Norman Russel: General DebateText is subject to correctionNorman Russel: General Debate[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2977. Text is subject to correction.]Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. In 2015 a Government-owned railway company in New Zealand is proposing to remove electrification for the main trunk line and replace an electric railway with diesel engines. Nothing perhaps epitomises the disastrous climate change policy of this Government more than that one simple fact—the fact that 15 years into the 21st century this Government’s own railway company is proposing to remove electrification from the main trunk line and replace it with diesel engines.Climate change is the defining issue of this century. The issue that will define the judgment of history on this Government and on all of us in this House is climate change and whether we take action on it. Yet New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 42 percent from 1990 to 2013—a 42 percent increase in net emissions a 21 percent increase in gross greenhouse gas emissions. Nothing could define a failure more than those numbers. It is for that reason that today we did something different with question time. We crowdsourced a series of questions about climate change because we thought it was important that the people of New Zealand are given the opportunity to directly question the Government on the issue of climate change.Some of those questions related to the issue of the Government railway company removing electrification which of course is an incredibly stupid and backward move. But of course I do not necessarily blame KiwiRail for it. It is actually being driven by the Government’s own policies. It gutted the emissions trading scheme and removed the price on carbon so of course it makes sense at some level economically. And of course the other impact of the Government’s policies is that we now have twice the level of deforestation of plantation forest than we have of afforestation even though the Minister for Climate Change Issues did not know this and put out a press statement saying that we were planting forests faster than we were knocking them down. In fact the truth is the exact opposite and the Minister for Climate Change Issues had to issue a press release correcting his statement.What we have seen in New Zealand is that not only have we gutted the emissions trading scheme but the Government is now subsidising the exploration for fossil fuels. This is in a world where we know that we have already found far more fossil fuels than we can possibly afford to burn if we want to stay under 2 degrees of warming. What could be more insane? What could be madder than using $50 million of taxpayers’ money to subsidise searching for and producing fossil fuels that we know we cannot burn without cooking the planet? But that is this Government’s policy: to subsidise the exploration for fossil fuels with taxpayers’ money even though we cannot burn the existing fossil fuels that we have already discovered.All around the world people are divesting out of fossil fuels. Even in New Zealand Victoria University has divested from fossil fuels Dunedin City Council has just announced it is divesting from fossil fuels and Christchurch City Holdings and so many others are taking leadership on the issue of climate change because the Government will not. The Government is embracing the 1950s. It is embracing diesel trains and deforestation; it does not seem to get climate change. That is why we crowdsourced questions about climate change today—so that the voices of ordinary New Zealanders could be heard in this House—and that is why others are having to take the lead on climate change all around New Zealand by divesting out of fossil fuels.This is not only an ethical and moral issue; it is also an economic issue. This is one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century and it is passing New Zealand by because we have a Government that does not recognise it. We have a Government that is embracing simple commodities when the whole world is embracing the cleantech greentech revolution and yet you would not even know it from New Zealand because we have a Government that is firmly facing back into the middle of the 20th century even though we are 15 years into the 21st century.Climate change is the compelling issue of our time. It is going to require leadership from ordinary people because we have a Government that will not take action on climate change—in fact it is accelerating New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions. We know that when it came to votes for women it was ordinary New Zealanders who had to take the lead in order to make that happen. We know that when it came to mining in national parks it was ordinary people who stopped the Government doing it.