Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11335] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise to speak in opposition to the title of the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill because it is very misleading. The accurate title should be “Get Helen a New Job Overseas Bill” or “Find a Position Internationally for the Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Bill”. Another title might be the “Mislead the Public of New Zealand Then Do a U-turn Bill”. 
It was interesting to note that the Minister in the chair Harry Duynhoven took a call. I congratulate him on it and also the Labour member who made a contribution in the last 2½ hours as we debated the bill. Both of them are learned and both gave very sound contributions. The only problem is that nobody on this side understood what they were talking about and that absolutely says it all. 
The Minister in the chair said that through some acquaintance with some Dutch interests in energy— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: No through Meridian. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: —through Meridian and in discussions with some Dutch colleagues—I guess it would be fair to say—there was believed to be an opportunity for New Zealand to trade in carbon credits. I understood that is what the Minister said. The Minister is nodding so that is what he said but here is where I have a difficulty. I understood that the socialists on the other side of the House were going to nationalise the carbon credits and take them for themselves. Now I am in a huge vacuum again. Maybe the title of the bill should be “The Minority Socialist Labour Government (Once it’s Found a Job for Helen Overseas) Bill” and then the “Nationalise the Carbon Credits Bill” will trade them at the expense of Meridian or any private or State-owned company in New Zealand. That would be a much more accurate description of the bill. 
Perhaps the Minister will take another call and clear this matter up for me because clearly I am now a little perplexed about how one can trade carbon credits with Dutch interests after they have been nationalised—[ 
Interruption 
] Clearly the State can; the Government can. There is no doubt that the State can trade those carbon credits if they exist and if it can find a market for them. But how does that help private enterprise or private generation or anybody at all who is interested in investing in the energy sector other than the State? 
It might help the State but what is the State doing in the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill? I will tell members what it is doing. It is building diesel-powered generation it is building coal-powered generation and it is prohibiting the very thing that this bill stands for—renewable energy generation. If one goes down to Card Creek and looks at the Dobson Dam—200 hectares of gorse—a private entity that wants to invest and produce a hydro-power station in an area that is energy deficient and make it self-sufficient in energy on a side of the island where they have regular and reliable rainfall that is completely sustainable and could go on for 500 or 1000 years or for ever the same minority socialist Labour Government that is proposing this bill is saying: “No we’re not going to have a bar of that we’re not going to allow them to do that that is not within the precincts of what we will allow as the democratically elected Government of New Zealand”. But not for much longer; it is about to be changed. 
So the title of this bill should be the “Stop the Development of Renewable Energy Nationalise Carbon Credits and Find Helen a New Job Overseas Bill”. That would be a much more accurate description. Another title might be: “If I Can Create Enough Opportunities on the International Stage to Talk in a Whole Lot of Wiffle-waffle Socialist-type Platitudes About How I Can Save the World From all Sorts of Ills Then Somebody Overseas Might Find Me a Job Bill”. When it comes to the Prime Minister of New Zealand let us hope that comes true.