Smith Nick: Urgent Debates — Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Release of Report 
Smith Nick: Urgent Debates — Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Release of Report 
[Volume:627;Page:21773] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 The report that we are debating this afternoon shows two very important things. The first is that Helen Clark and Pete Hodgson sold New Zealand a pup. When they ratified the Kyoto Protocol against the vote and the advice of the National Opposition they said that National’s policy meant that National would burn up a cheque for hundreds of millions of dollars. The reality is that they were not just a little bit wrong; they were a $1 billion wrong. The second point is that for all that Government members say they care about climate change this report shows that emissions under Labour have been growing at over twice the rate that they were growing at under the last National Government. 
The report does not show just those two facts. It also shows that we have a dodgy arrogant Government that will go to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth from the New Zealand public. This matter comes on the heels of scandals about the 111 call system and about our Immigration Service of the issues of hip-hop tours and of $234 million being wasted on Te Wananga o Aotearoa and on the tail of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) debacle where thousands of New Zealand students were robbed of their proper scholarships and qualifications because of the incompetence of this Government. The real parallel with the mess over the NCEA is that no one will take responsibility for this billion-dollar bungle over the Kyoto Protocol. Nobody will put a hand up to say he or she is the person who goofed and got it wrong. In fact that actually speaks volumes about the arrogance of this Government. Let me read out what the Government said when Alex Sundakov said a year ago that he was really worried for New Zealand because he did not think we were going to have a big surplus of credits. What did the Government say? The Government said that he was “at the bottom end of credibility”. That is what Labour said when he challenged it. Its members went even further than that by saying that Alex Sundakov was in the pockets of business and just anti-Kyoto. 
What happens with this Government is ugly. If anybody dares to question its policy as to whether something is in New Zealand’s interests and if the Government is caught out in telling porkies it just gets ugly. Earlier Dr Cullen decided to rubbish my PhD thesis in the House. Another Labour member somehow suggested that I should be going to the pharmacy to get medicine. It speaks volumes— 
Darren Hughes 
: Why would they say that? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Because Labour members are not prepared to answer the real questions. They just get personal and nasty when what they should be doing is answering those questions. Simon Carlaw the head of Business New Zealand questioned the Government’s Kyoto figures and he was told he was “incapable of dealing with facts”. Those members do not apologise. They have gone out and destroyed the reputations of professionals— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It started with Kit Richards. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
:—like Kit Richards Simon Carlaw and in respect of this particular issue Alex Sundakov. Yet those professionals were right—absolutely right. Has any Government member been prepared to apologise to the people whose reputations they sought to destroy simply because those people had dared to question this Government’s policy? [ 
Interruption 
] Well Judith Tizard steps in. Why did Pete Hodgson damn Mr Sundakov and say that he was all wrong when in fact it was the Government that was all wrong? 
I also want to set out for the record the paper trail that shows just how dodgy the behaviour of this Government is. The report here tells us that the United Nations was told of this huge bungle on 15 April. On 15 April the Government submitted a report stating there had been a huge bungle. Now the Government delivered the Budget on 19 May over a month later. Was there anything in the Budget documents where the Government said there had been that billion-dollar bungle? No it hid it. In fact there is an absolute parallel with that. In 1990 Labour Ministers hid the fact that the BNZ was verging on bankruptcy and required a billion-dollar bail-out. In response to that the Fiscal Responsibility Act was passed. By law it required the reporting of all fiscal liabilities. Yet the Minister of Finance who knew there was that million-dollar bungle hid it. The irony though is that the person who is responsible for enforcing compliance with that law is none other than the Attorney-General Dr Michael Cullen himself. Does anybody in this House really believe that the Attorney-General will prosecute himself for misleading the people of New Zealand by not including that billion-dollar liability in his Budget? 
But the dishonesty and deception did not end there. On 9 June my colleague Brian Connell asked the Minister a very straight question in question time. I want to read it out so that the House understands the issue. Brian Connell asked: “Has he received any reports about the amount of carbon sink credits New Zealand will have in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol;”. It was a straight question. The Minister said that the report had not yet been completed. Was that true? Well we have the report here and it is dated May—over 2 weeks beforehand. It has a foreword from the Minister. So Pete Hodgson told the Parliament of New Zealand that the report was not completed when he knew when the United Nations knew and when Cabinet knew that the answer was that it had been. We now have a standard in this Parliament whereby we can be grossly misled—where Government members can say what they like. Members on the Opposition side of the House simply say to Harry Duynhoven and his Government colleagues that telling porkies in not good enough— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. The member knows because he is a longstanding member and can remember well—and so do I—that the former Speaker the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt indicated to that member that he could not use the word “porkies”. I ask him— 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I withdraw and apologise. What is true is that the Minister said in this House that the report had not been completed when it had been submitted to the United Nations and it had been completed as is clearly identified by its date. 
This Government has made a monumental mess of its Kyoto policy. There is not a hope that New Zealand will be able to meet the commitments that the Government has lined us up for. We will be put into the situation of sending a billion-dollar cheque to the Government of Russia and to the Government of the Ukraine. Now how does that help climate change? Can somebody explain to me how writing out a cheque for a billion dollars from hard-working New Zealand taxpayers and sending it off to the Russians will save a fraction of the effects of climate change? It will not make one iota of difference. The Government has said that it will impose a carbon tax in 2007. That will not make one iota of difference in terms of the amount of carbon emissions. It will not make any difference at all. 
I challenge the next Labour member to tell us what will happen now. The truth is that the Minister does not have a damn idea—not any idea. 
Darren Hughes 
: Oh rubbish. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well Darren Hughes chips in that he does. What will the Minister do to put New Zealand into a position of being able to meet that 36 million tonne debit? 
Darren Hughes 
: He will have a consistent view unlike this member. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh he will have a consistent view. Well he has flip-flopped all over the paddock so we do not know where Labour stands. Labour members have deceived New Zealand. The Government has not been upfront with New Zealanders. It made a monumental error in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol ahead of our major trading partners. 
National’s position is very simple: the carbon tax will not be put in place. We will not impose a tax on New Zealanders when the Australians and the Americans do not have one. Government members ask about the European Union but I say to them that that is where they are fundamentally wrong. The New Zealand economy has far more in common with the economies of Australia and the United States than it has with the heavily subsidised agricultural economies of Europe. That is why National has the correct policy to take New Zealand forward. The Labour Government has goofed and it should apologise for that. The Minister should resign.