Groser Tim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Groser Tim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7361] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 As I was listening to the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday afternoon I must admit that I thought for a minute that I had entered into a time warp and was back in my previous day job—not in domestic politics but in international politics—listening to a speech that is not actually directed outwardly at the world but inwardly towards the political lobbies that the speaker wishes to reach. In those moments overseas one always has the outlet of reaching for the interpretation channel to practise language skills rather than spend 30 minutes of one’s life listening to a speech that is not directed at oneself. But of course that facility was not open to us yesterday. So I sat there throughout the speech listening to the political messaging to certain people both within this party and within certain party activist ranks until we reached the final embarrassing last moment when the backbench of the Labour members rose in “spontaneous” joy to applaud the Prime Minister’s speech. 
I do not want to be tough on the backbench of the Labour Party who are on this managed exit list. As a former Labour Prime Minister put it recently in a similar context it would be a little like booing at the Special Olympics—it is just not done. So let me try to dissect the speech politically a little bit. We start—as have journalists from the gallery and other speakers from this side of the House—with this extraordinary statement that the challenges facing our country in the 21st century require substance not slogans. 
It is always very interesting in human nature that quite often people will telegraph through their body language—and through their actual words in this case—the points of weakness that they are only too well aware exist in the presentation that they are about to make. This is exactly what the speech-writer for the Prime Minister has done. Fully conscious that this was a speech of sloganeering the speech-writer has unconsciously sent this signal right at the beginning of the speech in the hope of countering the weakest part of it. It was very interesting. 
From that point we then get launched into this Messianic vision launched originally at the Labour Party conference to revive the flagging enthusiasm of Labour Party activists for a carbon neutral future. I am all for vision but I think there has to be a minimum correlation between vision and reality between objective and delivery. 
I want to draw to members’ attention an observation—a rather acerbic observation—made by a commentator on New Zealand over a century ago. This was a Frenchman André Siegfried who came to New Zealand in 1904 and wrote a book called  
Democracy in New Zealand 
. We have just heard a very stirring and excellent speech from Georgina Beyer celebrating—as we all do—our democracy. But it is not perfect and André Siegfried as long as 100 years ago said the following: “New Zealand has a certain sense of apostolic mission. Many New Zealanders are honestly convinced that the attention of the whole world is concentrated upon them waiting with curiosity and even with anxiety to see what the New Zealanders will say and do next.” 
That was a little acerbic but it is important to see ourselves sometimes through a correct light of how the world actually sees this very small country of ours. 
I want to draw a couple of lessons from this. First of all let us not be too cynical. On occasion New Zealand can—and we all could quote examples—push global agendas at the margin; when we are not way out on a limb when we are not completely out there in nana land but are locking on to other trends internationally and some support yes we can help bigger international causes. But when there is an enormous gap—a yawning chasm—between rhetoric and reality I am sorry we should remember what this Frenchman said to us 100 years ago. 
This applies in particular to this Messianic concept of leading the world towards carbon neutrality when we have no track record to make a statement of that dimension. Repeating 33 times in a speech the term “sustainability” is not going to pass muster either domestically or internationally. 
The second lesson I would draw is that there is a clear issue here about the relationship between environmental—and in particular climate change—objectives and New Zealand’s economic interests. It is quite clear that every time this Labour Government in the period of time with which it has responsibility for leading this country on this issue sketches out a vision on climate change that is totally divorced from New Zealand’s economic interests and from considerations of New Zealand’s competitiveness the policy will crash. It will crash crucially leaving nothing achieved on the environment side. It is the classic example of over-promise and under-deliver and we have just seen the same cycle launched again yesterday by the Prime Minister. 
The country was waiting I think with some anticipation for an agenda that we could lock on to for 2007 and that was a little larger than just the agenda that is in the Prime Minister’s mind which is the fourth election of Helen Clark as the Prime Minister come what may. 
Let us face it there are issues in climate change where there is a congruence. I can certainly make out a strong argument for a congruence between essential New Zealand interests and doing the right thing in terms of making a contribution—a realistic contribution—on climate change. Much of the debate over air miles is in that space and I like many other observers believe that a truly sophisticated carbon print of our principal export industries if done truly objectively can in the long term turn out to be congruent with our economic interests. I am very confident that that is where we will get to in the long term but I am very worried about short-term diversions that may be damaging to New Zealand economic interests and even finally take our small part in the global climate issue in exactly the wrong direction. 
So there are areas where there can be a congruence. But if we are realistic there are also areas of conflict. Areas of conflict between climate change and New Zealand’s essential competitive interests have to be reached with some balance and some realism. I will tell members what happens if people put their heads in the sand and pretend there are no such conflicts. There will be a repetition of the “fart tax”: the policy announced the back-off and nothing done on that environmental objective. There will be a repetition of the carbon tax: the big bold statement advanced then the clash with economic interests and the tax abandoned. We will see the same in due course with the waste tax. I am quite confident that in due course we will see the same pattern. 
We have seen the same pattern on the disastrous mistakes made in forestry policy and on the miscalculation by over $1 billion of the Kyoto balance. The essential lesson is: yes let us try to move as a country to make a contribution but a contribution that takes no account of New Zealand’s economic realities not only will fail when it meets that hard clash of interests but also will lead to zero results on the environment.  
 Now this speech as Bill English very astutely analysed in this debate earlier today was actually directed at the reconfiguration of parliamentary numbers. It was directed back to the Green Party. So people like me have this image in our heads of the late Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons coming out of the so-called final negotiating room—with Helen Clark Heather Simpson and whoever else was in the room—with a look of utter despair on their faces. This was a message from the spider to the fly: “Come into the parlour. Listen to these words: ‘carbon neutrality’. Do you like the sound of that? Come into our parlour. Come back into an arrangement with Labour because we need you for our fourth election.” That is what the Prime Minister said. That is the real import of the Prime Minister’s speech.