Hide Rodney: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hide Rodney: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8660] 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 New Zealand is now enjoying stable centre-right Government which is something we have not had since the start of MMP and we can put it down to the success of the National Party and the success of the ACT Party. ACT has delivered on its promise; ACT has kept its word. New Zealand has centre-right Government because of ACT. For that I would like to thank all ACT members ACT supporters and ACT voters. They made centre-right Government possible in New Zealand. 
I would like to thank the Prime Minister John Key the Minister of Finance Bill English and National Ministers for their leadership in Government through challenging times. We have worked closely together and we have built up a deep and mutual respect and trust. I would also like to thank the Maori Party. We have developed a deep respect for the Maori Party over many years. We have our differences of course but we talk about our differences openly and with respect for one another. 
ACT promised stable centre-right Government and ACT has delivered that but we made solemn policy promises too. Promises made were promises kept and they are proof positive that ACT is making a difference. No doubt the highlight of the past year was the “three strikes” policy. ACT campaigned hard at the last election for tougher sentencing with our “three strikes” policy a policy that is now to be passed into law. 
The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill sends the loud and clear message that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate repeat violent offending. What do the critics say? What does the left say? What does the Labour Party say? They say it is too harsh—but what about the victims? One strike and they are dead. Their families are sentenced to a life of pain fear anguish and grief. Here is the message for violent offenders: it is easy to avoid “three strikes”; it is simple—just stop killing and maiming innocent New Zealanders. That is the message the Government has sent—“three strikes” and an offender is in. That is a promise made and a promise kept. 
However I have to say that is it not all love and roses. We have had our differences with National and we have a sharp difference over the emissions trading scheme. ACT has always maintained that it made no sense to stay committed to Helen Clark’s “all gases all sectors” trading regime. The failure at Copenhagen makes the commitment all the more silly. 
“Climate-gate” is now the greatest scandal in the history of science. It turns out that the prestigious agencies involved in leading climate-change science were breaking official information laws arbitrarily adjusting raw data hiding the reasons for those adjustments then somehow contriving to lose the original unadjusted data so that it could not be independently checked thereby making claims that were not remotely justified by the state of the science and in some cases were simply made up. 
The so-called scientific agencies responsible for climate science have ruthlessly suppressed competing theories and contrary data by controlling and manipulating the peer-review process. Government-sponsored climate science has proved to have more in common with the Spanish Inquisition than with Popperian science. “Climate-gate” “glacier-gate” and “Africa-gate” have left the once vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now totally discredited and in ruins. 
I have always been a sceptic. When I started studying environmental science in 1975 many of the same so-called scientists were trying to scare the pants off us all with the coming of a new ice age. That is because the world had been cooling for 30 years. Apparently it then warmed for 23 years so the same scientists turned global cooling into global warming. When the warming stopped in 1998 and the Earth started to cool the scare switched to climate change. That way the alarmists could never be wrong. They were right whatever the temperature. 
Sadly our own National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research is caught up in the scandal and its scientific credibility is shredded. Its raw data for its official temperature graph shows no warming—the raw data shows no warming. But the institute shifted the bulk of the temperature record pre-1950 downwards and the bulk of the data post-1950 upwards to produce a sharply rising trend. That warming trend is not a consequence of measurement but of manufactured adjustment. 
There may well be a good reason for the adjustment so before Christmas with others I asked the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research to disclose the adjustments and its reasons. The institute said it would do that but it has just told the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition after having abused it up hill and down dale that it does not have the records of the adjustments. 
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s entire argument for warming was a result of adjustments to data that now cannot be justified independently checked or verified. The entire thing is shonky but on the basis of shonky science our Government is whacking Fonterra with a bill of $100 million a year taxing the average dairy farm $10000 a year extra and hiking fuel and power costs to every business and household in the country. 
Even if the science was perfect we would not have an emissions trading scheme but now the science is not only not settled but has descended into a farce. The total cost to New Zealand is over a billion dollars a year. That is a billion dollars we do not have and we cannot afford and it is for nothing. It is madness. 
Prime Minister John Key is on record endorsing New Zealand being a “fast follower” on climate change not a leader. Let us put the emissions trading scheme on hold until the rest of the world catches up. I do not think any other country will be burdened like New Zealand. So there is bad news on the emissions trading scheme. 
But I go back to the good news. Education is central to ACT and that is why we support national standards. They will help identify those falling through the many gaping cracks in our education system. Because education is so important we have reached an agreement with National to introduce Aspire Scholarships. Now 600 students will have radically improved educational opportunities and life chances. That is just a start and I am looking forward to the inter-party working group’s report. 
ACT has put respect for property rights market competition individual freedom and personal responsibility into the heart of Government with Cabinet agreeing to the Government’s statement on regulation—another promise kept. This year a select committee will work on ACT’s taxpayer rights bill which is designed to cap Government spending and put it under tax bar control. It will rein in Government spending which is another kept promise. We have our Regulatory Responsibility Bill which we want to see passed into law to set fire to the red tape that is clogging our great country. 
The no-nonsense report of the 2025 taskforce outlined a path to boost New Zealand’s economic performance and lift the opportunities of New Zealanders. For 9 years we have been told that we should just accept the crumbs off the Aussies’ table. Well we want better than that. New Zealand is a nation of winners not losers. We are not going into the Rugby World Cup looking at coming second; we are going in to come first and so too should we for this country. 
This year is an exciting year for ACT. We plan to see our Regulatory Responsibility Bill passed into law the Productivity Commission up and running Government spending capped through ACT’s taxpayer rights bill and the Byzantine politics in Auckland changed so that we have for once unified decision-making and leadership in Auckland. Thank you.