Tisch Lindsay: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11415] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 I spoke during the Committee stage and made National’s position very clear. This bill is nonsense. It takes away opportunities for investment and growth which are criteria that National believes are important to grow the economy. The worst thing with a bill like this is that it stops initiatives from people who would be prepared to invest in infrastructure. Two issues come to mind with regard to infrastructure—roading and energy. Under this bill we would not have the energy resources to grow the economy and that is something that National opposes. In this case the bill does absolutely nothing. It ties up and adds to the bureaucracy red tape and regulatory creep that we find with compliance costs—especially under the Resource Management Act. 
 I spoke in the Committee stage about Solid Energy. Solid Energy runs the coalmines in my electorate at Huntly. We have an opportunity becausethere are enough coal reserves for over 1000 years as Mr Shirley has identified. Why are they not being used? They are tied up because this Government with its Resource Management Act and all its consents is stifling the opportunity to be able to use those coal reserves for the benefit not only of that community but also of the whole country. That is what is happening because this Government has its mind made up and it should not be happening. What happens in reality is that thousands and thousands of tonnes of coal comes in through the Port of Tauranga through my electorate and is stored overnight. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: We heard all this the other day. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: That is right and this is important because if this Government took notice of what we say we would not be in a position of having to import coal when we have coal sitting on our doorstep. It is ridiculous. We export coal from the West Coast of the South Island to Japan and we bring in coal from Indonesia to Huntly to fuel the Genesis power station. 
That is how this Government operates. It has absolutely no idea of what makes the world go round. That is the sort of stupid stupid decision that this Government gets involved in. The Minister said—when he heard me say this the other day—that it was important that the Government keeps hammering home that these things are important. Until this Government learns that it is stifling investment and initiative with this sort of stupid legislation National will continue to vote against it and fight against this sort of nonsense. 
It was interesting that the United Future member spoke about going to Germany and seeing where they use sewage to generate some energy. Of course the greenhouse emissions that come from that would never be allowed in New Zealand. Two years ago I was with a delegation that went to Wollongong just out of Sydney where we saw something similar. In Wollongong rubbish is brought into a great compacting operation and a recycling set-up that I have never seen before. It showed great initiative and great opportunities and we saw that it was being utilised to provide power to the city. That company was looking to come into New Zealand because it believed it could take care of a lot of New Zealand’s waste. 
It is already in Italy and it saw that there was an opportunity to come into New Zealand. But no it would not come here because this Government with its resource management legislation and prescriptive interpretation of everything that ticks makes it impossible for a firm like that to make that investment in New Zealand. This Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill shackles investment and shackles opportunity and National as it did in the Committee stage is voting against it.