Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It's a shame that the last speaker could not fulfil a 10-minute slot to allay the fears—and we on this side of the House as well as those people from the Taranaki industry who came to Wellington to submit have not heard anything that will allay the fears of what is going on with this bill. We heard the words Business as usual" come up. There's a real lack of concentration if you think that this is going to be business as usual long term. This is short-term business that's going on. There is nothing long term about this.I have to ask—Deborah Russell when that member got up to speak she said "If not now when?" Well I would say when we have a real transition and right now we don't have a real transition. She said "If not us then who?" Well the industry is more than capable of developing a transition if they are given enough time to do so.I would like those speakers in the Government who have speeches left to come to tell us: where are the renewable resources? All we've heard in question time today from the Minister and we've heard it again this afternoon—yes there's a wind farm which is going to be developed in Waverley. Well wow! That wind farm is great in and of itself but it is not going to keep the lights on for very long if that is the only thing that the Minister can point to in terms of a long-term transition renewable source of energy. So we would like to know from the Minister: when will there be enough alternative energy sources to cover energy security for New Zealand and who is going to develop this?This is not a proud day for New Zealand. It is idealism and idealism comes with consequences. The consequences of doing this with no plan are absolutely going to come back and bite this country in the future. This lack of plan came together from a Government who is incompetent with no plan they had no consultation and the submission process left much much much to be desired.It denies opportunities for other regions in New Zealand but the disappointing thing was that Jonathan Young myself and others worked hard to try and ask the select committee to bring the select committee process to Taranaki so that people in Taranaki could come along and have a listen and even that was denied. So you know we've heard members get up and make bold statements about blue boxes this afternoon and try to distract from the whole conversation. Well actually it would be nice if—actually they're not going to see any other coloured boxes when they come from Taranaki because there are none there because no one on the Government side of the House is brave enough to come to Taranaki other than Andrew Little who turned up at the time of the announcement and said that there was going to be a consultation which actually turned out not to be the case. When the Prime Minister and the Minister came there were no open meetings. It was all behind closed doors because they didn't want to have conversations with the public.We support greater coordination across Government to address climate change. We have no argument about this. We just have not seen any arguments in any of this debate that go to show that climate change will be improved globally in any way shape or form from this decision. In fact we're hearing a lot of debate and a lot of good discussion points that tell us that this is probably going to have the opposite effect.So this bill sat in the Environment Committee as a pretence that this bill has got something to do with affecting climate change and having some positive effect on the environment. Deborah Russell herself has accused National of wanting the earth to burn. It's all been a bit dramatic and actually we're finding out from all our sources that this is probably unlikely to have any positive effect on climate change at all.We don't dispute and we support on this side of the House having greater investment in research and development—no argument there. But who's going to do the research and development? The people who are best placed to do the research and development are the energy industry companies themselves. No one understands energy better than the energy companies. No one has a greater interest in securing their future by finding alternative sources because they know—they don't need this Government to come along and tell them that the world is changing and we need to move to some more renewable sources. They know that. They are working through transition processes in their own right and they are using the most effective fuels such as gas to work through this issue to allay us having to use more products such as coal or more unsustainable products. They will be working under their own steam to provide a transition to the future. They don't need to be forced into this situation. So there's no argument about that.But we can be all good and virtuous here and we can make big announcements on the world stage as the Prime Minister did—flying on jet fuel to make her announcement. There'll be other countries now that will be rubbing their hands together because—guess what? There are signals up that say New Zealand's closed for business. So why would we close our own economy down at the risk of having no improvement in climate change at all? It just seems like a pretty ridiculous thing to do.Let's think about it for a moment. We know that from the extractive industries particularly from the industries that we're discussing today—a lot of the components that we use to make up electric cars come from this industry. We know that a large proportion of those components that are used to make up electric cars come from the extractive industry. So I don't see a long-term future in terms of these idealistic goals that this Government's putting in place. Yes we're all going to be driving around in electric cars. Well guess what? If our own extractive industries are ruined in this country someone else's extractive industries will provide those electric cars in due time and with the right incentive. But then how are we going to run those cars? If we go to a completely electric fleet of cars we're going to need 22 more Clyde Dams I think it is Jonathan Young. It's the discussion around driving more energy or the equivalent. So one wind farm in Waverley as a plan from this Government to ruin these industries is not going to cut the mustard.Hon Member: They have no plan.BARBARA KURIGER: There's absolutely no plan. I was really disappointed with the whole select committee process. The times were cut so short. There were people coming in there really concerned about their jobs who were refused to get the last sentence out in their five-minute submission. We spent two minutes having a debate one day about whether a submitter who was left off the order could have had an extra five-minute presentation to make his own submission. This is poor process this is bad legislation and this is not going to achieve anything that this current Government thinks it's going to.So when this National Party caucus on this side of the House is back in Government we will reverse this Government's decision. We will be looking to build linkages with significant countries because we have a lot of intellectual property with our oil industries in this country. We will be looking at putting proper research and development in advanced fuels in energy resources and in a process that is going to make sure that this country stays in a viable state. With the help of our knowledgable climate change spokesperson Todd Muller we will put the right incentives in place for climate change to make sure that we do get a proper answer. We will be working to make sure that the lights stay on in this country because so far from the Minister we are getting no-end answers no answers at all about energy security in this country. It is a bad day for Taranaki. It is a bad day for New Zealand. It is a bad decision and on this side of the House we will never support this piece of legislation. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker."