Hutchison Paul: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11320] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 National will certainly not be supporting the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill. We will not be supporting it because it undoubtedly is yet another contribution to the entangled mesh of bureaucracy that this beleaguered Labour Government has placed around the Resource Management Act. Indeed this is a desperate and beleaguered Minister—and we have evidence in the chair there; he certainly looks a sorry sight. He has been playing around undoubtedly and desperately. 
Certainly if this legislation was to bring in efficiency and was evidence-based then we would look at it. But as we go over to the purpose clause and note that it includes the requirement for local government to take notice of the effects of climate change we then have to look at the Government’s own preferred package on climate change and this is what it says about it—this is vital: “The area of climate change is uncertain. We know the world has a problem but it is unclear exactly what will happen with the climate to whom and over what time frame.” This is the Government that has put in one of the most prescriptive and onerous pieces of legislation in terms of domestic climate change policy and it will affect all New Zealanders adversely way in advance of our trading partners like Australia and America and this is the Government that is further entangling us in this mesh of bureaucracy when it admits in its own preferred policy package that absolute confusion surrounds climate change. This bill is utterly inappropriate. It is absolutely premature and it indirectly imposes all sorts of distortions on New Zealanders both at the local government level and at the national government level and it indeed is a great folly because of that. 
I think it is important to spell out to the Committee the sorts of consequences that will be imposed on ordinary New Zealanders through the Government’s preferred climate change policies. The Government has said—and it has it on its website—that petrol prices are liable to go up between 3 and 6 percent in 2008; diesel prices by 5 to 12 percent; electricity 4 to 9 percent; gas 3 to 8 percent; and coal 8 to 19 percent. That is just domestic use. Ordinary New Zealanders are simply not aware of this because the Government sort of signalled it as being in the distant future. To make it even worse the industrial costs that will be imposed on New Zealand are for electricity 6 to 16 percent; gas 9 to 24 percent; and coal 17 to 44 percent in increased charges. That will have a huge effect on the New Zealand economy. Labour has done this whilst its own preferred policy package says that confusion surrounds the whole area. It is just arrant nonsense and it is an example of a Government that is undoubtedly way out of control. In the fine electorate of Port Waikato I have two examples of where this bill will absolutely conflict in terms of sensible planning. One is New Zealand Steel. That company will go bust unless it has a negotiated Government agreement. That is a huge distortion.