Connell Brian: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Connell Brian: Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11334] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I am pleased to be able to take part in the title debate. I was very pleased to see Taito Phillip Field take a call in the Committee. As I think about the title and whether it is appropriate I wonder whether for the sake of argument we can allow that his proposition is correct that global warming is a global problem. I would then put it to him that if it is a global problem surely it deserves a global solution. How can it be a global solution if the major countries around the world are not prepared to be a party to that solution? Why should New Zealand wade in and make global warming our problem when we contribute only 0.2 percent of the greenhouse emissions worldwide? 
I am thinking about the title. Maybe we should call this bill the “Resource Management (Climate Uncertainty) Bill”. I am glad to see that we have a Minister in the chair the Hon Harry Duynhoven who is prepared to take a call because I have a question for him. If we allow that there are benefits to be derived from the development of renewable energy and if we really believe that the Kyoto Protocol is the solution to the problem of climate change will the cost of fixing the problem leave New Zealand better or worse off? 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Better. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Will the Minister take a call and explain why he believes that? Has it been costed? Does he understand that there is a huge body of opinion that says that no matter what we do around the Kyoto Protocol—even if the whole world embraced it—it would not change the climate outcome one iota? 
 The next issue I want to put to the Minister is this: if we allow that electricity demand is growing exponentially—and it is; it is outstripping supply—what will we do when the supply has been outstripped? Would the Minister care to take a call and answer that question? What will we do when the demand outstrips the supply? That really is the issue. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member needs to speak to the title. This is the title clause. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Maybe the title then should be the “Resource Management (Energy) Bill” because that really is the crux of the matter or the “Resource Management (Kyoto) Bill” because essentially that is what we are talking about. So my question to the Minister still stands. If energy is being used at a rate that outstrips supply what will we do then as a nation? Business in this country wants one thing above all else and Clayton Cosgrove knows that. The one thing that business wants more than anything else is certainty. Cost is important to business but certainty of supply is more important. That is why the title of the bill is I think a misnomer because it does not really deal with the substance or nub of that question. Would the Minister care to take a call on that? 
Maybe we can name this bill the “Resource Management (Steal Carbon Credits) Amendment Bill” because the Minister took a call—and I commend him for doing that—and waxed lyrical about some of his Dutch interests doing deals with New Zealand. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Not my Dutch interests—Dutch interests. I am a New Zealander. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Sorry he talked about Dutch interests doing a deal with New Zealand. I apologise to him. That was not the point I am trying to make anyway and I did not mean to offend the Minister. I am simply saying that there is a body of opinion in this country that believes that the carbon credits do not belong to the Government in the first place. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: The forestry sector which Mr Cosgrove represents believes that and the farmers that he represents believe that. Maybe Mr Cosgrove should take a call and explain to them why the title of this bill is a misnomer. That issue goes to the nub of the problem. The answer that has been suggested—and again I will relate it to the title—is that maybe we should call the bill the “Resource Management (Wind) Amendment Bill”. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: That member would know. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: He probably would too! The member over there on the Government benches suggests that I should know about that. Actually I do not know a lot about wind generation other than that to have a huge number of windmills dotted across the landscape of this country will not only cause huge noise pollution but will be ugly.