Chauvel Charles: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Chauvel Charles: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Unlike the previous speaker Simon Power I want to address the Prime Minister’s speech and say a few words about it. 
Hon Simon Power 
: You missed the first half! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I am fortunate if I missed the first half because if the second half was anything to go by the rest of it would not have been a ripper. I want to point to three areas in the Prime Minister’s address where this Government is getting it wrong and where as a result New Zealand is being held back. Those areas are research and development climate change and energy and resources. 
I want to start with research and development because Mr Key said in his speech that science and innovation are key elements of the Government’s economic agenda both this year and into the future. I ask members how this Government has demonstrated its commitment to research development and innovation. The facts are that it began by dumping $700 million worth of existing investment in innovation in the primary sector. It then cut $300 million from research and tax credits for those very purposes. As Phil Goff reminded the House earlier today National did that while Australia was increasing its research and development expenditure by 25 percent. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: In Australia! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I tell Mr Henare that the truth hurts but Australia was increasing its expenditure by 25 percent. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Why don’t you move to Australia? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: The reason I do not move to Australia unlike a whole lot of Mr Henare’s rich Tory mates is because I am proud of this country and I want to see it do well. Unlike members opposite I do not believe in the Crosby/Textor strap-line that we need to catch up with Australia because that it all it is and members opposite know it. If members opposite need more evidence that this is just a Crosby/Textor strap-line here it is: under Labor Governments in Australia Australia is investing in those key areas while National just pays lip service to them. I was at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December and I saw more evidence of this lip service being paid to goals. When it became apparent at that conference that progress was not as good as it should be guess what happened? Tim Groser called a press conference to announce what he called a global agriculture fund. He said it was a cooperative mechanism between countries to look for solutions to greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. I would like the House to take a moment to compare the global agriculture fund or “gaffe” for short with Labour’s initiative in this area the Fast Forward Fund. That fund was announced in March 2009 and the New Zealand Government committed $700 million to it. One of its purposes was to create new technologies to reduce agricultural emissions. 
Hon David Carter 
: It was $2 billion when Mr Goff spoke this afternoon. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I tell Mr Carter to just wait because I will get to that. After including earnings from interest the $700 million contribution from the Government would likely have reached $1 billion over the planned term of the fund. Matched with the funding from our pastoral and food sector industries that public-private partnership would have amounted to $2 billion of investment in primary production - based intellectual property. 
Hon David Carter 
: Ha ha! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: That Minister thinks it is funny but that intellectual property would have been owned by Kiwis onshore to make a difference to our national interests here. In all likelihood that intellectual property would have seen us reach some solutions about emissions reduction technology. It would have been to the benefit of our own emissions profile and it would have enhanced our international reputation. 
Hon David Carter 
: No one even applied to it. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: That Minister does not care about our international reputation but members on this side of the House are absolutely passionate about it. It would also have allowed us to exploit the technology developed commercially on the basis of that fund at potentially significant profit. If we decided not to sell it offshore at profit to our national economy we could have given away some of it in aid to developing food-producing countries. What a great solution and what a win-win—$2 billion worth of investment owned onshore and able to be directed by Kiwis for Kiwi benefit. What could be better than that? One would wonder. 
Hon David Carter 
: Why was it such a flop? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: It was a flop because National scrapped it shortly after coming into office along with the tax credits for research and development. After confirming the funding for the global agriculture fund following Tim Groser’s announcement which we find is around $200 million it just pales in comparison to the $2 billion that would have been available under the Fast Forward Fund and worse the multinational nature of the global agriculture fund will inevitably mean that New Zealand will not own the results of any of the research it pays for. So as well as there being substantially less money for investment in the reduction of agriculture emissions New Zealand will be poorer because it will lose the opportunity to sell or share emissions reduction technology in our own singular area of expertise on our own terms. This is National’s commitment to research and development in a key area for New Zealand which is reducing our agricultural emissions so we can do our bit on climate change: divide the assistance that would have been made available by a factor of 10 and then make sure that New Zealand cannot control the outcomes of the research. That is National’s answer on research and development and it makes a mockery of what we heard from the Prime Minister earlier. 
Let us consider what John Key said about unlocking New Zealand’s resources. The Prime Minister confirmed that areas will be removed from schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act to allow for mining. Today he made it clear that whenever we hear the expression “unlocking New Zealand’s resources” he means mining our national parks. What did he really do? He confirmed that National has no forward-looking plan for New Zealand’s future. Was there any mention of our renewables advantage? Where was John Key who happens to be the Minister of Tourism celebrating the “100% Pure New Zealand” brand? Why was there a complete absence of any discussion of the possibilities of clean technology investment and all the jobs that that could create? Where is the vision beyond Gerry Brownlee’s desire to dig things up and send them offshore to be burnt? Phillip Mills Lloyd Morrison George Fistonich Geoff Ross Stephen Tindall Rob Fenwick Rob Fyfe and Jeremy Moon wrote to MPs last week about these possibilities. They included this book I am holding  
The Clean Industrial Revolution 
 
with their letter. I place my thanks on record for their correspondence. 
These people are some of our country’s leading businessmen. They remind us that New Zealand’s future should be focused on sustainable growth. They remind us that sustainable growth is not achieved by focusing on economic goals over environmental and social outcomes. Sustainable growth requires an integrated policy that merges economic environmental and social outcomes—the famous triple bottom line—to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the prosperity and quality of life of future generations. Mining national parks and other high-value conservation land completely ignores environmental and conservation concerns and the benefits that New Zealanders derive from activities in our national parks and on the conservation estate. Areas included within schedule 4 have been identified as having high conservation value. That is why schedule 4 protects this land by preventing access for mining. Going down the path that John Key mapped for us today undermines the New Zealand brand as clean and green. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Thank goodness! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well Ms Goudie was out with her chainsaw in the mangrove swamps in the Coromandel—we all know that. She is proud of it; look at her holding her arms up there with glee. That is what New Zealanders need to look at if they want to see the future of the environment under a John Key - led National Government. I am afraid it is not pretty. 
This Government is endangering New Zealand’s tourism industry and undermining our future. What a total tragedy that after only 1 year in office Paula Bennett and her ministerial colleagues have got so arrogant that they are not interested in listening to New Zealand’s leading business people—whose names I mentioned earlier—who are trying to show a way forward where we can have it all for the future. The National Party just does not want to know. My commitment as a Labour spokesperson in these areas is that the next Labour-led Government will not be deaf to the job-rich vision that these people have articulated for us. They know that it is the way to a clean and prosperous future. Labour will embrace that future.