Smith Nick: Budget Debate 
Smith Nick: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9520] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Four months ago in February Prime Minister Helen Clark delivered her statement to this Parliament on the Government’s priorities for the year. It was “sustainability” this “sustainability” that and “sustainability” everywhere. In fact she mentioned the word “sustainability” 39 times. She said that that was the Government’s priority for the year. As National’s environment spokesperson when I picked up the Budget for this year I looked forward to the follow-through. I wanted to see the action to follow up the words. I searched through the Environment vote and the Conservation vote and I went through the Minister of Finance’s speech. I searched under the tables. I went through the cupboards. Was there anything in this Budget to back up the rhetoric around sustainability that Prime Minister started the year with? 
Well I found that it was all alone. This Prime Minister we have seen has one theory after another and there is never follow-through. Do people remember when she promised that New Zealand would get into the top half of the OECD by 2010? We are not allowed to talk about that any more because she failed to do that. Then we heard from the Prime Minister that the big strategy for the Government was closing the gaps. We have to forget about that; we are not allowed to talk about closing the gaps any more. Then we had economic transformation which was the next big theme for the Government—and there was no follow-through. The Government never did anything about it. And now we have all this spin from Prime Minister Clark about sustainability—and there is absolutely nothing in this Budget to back that up. 
The really embarrassing part for David Parker and for Labour is that they have failed so badly on all of the issues. Labour was elected in 1999 on a promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2005. Well did it? Did it get maybe 5 percent? No. Not only did emissions not drop by 20 percent; the official figures show that they went up by 12 percent such was the Government’s failure. In fact right now emissions are growing at over a million tonnes a year. The reason that the public has lost confidence in the Labour Government is that we cannot believe what it says. The Prime Minister gives a speech on carbon neutrality while our emissions are growing at a faster rate than any other country in the OECD—twice the rate of Australia and three times the rate of the United States. The Government talks in this Parliament about carbon neutrality and then it funds a wicked great oil-fired power station in Napier. It has built the big fat E3P gas-fired coal station in the Waikato. You see it will require a massive change simply to stabilise the emissions. 
What do we have in this Budget? Where is that Prime Minister’s statement backed up? Well on page 496 I found it. The public service in New Zealand is going carbon neutral. Well well well! The bureaucrats in Treasury are going to go carbon neutral. What will that do for us? That is not 1 percent 0.1 percent or even 0.01 percent of a reduction in emissions. So how can the Prime Minister have the audacity to race round New Zealand parroting on about carbon neutrality and then deliver a Budget that has $14 million to be spent on the public service becoming carbon neutral? Let me just explain to the House how foolish and stupid Treasury going carbon neutral is. We know that right now in New Zealand there is a chainsaw massacre. More trees are being cut down now than at any time in New Zealand’s history. In just 10 minutes during the course of my speech more carbon will be emitted from deforestation than the entire benefits of the initiatives in this Budget to achieve carbon neutrality. That shows just what sort of fraud it is. 
I asked the Minister in the House today what he is going to do about trying to halt deforestation. There are nurseries and forestry contractors out there right now sitting and waiting ready to go and do some good stuff and plant some trees. I simply asked the Minister whether they would be able to get the carbon credits for those trees that they planted. The Minister said that he did not know there were some options and the Government might make a decision in a few months. That is a great damn help. The planting season is June July and August. Telling the foresters in August: “Hey guys we’ve made a decision. We’ve decided you’re going to get the credits.” is too damn late. 
I say to Government members opposite that they have been in Government for 8 years. Why can they not answer a basic question being asked by those foresters as to whether this year they will receive the credits for those trees that they plant? Let us just be reminded that the Prime Minister’s Government of carbon neutrality has overseen the clear-felling of 8 million trees and not one of those is to be replanted. 
But carbon neutrality and this business of New Zealand being a “world leader in sustainability” goes further than just the issue of climate change. Labour was elected on a platform. Labour said it would deliver a national policy statement on biodiversity. In 2003 I asked when Labour would do it. It said it would be in 2004. In 2004 I asked when it would deliver on its promise and Labour said it would be in 2005. In 2006 Labour said it would deliver it in 2007 and after the Prime Minister’s great speech in which she said that we are going to lead the world in sustainability the Government said: “Sorry we’re not doing it.” 
I take an important issue like that of energy efficiency. The Government launched a strategy in 2001 that said it would get a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2010. Yet when the official figures came out energy efficiency improvements have been going backwards not forwards. In fact the Government has spent $100 million on feel-good— 
Hon David Parker 
: Rubbish! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister says: “Rubbish!”. Let me tell the House what the Treasury report said. It said that from 1995 to 1999 we had energy efficiency improvements of 0.8 percent per year. Since the Minister has had a strategy it has been 0.4 percent per year—half of that. It is hopeless. 
Let us take renewables. One would say that as part of New Zealand being a “world leader in sustainability” we might have seen some progress there. Yet over the 7 years that Labour has been in Government we have seen a declining amount of renewable energy. Then I thought what about the electrification of rail? Let us just make the generous assumption that every electron that drives those Auckland railway trains comes from renewable energy and not from one of the Government’s new oil or gas-fired power stations. Even if we make that assumption the amount of carbon emissions it will save will reduce the growth in emissions—not reduce the emissions themselves—by just 2 percent meaning it will take 50 years simply to stabilise emissions and it will take a further 900 years to achieve that mythical goal of carbon neutrality. It is no wonder that all over the country people are “taking the p” out of that policy. 
Then we look at issues like water quality and the oceans policy in terms of water quality. Every single one of the deadlines that has been set for the Government has failed. It was all meant to be done. Is there anything in these Budget documents about water quality given that we are going to be a “world leader in sustainability”? The Budget is absolutely silent. The oceans policy work was meant to be concluded in 2004. Is that concluded anywhere in this Budget? It is not. It has fallen over. If we look at waste strategy—here it is—we are going to be a “world leader in sustainability” according to the Prime Minister because in this Budget we are going to build some recycling bins at tourist spots. There it is.