Hide Rodney: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18298. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I have to say this bill is a shocking bill. No one here knows how to drill for oil distribute it refine it and put it together but a bunch of politicians who have never done any of those things sit around a select committee table and decide to mandate how it will be made here in New Zealand. No one here has ever made fuel or refined it but no a bunch of politicians a bunch of elected representatives on a select committee are so so clever that they can decide and debate in Parliament whether in the year 2012 the level of biofuels in our fuel should be 3.4 percent or 3.35 percent or 2.4 percent. Those are things that our politicians have spent their time debating and considering. Where on earth does the expertise or the knowledge come from? 
Those politicians are so clever; they can sit around in this Parliament and decide not only the financial cost but the environmental cost. I promise that no member of the Committee knows whether adding that percentage of biofuel is a plus or a minus in terms of environmental outcomes. Members have no mechanism to account for it. That is what is so extraordinary. We cannot trace all the work all the resources all the effort; we cannot trace the sources of all the compounds and chemicals that go into a litre of fuel. We cannot even trace the mechanisms by which biofuel is manufactured and made but a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians sitting around in a committee meeting in Parliament say they think the figure for 2012 should be 3.35 percent. They have no idea. They know nothing. It is the conceit that bothers me. The socialists have given up trying to run an economy. 
Darien Fenton 
: Ha ha! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: They think it is funny. 
Darien Fenton 
: No we think you’re funny. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: At least I would get higher up the Labour list than poor old Darien Fenton has if I put my name up. What is tragic about this bill is what it means to New Zealanders. It will put up the price of fuel for no environmental purpose; it is just so I guess some madcap members of Parliament and politicians who think they know something about the environment who think they know something about an economy who think they know something about the refining and manufacture of petrol can go around and say “Look what we did!”. 
All they are doing by the way is helping a couple of businesses in New Zealand get rich. They cannot sell their product commercially so they come to Parliament they get their product legislated for and they get it into the market place. How mad is that? The next time I hear Steve Chadwick worry about the effect of rising costs on middle-income workers and low-income workers I will tell her she is shedding crocodile tears. I would have included Darien Fenton but I do not think she actually cares; I think Steve Chadwick does. It is this legislation aided and abetted by the crooked New Zealand First Party that will add costs on to New Zealanders. It is a disgrace and David Parker should hang his head in shame. What sort of command and control kind of commissioner of petrol and fuel does he think he is that he can sit in Parliament and dictate the composition of the nation’s fuel? 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to add the words “except section 34K which shall not come into effect until the regulations under 34GA have been gazetted by Order in Council”.