Parker David: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
Parker David: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
[Volume:651;Page:297] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition will oppose the motion on the emissions trading scheme select committee. It is but a smokescreen for yet more delay covering up the fact that National—a decade after it signed the Kyoto Protocol after 9 years in Opposition after participation in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and after access to all the officials through and outside of that process—does not know what to do. National is riven with division within its own caucus. Mr Brownlee has just said that we should have emissions pricing without increasing prices. We cannot have emissions pricing without it having an effect on prices. The very purpose of emissions pricing is to change the relative price of emissions-related activity compared with activity that reduces emissions. National does not know what it wants to do.  
There is a majority in this House for sensible policy on climate change. Labour supports it the Greens support it and National says it supports it. The Maori Party wants something tougher than the existing emissions trading scheme; that is why it opposed the emissions trading scheme legislation. There is a majority yet here is a move on the part of National for further delay.  
Climate change is undoubtedly the largest environmental challenge that the planet presently faces. It is caused by population pressures which will not go away and by increasing consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases. There is general agreement with that across the world. US China Europe and Australia—to name just a few—all accept that human-induced climate change is real and that we need to do something about it. Indeed Mr Key’s Speech from the Throne read by the Governor-General said: “My Government believes that New Zealand … must act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions …”. The word “act” is a very small word. I will read it again: “My Government believes that New Zealand … must act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions …”. Unfortunately the word “act”—as we in this House know better than some—has more than one connotation. In this case the word “act” was spelt “H-i-d-e”. The Government is “Hide-ing” behind ACT to try to avoid taking responsibility. After 9 years in Opposition and after full participation in the climate change debate it does not know what it wants to do next.  
You know in the months leading up to the election different members of the National Party said different things. David Carter told the farming lobby that National would soften the emissions trading scheme for agriculture. Jacqui Dean said that the legislation would be repealed.  
Jacqui Dean 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is not true. I did not say that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has been in this House for some time and knows that that is not a point of order. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Jacqui Dean was reported in the  
Timaru Herald 
—and after she made a denial the paper stood by its report—as saying to an electoral meeting in Timaru that National would repeal the emissions trading scheme.  
During the election there was a debate on Radio New Zealand National. Nick Smith took umbrage at my claim that National did not know where it stood and was planning to do things other than proceed with an emissions trading scheme. I remember his words. He said: “Hear me Kathryn Ryan. Let me be quite clear.”—he uses that phrase quite often—“National is going to proceed with an emissions trading scheme and it’s going to include agriculture.” That was his promise during the election. Jeanette Fitzsimons buttonholed John Key at Waikanae. Again this was reported verbatim; the recording was played repeatedly on Radio New Zealand National. He said that his party if elected as Government would proceed with an emissions trading scheme and it would include agriculture. Yet what is it doing? It is setting up a select committee that will consider among other things whether we should have any pricing whether we should just mitigate rather than do anything to reduce emissions and whether we should have a carbon tax. This is yet another flip-flop. 
If the select committee proceeds—and the Government has the numbers so it clearly will proceed—we will hear all the emitters having opposed the carbon tax say that they now want a carbon tax. The gas lobby the coal lobby the smelters the Major Electricity Users Group the Greenhouse Policy Coalition and the Business Roundtable all of which are interlinked—if one looks at the individual members of these groups one finds that they are just about the same people every time—will come along and say that they want a carbon tax. They will say what the Business Roundtable has already said which is that it wants a carbon tax of about $5 a tonne. In other words these emitters want four-fifths of the cost of increasing emissions to be with taxpayers and one-fifth of the cost to be with them. They are not worried about the environment. That system will not reduce emissions but that is not their concern. They just want to minimise their own costs and they want to be able to increase their emissions at the cost of the environment and at the cost of taxpayers.  
This is just bad bad policy and it is having real effects already. The leading publication on energy in my opinion is  
NZ Energy and Environment Business Week 
. I have in front of me issue 55 of 26 November. It says: “Forestry projects worth about $400 million have been cancelled within a week of the Govt announcing it will delay the ETS while it carries out a review. Scores of new forestry jobs which would have been created due to the ETS are now going to be put on hold.” It then lists the projects and it has Roger Dickie and a consortium GreenAir saying that some of these projects will not come again. There are real consequences of doing this and the real consequences include rising unemployment which the Government is responsible for and should be held to account for.  
In addition to those jobs there is the fledgling carbon trading market to consider. The carbon market is a service industry. We need jobs in New Zealand. We need new high-value jobs. New Zealand was a world leader in this area. The service industry was locating here. The same issue reports that EcoSecurities “one of the biggest players in the international carbon market which was due to launch its business in NZ this week has pulled the plug.”—further economic consequences for our country of National doing nothing.  
This is an outrageous proposition. It does the business of the major emitters at the cost of taxpayers at the cost of people who are employed in New Zealand and at the cost of rising unemployment. National is using the ACT Party—the last naysayers in the country. ACT accuses everyone else of being dogmatic and refusing to listen to alternative points of view but it is unwilling to accept the majority view of scientists which is now compelling and has reached the stage that Governments around the world are accepting for policy purposes that human-induced climate change is proven and that we have to get on and respond to it. The ACT Party sits out there as naysayers; it criticises everyone else who has the gumption to make a decision and to take on their responsibilities as parliamentarians around the world. ACT says that we are the ones who are intolerant and dogmatic not themselves.  
How can John Key stand there and say that he will promote employment growth economic growth and tourism? He is the self-appointed Minister of Tourism. He had his first little wake-up call when he went to see Gordon Brown did he not? Gordon Brown slapped down the little upstart who had turned up from New Zealand to ask him to please not impose a tax on long-haul flights to New Zealand. What was he told? He was shown the door. He could not stand there and credibly ask Gordon Brown to please not do anything improper to the interests of New Zealand because he was having an inquiry as to whether climate change was real. Having promised an emissions trading scheme which the whole of Europe already has in place he recanted and said that National will now look at it again.  
This is an outrageous breaking of a promise by the National Party. It promised time and again during and prior to the election that it would proceed with an emissions trading scheme. It said it would amend it—that is fine. I concede that there are grey areas; there always will be. There is a discussion to be had as to whether the phasing out of free allocation is right. There is a discussion to be had around whether there should be a reserve for new entrants to the scheme. Those are proper areas for discussion and that is where the discussion should be focused. There was no need to suspend the market. There was no need to ruin the prospects of the fledgling carbon market industry. There was no need to ruin the hundreds of millions of dollars of inward investment that will now not come to New Zealand. There was no need to unnecessarily increase unemployment which the Government is doing as a consequence. This is bad policy and the motion will be opposed by Labour.