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:11328] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 2 certainly perpetuates the nonsense that we saw in Part 1. We heard the Minister say that climate change is happening but climate change has been happening since Adam and Eve in time immemorial as my colleague pointed out. It is of huge concern that a very intricate bureaucracy and layers of legislation are being put into the bill when this Labour Government in its preferred policy package has clearly stated that confusion surrounds the issue of climate change. I think it would be useful if the Minister took a further call—and I say good on him for taking one call—to explain to us why when the Government says that there is much confusion that the area of climate change is uncertain and that it is unclear exactly what will happen to whom and over what time frame the Government is putting in all these extraordinary things like negotiated Government agreements which distort the markets and give the wrong incentives. Why is the Government doing this when it admits that there is so little knowledge about the root cause of climate change? 
I note that in clause 5(1)(ba) the efficiency of the end use of energy is referred to. Why has the Government not started doing the sort of sensible things that are being done in Europe in terms of making sure that we have efficient end use of our energy anyway—for instance with regard to motors? In Europe—the Minister has looked at what happens there—a system is in place to incentivise companies and manufacturers of motors so that if they have highly efficient motors then they get a gold star standard which is graded from levels 1 to 5. There are clear incentives to make that happen. We have an example of a company in New Zealand that has invented an energy-efficient brushless motor and is licensed to sell it in North America and all over Europe. But in New Zealand there are no incentives for companies to have that efficient end usage of energy. 
It seems absurd that the Labour Government has put into this bill an incredible framework of intricate useless bureaucracy and has not done the simple sensible things first. Instead it has forged ahead of our trading partners and we have the ridiculous situation whereby in my electorate New Zealand Steel which employs 1200 people directly and 5000 indirectly may well have to close down if the Government imposes the carbon credits that it is planning to impose. 
 Instead New Zealand Steel will get a negotiated Government agreement. That is fine. Then that company tells me that one of the most useful ways it could run its highly important plant—highly important to New Zealand—would be to use coal. The company is very prepared to use the most contemporary technology that there is but it would have no hope of getting a resource consent to do so—absolutely no hope. That is an indictment on the difficulty that this Government has put us into. On the other hand Genesis Power is planning and applying for a wind farm. Wind farms are great—absolutely great. I can see the Minister in the chair the Hon Harry Duynhoven with his genetic propensity—being a Dutchman—has great enthusiasm for windmills and wind farms. That is splendid.