Carter David: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Carter David: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15000] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 When the Primary Production Committee examined the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for 2006-07 I must say that I felt some sympathy for the officials who came before it because this committee has a very large workload at the moment. It has a huge number of important discussion documents out there none of which are being brought to fruition and this fault lies with none other than the Minister himself. Mr Anderton is a person who when he got the job clearly had no interest in or knowledge of this sector and he has failed to grasp the serious situation it is in. We had that explained to us recently whereby the sheep and beef industry in this country—a $5 billion industry—is under peril. A rescue plan has been proposed by Alliance Meats based in Southland but before that plan could be presented to the Minister in detail he was suggesting that any support for such a plan would be a subsidy. Such a notion is absolutely rubbish and for the Minister to stand by and do nothing when this industry is in such significantly poor shape is frankly totally irresponsible. 
The issue that came to the fore during our examination was the emissions trading scheme legislation the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill which has now been introduced to Parliament and is before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. What surprised the committee members was the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry appeared to have done very little work around the economic impact of this legislation on New Zealand agriculture. 
Subsequent to our examination I received a huge raft of official papers via the Official Information Act that show that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has been working very consistently and is well aware of the economic impact of this legislation on New Zealand agriculture. For instance the papers declare that should the emissions trading scheme be enacted as proposed it will lead to an 80 percent drop in profitability of our sheep and beef farms. Those farms are making nothing now. To further impose this sort of cost which looks as if it will not be imposed on any other farmer in the world will make sure that that industry does not survive in this country. Further the papers reveal that there is a distinct likelihood that production will leave New Zealand to move offshore. The first question I ask the Minister is what good that will be for New Zealand agriculture. If he will not answer I will tell the Committee that it will be of no use at all. 
The second point noted in these papers is that if production leaves New Zealand it will actually end up in countries that are less efficient from a global point of view and from a carbon emission point of view. In actual fact the environment will be worse off by sending this sort of production offshore. That was certainly the big issue. It comes after a history of inaction and stupidity by the Labour Government around this issue. The Government ratified Kyoto then proposed a “fart tax”—and we all know how successful that was. It then proposed a carbon tax and had to back away from that. It now has the emissions trading scheme before the select committee which I will accept is the best option we have. But to impose restrictions on agriculture well ahead of any of our trading partners has the potential to be absolute economic suicide. 
The final issue I will touch on is a conference held in November last year which was Mr Anderton’s big initiative—$1 million was spent on a conference. It would attract hundreds of farmers so Mr Anderton said. I am aware of about half a dozen farmers who managed to pay the $800 to attend. That was typical of this Minister of Agriculture. He is huge on the rhetoric as we saw in the Chamber today but very very poor on delivering the substance. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Sue Moroney that if she bothered to get out of Wellington and go around the farmers of New Zealand she would quickly realise that Mr Anderton is held in very very poor regard. He is a person who goes up and down the country promising the earth and delivering very very little. 
The latest example we have had is the research and development fund that he announced the other day—$700 million which he says will grow to $2 billion in 2 years. In the next breath he said that we will be spending capital and interest. What we did find out after we had had the razzmatazz with the launch of the programme is that there will not be $100 million available next year for research and development; there will actually be only $20 million. This is an industry that seriously needs research particularly if we are going to impose an emissions trading scheme on the country. I say to Mr Anderton and to other Labour members who think $20 million will be enough next year that it simply will not be enough.