Smith Nick: General Debate 
Smith Nick: General Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11585] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 In listening to Labour Minister Parekura Horomia and other Ministers in this Government I am reminded of the question that Mike Moore asked last week: “What does … the legion of Ministers … actually do?”. Mike Moore went on to say: “Perhaps it’s good they don’t do much. They manage the remarkable feat of being self-important expensive trivial and irrelevant at the same time.” I say to members opposite that when a former Labour Prime Minister says that about their record they know they are in desperate trouble. 
But there is another sign. We know that Labour is really in trouble when it has to roll out the thorny knot of the nuclear issue. When things get really desperate Labour members roll back history 20 years and try to re-win the 1987 election by rolling out the nuclear issue. As John Key said Labour is out of step with the times. 
The really important issue on the minds of APEC leaders as they gather in Sydney today is that of climate change. Let us just test this Government’s record on that important issue. 
Sue Moroney 
: Is climate change a hoax or not? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Let us ask the member opposite why it is that although Labour promised to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2005 emissions went up 12 percent. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Is it a hoax or not? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member opposite might like to answer my question because Labour has broken its promise. Labour’s promise of reducing emissions by 20 percent by 2005 was a hoax. 
Then we have the issue of electricity. Electricity is a State-owned sector. One would think that in a carbon-neutral age a Government would want to lead the world in sustainability but what does Labour do? It increases fourfold the amount of electricity that is being produced by coal. 
Members can take another comparison and perhaps the member opposite would like to look at this. I have the numbers on a practical area. Let us get some solar water heaters—that would make good sense would it not? Do members know that Australia is installing 30 times as many solar water heaters than New Zealand is on a per population basis? And Helen Clark wants to go to Sydney and tell the Australians how to manage the issue of climate change! 
Then there is the issue of forestry. Forestry is one of the most sensitive areas for a country like New Zealand in respect of climate change. Over the last 3 years we have for the first time in 50 years seen huge deforestation—the loss of 40000 hectares. Over 6 million trees have been cut down and not replanted. Let us compare that figure with the situation across the Tasman. In the same period Australia has increased its forestry by 400000 hectares. This is where it gets cynical: the Minister of Justice takes offence at a hoarding at the airport from the Kyoto Forestry Association criticising the Government on forestry policy. He now wants to pass a law to shut down such criticism as it will expose the fraud of this Government’s climate change policies. That is what he wants to do. 
That law is the most outrageous attack on free speech that this Parliament has ever seen. Mike Moore says it is dangerous. He says that Mark Burton is making a dangerous attack on the freedoms of New Zealanders. I ask members opposite why forestry owners should not be able to spend money on an ad campaign exposing the fraud of this Government’s climate change policies. Why should organisers from the Post Primary Teachers Association who are not exactly mates of ours not be able to run ads and say how Labour has broken its promises to teachers? Why is this Government going to stop the Littlies Lobby from being able to have ads to debate the important issue of child abuse? Why is it that Greenpeace will not be able to run ads next year expressing its view on climate change? 
You see this cynical sick tired Government has become so paranoid that it will even take away New Zealanders’ basic liberties in order to hang on to power. That is why it has to go. It does not understand that the interests of New Zealand are more important than the interests of the Labour Government—it should go.