Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11330] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party is certainly opposed to this bill but I would like to rebut as part of this debate the comments we have heard from the Labour member who just resumed his seat. We all hear about rising sea levels as a result of climate change. That is where the United Nations model has most failed. There is no evidence to support its model. It keeps adjusting it down and down. We have 50 years of sea level records—oceanographic and tidal recordings—at Tuvalu at Honiara at Kiribati and all around the Pacific—and in the Tuvalu case Mr Field has just mentioned I invite him to go into the Proudman Institute’s website which shows 50 years of records and he will see there is no measured increase in mean sea level at all. Yet at every Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting the head of Tuvalu says his island is disappearing under water and all the other heads of Government say it is terrible and it is because of climate change. I invite Mr Field to look at the science. It does not support it. 
 Sure there are tidal surges. There have been tidal surges around the Pacific for ever and small islands sometimes suffer those tidal surges. As he knows on Niue there was a hurricane where the ocean surged 35 metres upwards and smashed the hospital—which was about 200 metres inshore—to pieces off the cliff face. Those are the sorts of surges we can have. But members should not say there are sea-level rises because the evidence is not there to support it. 
I would like now to address the Minister in the chair Harry Duynhoven and ask him to comment on these issues. The Government did a U-turn on the “fart tax” which is related to this climate change issue—a complete flip-flop on that—when it came under pressure. It was going to close all the schools and has now announced a 5-year moratorium. A big U-turn has been done on that issue this week. The Government’s closing the gaps and race-based policies have had a big big U-turn. They are now styled “needs-based” policies even though just a few weeks ago the Prime Minister said that that was a racist thing to do. She is now quite happy to go down that path. 
When the Government is on the trot with all those U-turns why does it not drop the nonsense associated with this climate change legislation? It should pull out of the Kyoto Protocol. It is not too late. The mantra is foolish that the Government is pursuing on that and it is trying to impose it on local government in this legislation. That will never work yet the Government persists with it. 
For goodness’ sake the Government should realise that it is down the wrong track and do another U-turn. After all it is on a roll and getting pretty good at U-turns now. So why should the Minister not go back to Cabinet? Another few Ministers have joined the Minister in the chair at Cabinet. Surely they realise that this legislation is a loser for the Government so they should do another U-turn. The country is getting used to that. We are expecting a few more U-turns now. It is getting to the stage that there is a new U-turn every day. Well this issue must be the next one on the Government’s list of U-turns. 
I urge the Government to pull out of the fundamentally flawed Kyoto Protocol. We should have never ratified it in the first place and this legislation is a consequence of that foolish adherence to that fundamentally flawed protocol. I am particularly worried about what is happening in the energy sector in this country. We should all be concerned about it. We have already heard from others in this debate about the price that is to be placed on coal—and in this legislation we are having all sorts of fast-track measures put in for the so-called renewables—but what concerns me most is the actual nationalisation occurring in the energy sector. 
One classic nonsense while legislation like this which is trying to promote renewables is brought to the House is that the Minister of Energy recently approved—and it is under construction right now—a temporary generator at Whirinaki. Thrown at that was $150 million of taxpayers’ money. It is a single-cycle gas turbine. It is actually a 747 jet engine that is fuelled on imported diesel. The idea is that $150 million of taxpayers’ money is thrown at it with the hope that it never has to be used—so that it sits idle and rusts—but if it is does ever have to be used it is the most inefficient and clumsy generation that we could ever have. 
But the Government panicked: “Oh we don’t want to go into election year facing an energy crisis so let’s do something. It doesn’t matter what. Just grab the taxpayers’ money and throw it at it.” It is a dreadful waste that is appearing at Whirinaki.