Dean Jacqui: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dean Jacqui: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6224] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 We will support this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. In fact it is the only initiative from the Government on climate change that remotely makes any sense but still as we have observed the bill needs some change through the Committee stage. 
The Government needs to take some responsibility for the 7 years in which it has been the Government. Although the Government is very good at talking the talk just now using its “get out of jail free” card to take the heat off some other issues with regards to carbon neutrality I think that in order for a country to have any confidence in this Government we need to have a look at its track record over the past 7 years on climate change. It is so easy to claim the moral high ground over climate change and it is so easy to talk about people being johnny-come-latelys to the issue. But what I see happening in this Chamber and what I think we need to do is something more about climate change than just highfalutin words which we have heard a lot of. 
Let us have a look at what the Government has achieved on climate change policy in its past 7 years as the Government. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Absolutely nothing. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well not quite nothing because we signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. In the past 7 years we have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was going to save the world. There were lots of conferences about it and it was going to save the world from our 0.4 percent of emissions which is what New Zealand contributes to greenhouse gases. It was also going to make us a bundle. How much was signing up to Kyoto going to make us? It was $500 million. In fact it was going to be fantastic. It was going to be New Zealand’s contribution to global warming. The problem is that the Government made a slight miscalculation and it turns out that instead of making a bundle and saving the world with the Kyoto Protocol it is costing us a bundle. How much is it costing us? 
Mark Blumsky 
: $500 million. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: What? $500 million is what it has cost! Far from saving the world far from saving our 0.4 percent of carbon emissions it is costing us money and achieving nothing. 
What else has the Government attempted to do in the 7 years it has been the Government? The Government brought in the carbon tax which it figured out eventually was not going to work. Then the Government brought in the “fart tax” which it figured out eventually was not going to work. But then we had the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. How much did it take the Government to figure out that it was not going to work? That is right. It took the Government $100 million of taxpayers’ money to show that it was not going to work. So for people who are listening this is the Government’s track record in its 7 years on climate change policy because it is a world leader or so it would have us think. 
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has described the Government as operating in a climate change vacuum. What was the Government’s response to that charge? Well in the second reading of this bill Steve Chadwick when challenged about a lack of climate change policy said: “Just wait. It’s coming.” Well it did. It came at the Labour Party conference and it was the Prime Minister who said: “We are going to be carbon neutral.” Fantastic! I ask the Prime Minister how we will do that without ruining the economy of New Zealand. 
OK so what has National been doing? Because we have a full 2 years before the next election and we know that we will be the next Government we have produced  
A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand 
. Do members know what? It has been so well received that it is embarrassing. National knows where New Zealand should go with climate change policy. We know where we should go and we have a policy. We have proposals for tradable emissions permits to manage New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions and that is where we acknowledge we must take a longer-term view of the environment.