Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11409] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will certainly be opposing this Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill. Members just have to go to the first paragraph of this legislation brought to this House by the beleaguered minority Labour Government to see that the bill introduces measures to support the Government’s climate change policy package. If members ever wanted a reason or justification not to support this legislation that is it. This Government’s climate change policy package has been nothing but a disaster from day one. There is another aspect of the bill—and the Government keeps wheeling it out; I think it is called the “salami technique”. The Government keeps cutting off a slice and presenting to the Parliament and each new one is worse than the one that came before. It certainly does not address or solve any problems associated with the energy situation and the environmental consequences of that in this country or anywhere else for that matter. 
I shall correct one point the Green spokesperson Jeannette Fitzsimons made before she resumed her chair. She specifically criticised me for saying that there is no hard scientific evidence of sea level rises. I will quote the reference and I invite all members to go into the website. The Proudman oceanographic institute has kept sea level records throughout the Pacific for 50 to 60 years. I know that there is a site at Tuvalu Honiara and most of the Pacific atolls and islands. There is no significant sea level rise measurable in any of those sites. Yet in spite of that because of the political beat-up Prime Ministers have gone to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting wrung their hands and said: “We’re all going to be washed out and we’re going to have to move down your way.” and comments like that yet there is no evidence to support that. 
Jeanette Fitzsimmons gave a scientific reference. She referred to an article in the  
Nature 
 magazine—I think it was the latest publication—that had evidence that the sea level was rising at 1½ to 2 millimetres a year. The United Nations model says that it should have increased 3 metres by now. Yet the only thing she can measure is 1½ millimetres which is the thickness of two fingernails. 
Let us do a quick calculation. If the sea level is rising 1½ millimetres year do we need to rush off the coast? No because it will take 750 years to rise a metre. At that rate assuming that it is a constant rate—and of course it is not; all water bodies fluctuate so there are variations. It will not always be up; it will be going down at other times. Certainly the climate is changing. It always has been changing. At the peak of the last ice age between say 25000 and 15000 years ago the sea level was 200 metres lower. Are we saying that about a world population of half a million people and the equivalent number of Neanderthals who were around at that time were causing this? They caused a sea level rise of what is 200 metres lower than it is now to the current level? But no the Greens have a  
Nature 
 magazine article—alarm shock horror—that states that the sea level is rising at the pace of two fingernails a year. Even if it assumes that it is all constantly rising and not fluctuating which it clearly is then in 750 years it would be a metre higher. Someone said to let us start building the arks now. That is unbelievable hogwash that this Government has swallowed hook line and sinker. There is no question of that. 
Then of course we have the Kyoto Protocol. I was a member of a New Zealand delegation in 1992 that went to the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro. I was there. I said: “This is nuts. Don’t sign. Simon don’t do it boy; don’t sign.” but he had his pen out. He was determined to sign it because it made him feel all warm down under. They were determined to sign that fundamentally flawed Kyoto Protocol. 
The interesting thing is that scientists tell us that even if the protocol is fully implemented it will not work. In 100 years’ time if the protocol is fully implemented at best it would buy us 5 years of change. It is grossly unfair. Only OECD countries of which New Zealand is one have to do anything. We have a huge commitment and Simon Upton and this Government were prepared to put on the thickest hair shirt and say “We’ll show the way. We’ll lead the world. We’ll tell them. We’ll save the planet.” 
How much does New Zealand actually contribute to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions? It is 0.2 percent. Yet we are wearing the thickest hair shirt and running round saying that we single-handedly will shoot ourselves in both feet and save the planet while we are about it. What absolute rubbish! This bill is just another step along that foolish pathway. It is crazy and it bears no examination whatsoever to say that it is nonsense. There are 45 prominent scientists in the United States alone who have signed a petition effectively saying that the Kyoto Protocol is absolute hogwash. Yet this Government roars off. What is the problem? It is captured by geopolitical agendas. It is the bureaucrats who rush off to meetings every 6 months all around the world; they confer discuss and then ask where it is spring in time for their next meeting and that they will go there. They spend fortunes going to those meetings. 
Often the recommendations of scientists are totally overturned and distorted by the bureaucrats and the politicians. I have to tell members that this so-called human induced climate change industry is self-perpetuating and it is out of control. It is not to say that there are not serious issues. There certainly are serious issues but the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer it will not solve them and what New Zealand will do by ratifying it is shoot itself in the foot. We will suffer more than any other country. Our steelworks and our cement works will close. What will they do? Will it make any difference to the world’s climate? Not one bit! They will go off to Malaysia Indonesia and Thailand wherever where they have no obligation whatsoever. China with that roaring growth economy has no obligation whatsoever. India is under no obligation whatsoever. The whole of South America has no obligation whatsoever. Australia and the United States were sensible enough to say that they do not want a bar of it. Yet little old New Zealand roared out there put on the thickest hair shirt and said that we are right into it we are going to lead the charge and we will save the planet. 
Our salvation may be that Russia probably will not sign it. It might but I do not think it will. If Russia does not sign it it will not come into effect. So we are putting in place all these measures that are in this legislation for no reason whatsoever. If we look at our energy sector we are saying that we cannot use coal. We know that our gas is running out. We know that we do not want to dam modify and harness all our remaining wild rivers; we will not have nuclear energy because this Government has a mantra on that. Coal—we have enough coal to last us 1000 years of full energy use. Our Southland lignite deposits alone are equivalent to 50 Maui gasfields. Yet this Government puts its head in the sand pulls the hood over its head and says: “Oh no coal is bad.” Modern technology makes coal a very cost-effective energy source and a relatively clean one. Germany has just commissioned a 3000-megawatt new coal station.