Hide Rodney: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hide Rodney: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4557] 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support this legislation but I guess that my position could not be further away from where Jeanette Fitzsimons left the debate. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Proud to be different. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes we are proudly different. I think that John Key is providing good leadership on this issue by saying that we should be aligning with Australia and I would like to see the Minister for Climate Change Issues provide the road map for New Zealand by stating how he intends to align New Zealand’s response to climate change with that of Australia. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: There isn’t one. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Well that is why we in the ACT Party are somewhat confused. It seems to me that we are in a situation of some considerable adhockery where we have a statement from the Government saying that it wants to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from what they were in 1990 which I think Jeanette Fitzsimons would agree with me is a very ambitious goal and would probably flatten the New Zealand economy but we do not see a plan to achieve it. Then we have the proposal that we are going to align with Australia and not get ahead of Australia. Yet we have the legislation that was left to us by the previous Government and the previous Government’s ambition was to lead the world on this issue. 
In order to provide some certitude for people in New Zealand whatever side of the argument they are on we need to know where the policy is on climate change. What is this Government’s policy and what is its plan? It seems to me that what we have now is not satisfactory according to the Government because the present legislation does nothing to align us with Australia. We are having now a series of ad hoc decisions whereby as sector groups line up to come up we are rushing a bit of legislation through in order to push actions out into the future. Well where is the certainty or certitude in that? 
I suggest that yes we have the select committee process reporting back and that yes we have a cost benefit under way but we need to be providing some certainty and certitude and this legislation does nothing to provide that. I suggest that we should be putting the introduction of the emissions trading scheme on hold until we actually work out what the policy of this Government and this country on climate change will be. Otherwise we will be left either with the mess the Labour Government left us or with a series of ad hoc reversals which I have to say are better than the status quo. But surely the Government can do better than that. 
I look to the Minister in charge of the bill and tell him that the ACT Party stands here to welcome anything and is willing to work on anything that will stop the nonsense of the huge cost of the emissions trading scheme to the New Zealand people and the New Zealand economy and especially anything that will stop the devastating impact it will have on our agriculture for no good reason. 
The idea that New Zealand rushing ahead of the rest of the world is somehow good policy or good for the world is frankly nuts. The idea that that is good for New Zealand is nuts. The idea that we should line up with Australia has some logic to it but I ask where the plan is. Thank you.