Smith Nick: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Nick: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2008. Volume:647;Page:16761. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
8.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues 
: What changes if any will he be making to the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill in light of the statement by the Kyoto Forestry Association last week that “Helen Clark and Jim Anderton’s record on forestry is the worst of any Prime Minister or any Forestry Minister in New Zealand’s history. … It is the shameful legacy of a failure to listen to the forestry industry and instead target us with punitive policies despite us being the environmental good guys and the only sector capable of sequestering carbon.”? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 I am glad the member asked that question because there is little doubt that that statement was prepared by Matthew Hooton. 
Hon Annette King 
: Who is he? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: He is a former National Party employee. He is the lobbyist for the Kyoto Forestry Association. He is one of the “hollow men”. He seldom discloses his private interests and associations in his newspaper column; yet he regularly accuses others using strong language such as “corruption”. The reality is that deforestation is way down because of the emissions trading scheme. Without the scheme emissions would increase sharply at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Government not accept responsibility for the 40000 hectares of deforestation that has occurred since 2004 noting that it is the first deforestation at all since records began in 1951; and does he accept that these figures will get worse as they are only up to 31 March 2007 and that the chainsaw massacre revved up considerably— 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: —those members can laugh but those were millions of trees—the chainsaw massacre revved up considerably between March and the end of last year meaning that the deforestation figures are set to get worse? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We all know that because of some of the underlying drivers of conversion to dairying etc. without some regulatory intervention or price responsibility for deforestation emissions deforestation would have continued this year as high as it was last year and it would come at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayer and at considerable cost to the environment yet National will not vote for the emissions trading scheme. 
Moana Mackey 
: What was the estimated deforestation last year and what is expected this year? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am advised that last year’s deforestation totalled some 19000 hectares— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The worst ever. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The member is quite right. It would have been repeated this year and every year into the future and would have got even worse. As a consequence of Government policy because the emissions trading scheme is coming in deforestation is already substantially down to a projected 2400 hectares this year. Of course without the emissions trading scheme deforestation emissions would increase enormously. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister received any reports of a certain member of Parliament and spokesman for his party who went to a Bali conference of 42 countries and came back and protested that New Zealand was the 38th worst which he then interpreted as being fourth from the bottom when in fact if one is not confused or of an addled mind one knows that that is fourth from the top? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I have heard that a number of Opposition members are often confused on these issues. They are somewhat complex. One of the latest things I heard from the National Party was that its members somehow expect that New Zealand should be the one developed country to be a pariah by ignoring our Kyoto Protocol obligations when the reality is that the rest of the developing world is doing more not less and that the United States is now engaged in these issues yet the National Party would have us ignore these underlying issues presumably on the basis that as Dr Lockwood Smith said yesterday we should now pull out of the international efforts. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated Dr Smith if you want to stay in the Chamber. Would members please settle. They are starting to get silly. I presume Mr Duynhoven’s point of order is because he could not hear. Is that correct? Would members please keep the noise down. I know it is Thursday but we still have to get through question time. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: My point of order is that I certainly take objection. I am not sure whether the Minister heard the comment but I take objection to Dr Lockwood Smith yelling out “pack of lies” or words to that effect. He should be asked to withdraw and apologise. That is not acceptable in Parliament. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I did not hear the comment but if the member made it then I would ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Members place their colleagues in this House in some difficulty when they intentionally make false statements. The Minister David Parker knows he did. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: These points of order will be heard in silence otherwise members will be leaving the Chamber so that we can get through this question time. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The member cannot get away with making that statement. To accuse somebody of intentionally making a false statement is to repeat the previous allegation which the member has just been ordered to withdraw and apologise for. I suggest he is approaching the point of having to withdraw from the House. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Does the Hon David Parker have anything further to add before I rule? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I think I probably did overstate what Dr Smith said yesterday. Dr Smith rose yesterday and said that it was the Government that ratified the Kyoto Protocol as if that was a bad thing implying that we should not and implying that National would withdraw. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Minister agree that there is a serious flaw in the Kyoto Protocol in respect of forestry in that land use can be changed with minimal carbon cost for deforesting by replanting with seedlings and then clearing those small seedlings? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I do agree that the Kyoto Protocol is an imperfect instrument. None the less I also think that some of the arguments that are put by the forestry lobby are exaggerated and do not withstand scrutiny either. We are trying to improve the rules under future versions of the Kyoto Protocol and indeed are able to exert influence there because of our responsible conduct as a country which is most recently evidenced by the fact that the chair of the working-group that is considering these rules is a New Zealander from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Why has the agricultural sector been exempted from the emissions trading scheme during the first 5 years yet been subsidised for 90 percent of its 2005 emission levels and what would that exemption and subsidy cost the taxpayer? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is actually not correct that the agricultural sector is being exempted from the emissions trading scheme. It is responsible for its transport emissions in full and it is responsible for its electricity and process emissions on farm. It is true that it is exempted from its agricultural methane and nitrous oxide emissions until the start of 2013 but that is on the basis that there are considerable technical issues in respect of measurement that still need to be worked through and it is also true that although in some sectors there are substitutionary technologies where one can completely remove some sources of emissions in agriculture one cannot entirely remove emissions although one can reduce them.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why is it Government policy to encourage foresters wanting to change land use to temporarily replant those trees and then bulldoze them over at 8 years old as is provided for in his emissions trading scheme legislation and where is there any benefit for the environment or the economy from that sort of policy lunacy?  
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The advice from officials which was given to the select committee and accepted by the select committee and accepted by me is that it is going to be a very strange practice to try to avoid emission reduction obligations or emission costs by going to the cost of replanting a forest leaving it in the ground for 8 years with all that lost cost of production and then pulling it out so as to avoid a cost. Look the underlying point here is that some of those who want to escape any obligation in respect of deforestation emissions want different rules for themselves than for industry. Industry is being told that if it increases emissions above historic levels it has to take responsibility for those increases. Those wanting to increase deforestation above historic levels—still an emission still a cost to the country—want to put all that cost to taxpayers rather than take responsibility for it themselves. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Was not the Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne correct when he said that this emissions trading legislation is sounding more and more like the Electoral Finance Act where bland assurances were given by Ministers day after day in the House that it was all OK yet it has subsequently turned completely to pickle and should he not heed the advice of Mr Dunne that he slow down and take the extra time to get this important emissions trading scheme legislation right? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Those who were fortunate or unfortunate enough—I am not sure which it is—to sit on the select committee or on the ministerial committees that have been considering these issues in detail for well over a year can say hand on heart that this would be one of the most picked-over issues and one of the most extensively researched. There have been longer hearings more consultation and greater periods of consideration and I think this process is actually a credit on all those who participated in it.