Heatley Phil: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11316] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 It was quite absurd was it not the idea of the Government taxing millions and millions of sheep and thousands and thousands of cows in this country for flatulence. Was it not absurd! Was it not good to see the U-turn. Was it not good to see the member Shane Ardern so eloquently demonstrating the absurdity of taxing those innocent stock going about their business in this country generating export dollars for us. It was good to see the Government do a U-turn on that matter. But the bigger goal and what Shane Ardern is taking on now is to see the Government do a U-turn on something equally absurd but more insidious and less obvious to the general public; of course I am referring to the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill. 
I am standing to speak on Part 1 the commencement date the purpose of the Act and the interpretation of the Act. What I find interesting about this is that the bill is presented to the Committee in order to more easily clarify section 7 of the Resource Management Act which requires efficient use and development of natural and physical resources. That is because it became apparent over the last 10 years that the Resource Management Act was inadequate in dealing with the efficient use of energy particularly from minerals. The benefits that the country the world and the atmosphere can gain through the use of renewable energy resources including that from minerals which are less often renewable unlike solar power and geothermal and so on were not dealt with so well by the Act. 
The National Party acknowledges the benefits of renewable energies. There is no argument about that. We are not extreme. We are not like the Greens. We are not going to suggest using renewable resources in the sense of putting plastic bags around the buttocks of various stock caged in our country and using that energy. We are not as extreme as that. 
Brian Connell 
: Do they say that? 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: They say that sort of thing. But we are saying that the use of solar power tidal power geothermal power biomass wave power ocean current sources and wind power as well as hydro is very beneficial to the country. But what seems strange particularly in clause 3 “Purpose” is that local authorities in planning for businesses and industrial development for energy users whether they be residential or commercial are allowed to plan for the effects of climate change. In other words they are allowed to guess whether the use of renewables is going to be positive or negative and guess whether the use of mineral energy resources will be positive or negative. But they are not allowed as is stated in paragraph (b)(ii) of clause 3 to consider the effects on climate change of discharges into the air of greenhouse gases. They are allowed to look at the potential effects but they are not allowed to measure them and consider the actual effects of those emissions into the atmosphere. That seems absurd to me. One can measure the effects and one can see whether they are beneficial or not beneficial. If they harm the environment and people know it people should be able to use that information in their planning and not just in the granting of resource consent but also in the granting of an extension of resource consent. 
I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Harry Duynhoven—who is sporting a broken arm because I know he was arm-wrestling David Benson-Pope to get into Cabinet and he lost—why it is that councils are able to plan for the effects of climate change but not measure it and use that information.