Smith Nick: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Nick: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6873. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I confess to feeling a bit like a mosquito in a nudist colony such is the exposure of all of the three Opposition parties that we have seen over the last fortnight. You see Labour has had its worst conference in a generation. You have got a party at war with its own caucus. You have got the David versus David leadership crisis and you have got the other David muffing his numbers over Labour’s most important policy announcement this year. Then you have got the hobbit hatred hypocrisy. Having damned the deals that enabled  
The 
Hobbit 
 to be made in New Zealand having demonised Warner Bros and Peter Jackson Labour now wants to—Grant Robertson wants to get down there and hog the red carpet like he has been a hobbit lover all the way along. 
Actually  
The 
Hobbit 
 is the perfect end to National’s year. It is about jobs. It is about our creative industries. It is about giving the New Zealand brand the freshness that our visitor industry needs when it so much needs a boost. It is about highlighting how John Key and his Ministers are prepared to make bold punts to give New Zealand an edge and to give New Zealanders a job. 
But it is not just Labour that has had a nightmare run over the last fortnight. The Greens’ big play of the year has been the “Don’t frack with New Zealand” campaign. They demanded an independent inquiry. They got it but then disagreed with the conclusions and have bagged it. A fig leaf cannot hide the extent to which the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment found that the Greens had gone wrong. You see the Greens demanded a moratorium saying that New Zealanders’ health safety and environment were all being put at risk by a negligent Government. The environment commissioner said that a moratorium cannot be justified on the evidence. The Greens have gone on and said that fracking cannot be done safely—that is what Mr Hughes has said—and must be banned throughout New Zealand. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has concluded that the risks from fracking are manageable if they are done to the proper standards which is the exact position that this Government has taken and that the very well-respected Royal Society of London in the UK has taken. 
If the Greens had any class or any sense they would have accepted the report of the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Instead they have stooped so low and become so desperate that they are now telling us that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has been heavied by the oil industry. 
Maggie Barry 
: Disgraceful. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Disgraceful. How desperate can they get? It is just like it was over genetic modification a decade ago. The Greens ran a scare campaign exaggerating the risks. They demanded an inquiry but when the evidence before the royal commission of inquiry came to a different conclusion they would not budge. 
The Greens have seriously damaged themselves over the fracking issue. They have shown that far from being an evidence-based environmental party they are doctrinaire they are anti-science and they are an anti-progress protest party that will cynically exploit people’s fears of new technologies for political gain. 
But it is not just Labour and the Greens. New Zealand First’s end to this year is no better. This is a party that prides itself on championing the cause of older New Zealanders but it is ending the year consumed in allegations from family that one of its MPs ripped off his elderly mother for tens of thousands of dollars to support his gambling habit. Mr Peters and his colleagues are always the first to demand inquiries answers and openness. Imagine the furore if this was a Government MP who was not prepared to front for the answers and answer the questions. Imagine the furore if a Government MP was hiding away. 
New Zealand First the Greens and the Labour Party are in a mess but they have done New Zealand a great favour over the last fortnight showing that they cannot govern themselves let alone ever govern this country.