
Further when we look at our good friend Tony Blair in the UK who has just become Prime Minister for the third time we see that the Brits are saying—this is what the papers there have reported—that the Kiwi carbon tax is an experiment. That is what those papers are saying. It was reported in the  
Guardian 
 this week that the carbon tax is an experiment that will be watched by the bigger countries around the world to see how it works out because they cannot believe that a small trading country like New Zealand would enter into such a mind-numbing brain-dead tax before its major trading partners the US and Australia and a range of other countries as well and before the science is robust and before there was a proper reason to do so. 
I say to the previous speaker the member for Whanganui that she should go back to Whanganui and tell people that the Government is slapping yet another 4c per litre on their petrol because it will save the environment from all those rural people who have to travel up and down the Whanganui electorate all the time to go about their business. She should tell them that another 4c on their petrol will not hurt them and that it will somehow or other save the good folk of Whanganui from disappearing under the sea. They will not buy that explanation and I remind her that Chester Borrows is knocking on the doors as we speak. This issue will be the final nail in the coffin for that member. 
I say to the Labour members and to the Minister in the chair that if I am wrong they should take a call and tell me why I am wrong. I have seen no science at all that can demonstrate to me why Dr Cullen should be able to introduce yet another substantial tax increase and put it on to every hard-working Joe Bloggs yet be selective in what he takes from forest owners and from other parts of the community. How can he explain to those people that at the end of the day this will be in any way helpful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions? It is just another socialist tax grab. 
The other question that has to be asked is where the Hon Pete Hodgson got his information from because nobody has been able to trace that either. There is a substantial amount of evidence that Peter has been making it up on the hoof. Dr Cullen has been saying to him: “Look we’ve only got a $7 billion surplus. We need to get some more tax from somewhere else. Pete we need you to come up with another innovative idea on how we can get more tax.” 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will use the Minister’s full name. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The Hon Pete Hodgson—I thought I had said that. I am pretty sure that the Hon Pete Hodgson is the name I used. I will check the  
Hansard 
 afterwards but I am confident that that is what I said. The Hon Pete Hodgson has no evidence at all to back his argument. I ask that Minister why he believes that placing another tax on energy users—on our household power bills—will save the environment when the Resource Management Act is stopping the development of major hydro activity and a range of other power-generating activities in this country which somehow will be beneficial to the environment. Coal-fired power stations are being built because hydroelectricity cannot get consent. There is a simple piece of logic that has not been answered in any of the debate tonight. 
Why was the first step not to shift the roadblocks in terms of developing renewable energy and removing the need to use non-renewable energy sources such as coal as the back-up in the case of an energy shortage when we could thereby have achieved as much carbon emission saving as we could potentially get from anything we might do in the short term? Why does the Minister not answer that question? Why does New Zealand a small island nation at the bottom of the South Pacific that represents 0.2 percent of the world’s carbon emissions feel the need to blaze a trail and be the first in the world to introduce yet another tax—a tax that has no science to back it up and on which a whole lot of questions need to be answered and none have been answered—when the Government could do so many other things to reduce the amount of carbon being used?