King Colin: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
King Colin: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6231] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is very interesting to listen to the debate that is taking place in the Chamber at the moment and I acknowledge the comments from the Greens about this Parliament being a Parliament that agrees with things. However this is also a very good opportunity to rub the Government’s nose in it around the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.” 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Where did you learn that? 
COLIN KING 
: I tell the member that I did not learn it from listening to him. 
The Kyoto Protocol has been around for a long time in the sense that it was there and it was waiting to be progressed and developed. When we in the National Party said that we would wait until our trading partners signed it so that we would not totally disadvantage ourselves that was very wise. When we look at the bill we see that today we have another change—a change for the better—whereby those who have the opportunity to commit to supporting and developing carbon sinks will be able to do so. There was a rush to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and if I remember matters the Minister’s comment at the time was that National would burn a $200 million cheque. Again Minister Hodgson was wrong and in actual fact the countries that have not signed up to it—in particular our neighbour Australia—have been more successful over the ensuing years than this tired Labour Government has been. 
Let us go back to the “fart tax” because at that time I was on the board of Meat and Wool New Zealand. It was very interesting to try to get the message through to the then Minister Pete Hodgson that all the science was being done. But that was not the angle he was coming from; he saw that measure as a chance for him to win the debate in the public arena to be able to screw farmers for a second time and to be seen to be the one who was doing the utmost to live up to our Kyoto obligations. The Government was not only proposing to rob people of the credits for forestry but was going to reinvent the research and development work on ruminant controls and methane emissions. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Poor cows. 
COLIN KING 
: Poor cows and poor farmers! Farmers struggle under the burdens of the Resource Management Act and all the other regulations that this Government puts up. So it is good to see that at the end of it all a bit of common sense is starting to show through. 
There were 7 long years of nothing. It is interesting to see the Minister scribbling away there with his pen. He will take me to task on that but he must be prepared to because at the end of the day when we look at Project Aqua—again—from the rural perspective we see that the Government did not have in place the necessary framework so that we could work through to a logical a coherent and an acceptable situation. I reiterate the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.” 
We have 8 million cattle and 40 million sheep in New Zealand and when we look at the issues around climate change we see that effectively they concern agriculture in the south and industry cars and electricity generation in the north. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all solution and on that basis when I look at our recent release  
A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand 
— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member needs to come back to Part 2. 
COLIN KING 
: I tell members that it took a fair amount of consideration for the Government to appreciate just how important the forestry side of it all is. This part amends the Forests Act by inserting new Part 3B which talks about carbon sequestration. That is quite significant because Marlborough has a very interesting group of primary producers who are hugely concerned about the failure of the Government’s policy in terms of promoting agriculture and forestry. Some areas in that region do erode quite noticeably. On that basis we need to reinforce the issues around climate change.