Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I want to pick up where the honourable member began his speech with the number of new faces in the House. Congratulations to all those people who are new MPs. It reminds me of what the Rt Hon David Carter did say to me at one time—that the average stay in Parliament is less than six years which at the time when he told me that I found very hard to believe when you look at one of our members and one on the other side who've been here quite a lot longer than that time. But actually the number of people that have come through this year in this election underlines that fact that we should all treasure the time we have in this House. It is a privilege to be here and when you're gone it's probably very difficult to come back. So on that note Madam Speaker I will commence my speech in the Address in Reply debate. I do not envy you having to remember all those names and new faces—it's quite a task. [Assistant Speaker holds up list] Yes I'm sure you do have a bit of a cheat sheet but I'm sure it has its challenges.During the weekend I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the Ōpawa Bridge. The old bridge has remained but they've opened a new one but really the day was to bless a pouwhenua and it was with my good friend and colleague Rino Tirikatene and I must congratulate him on becoming the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries. He will do a fantastic job. He's a great MP and I have to say he shares my territory and I share part of his I guess. As an MP crossing a Māori seat and the electoral seat I couldn't ask for a better person to share it with. He's fantastic to work with. We tackle difficult issues and help one another out and it's fantastic to see that.It's a fantastic new facility—utilising an old bridge as a cycleway and shared pathway putting these interpretive boards up so that people can get an idea of the history because that is a crossing place a trail that people have used down through the generations back to the tangata whenua of course and so to have that wonderful ceremony at 5 a.m. We had to be there at 4.30 a.m. on Saturday morning—so only the dedicated were there—and it was quite a large crowd. So it was a wonderful event. Further down State Highway 1 NCTIR—the North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery programme—is coming to an end. In fact it will end on the 19 December a year later than otherwise as the Government slowed the cash flow down on that job but nevertheless it's getting there. It's a fantastic facility and if anyone in the House hasn't travelled it I urge you to over the Christmas break. It is phenomenal. To see the uplift along that coast you realise the forces that nature has that we don't have any control over. And I urge you to think—as you drive over the Clarence Bridge going south if you look to your right there's a very white hill face. That used to be all grass and half of the hill slid down into the gully—and if anyone remembers the cow and two calves on a little island of grass that's where it was—and that mountain range is now eight metres higher than it was prior to the earthquake. Along the coast itself it's more like four metres in places but a metre and a half along there and you can see the white rocks where—the area that's white used to be under the water; it's now above it. So a significant amount of work has gone in to repair that road and rail line and I'd like to congratulate all those people that worked on it. They've worked really hard in very trying conditions at times. I can tell you in a southerly in some of those areas in the middle of winter particularly for the people doing the traffic management standing in the shade all day—it's pretty cold. But they did a great job and they always have had a cheery smile on their face. So well done to them. On another roading matter the State Highway 6 from Blenheim to Nelson on about 8 December is about to change the speed limits along their area. It was 100 kilometres an hour and it's about to go down to 80 kilometres an hour in some places and down to 60 in others. When this was proposed I took my good friend Chris Bishop and a journalist along with me and we drove up to Havelock and we drove from Havelock all the way back to Renwick an area that's now going down to 80 kilometres an hour and I set my car on 100 kilometres an hour on the cruise control with a journalist in the car in the full knowledge that at any time he could take a photograph of my speedo over the limit. I didn't touch the brake from Havelock all the way down to Renwick—all of that entire length of road we took every corner at 100 kilometres an hour very safely. That road is absolutely safe to drive at 100 kilometres an hour every day of the week. So I asked the Waka Kotahi with an Official Information Act (OIA) request what criteria they use to come up with these new speed limits. Well I'm not sure because that's the OIA. [Holds up document] There is little in the way of information there and the little bit that we do have I am just going to read from this: High speeds increase the risk of making mistakes for example because the driver's field of vision is narrower reduce time available to react increase braking time and so make severe crashes more likely." Very true. That's the same on every single road in New Zealand. There is no evidence to justify lowering the speed limit. I think that's an appalling waste. It seems to be driven by some sort of ideology which is not helpful at all I think. I'm all for sensible decisions to be made on traffic safety but let's see the evidence that they have to do that. If they were confident in their evidence they would have supplied it but they didn't. So I'm quite disappointed by that. I want to move now to the Speech from the Throne. I note that yesterday this House declared a climate emergency although not what a normal emergency declaration would entail. But in the 4500 word speech "climate" was mentioned only about half a dozen times which I thought kind of didn't match up with the rhetoric. But I also want to quote the honourable member that spoke just before me Andrew Little where he said "No step is too small to take." I think that may be true but no step too small to take should also be an effective one and I'll give you an example of an ineffective step. In the UK they shut down their aluminium industry. Their aluminium industry was pretty efficient by international standards; not as efficient as our one in Tīwai Point but fairly efficient. They now import all of their aluminium from China. And guess what? Their emissions have gone up as a result of that—well not their emissions but global emissions have gone up as a result of that. They lowered theirs; they increased international emissions.Actually the climate has no borders. Climate change is an international issue; not a country issue. If countries make selfish decisions to lower their emissions whilst boosting international emissions where is the sense in that? I'd like to hear that from all of the activists who are pushing to get things like the Glenbrook steel mill closed here in New Zealand. The reason we'd want to keep the Glenbrook steel mill is our scrap steel can go the Glenbrook steel mill and be melted down and reused and actually that's a lot less emissions because it's a much lower temperature than making steel from iron ore. So we've got to start to think about these things from a sensible global perspective rather than looking at our own little area that we're in and not thinking of the bigger picture.Also as was pointed out by Barbara Kuriger earlier on about emissions from methane actually there's a lot of research now that's showing our emissions from methane are most likely at least one-third of what is being accounted for at the moment. So what does that really mean for us in New Zealand? That means the one thing we have to pursue is lowering transport emissions and that will be hard because what will come from that if we are not very careful is energy poverty and that will affect those that can least afford it. So once again we need to have policies that are well-thought-out—are they going to be effective are they going to be cost effective?—and we should have an upper limit on what they cost. The announcement or re-announcement of Helen Clark's 2007 carbon-neutral Government departments is all well and good but what does it really mean? Thank you Madam Speaker."