Mahuta Nanaia: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Mahuta Nanaia: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:619;Page:14599] 
3.  
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
 to the  
Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Change 
: Has he received any recent reports on climate change policy development for New Zealand? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Change) 
: 
 Yes I have received a report that questions the science behind climate change. It claims we should do nothing about fossil fuel use and states that we will be the last Western country in the world to sign up to emissions charges or emissions trading yet suggests that we should stay in the Kyoto Protocol and claim to be clean and green. I find it astonishing that this piece of environmental abdication has been proudly announced during Conservation Week by the National Party. 
Nanaia Mahuta 
: What would be the implications for New Zealand of our doing nothing to start reducing greenhouse gases? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: If such a policy were implemented New Zealand’s international credibility as a clean green country would be gone by lunchtime. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Has the Minister become so embarrassed by his own Government’s failed Kyoto Protocol policies that all he can now do is to misrepresent National’s policy; if not why did the Government’s own stocktake report on infrastructure released in May this year state that his policies on the Kyoto Protocol were undermining investment in the electricity sector? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: That particular report referred to some uncertainty occasioned by President Putin’s indecision about whether to reach for his pen; it is likely to be addressed presently. However the more important thing is that I have received further advice which comes in the form of three short sentences on climate change. These sentences read: “The problem is enormous. Eventually it will stuff life on earth. New Zealand can’t ignore the problem.” Who was the author? It was the Hon Dr Nick Smith. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek the leave of the House to table the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that makes absolutely no mention of the Russians and mentions only uncertainty about Mr Hodgson’s policy. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What effect would it have on our international reputation if a National Government were to carry out its policy to use carbon credits to let carbon polluters off the hook when those credits were actually negotiated by Simon Upton on the promise that they would not be used to allow polluters to do nothing? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That question was deliberately about National Party policy. I seek leave of the House—seeing that everybody wants to pretend we are the Government we are happy to be it—to answer the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was very much about National Party policy. There is no way that the Minister is responsible for that. Yesterday we tabled a copy of National’s policy. The Minister goes to great lengths not even to quote from it. I do not see how you as Speaker can sit there silently and have this charade go on where the Minister will not answer questions about the Government’s policies but is keen to answer questions about everybody else’s policies. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not like any reflection like that and I am not having any of it made. The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that reflection on me. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: There was no reflection— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member said I am listening to a charade; I am not. The member will withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister was asked a specific question about what another Minister had done. To that extent the question was perfectly in order. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was not what was asked. The Minister was asked to speculate on what an outcome might be if the National Party were to implement a certain policy. Quite honestly I do not see how he could have any information on that at all. It is quite out of order to expect the Minister to answer a question on someone else’s policy or the effects of it. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: The question was to a Minister who has been a negotiator at the climate change deliberations for some years and therefore knows what the international community thinks of various policies. He was asked his view on what the effect on our reputation in the international community would be if a particular policy were followed. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I think Jeanette Fitzsimons is correct in that respect but I actually do agree that the question as phrased is out of order because it asked what the effect of what a National Government might do would be. Had the questioner asked what the effect would be if the Government adopted a policy of doing such-and-such the question I am sure would have been fully in order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am going to invite Jeanette Fitzsimons to rephrase her question so that it is in order and she has only the one chance. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What effect would it have on our international reputation if the Government were to adopt proposals by the National Party to use carbon credits to let carbon polluters off the hook when in fact those credits were negotiated by Simon Upton on the promise that they would not be used to allow polluters to do nothing? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member raises a very good point when she speaks of the New Zealand Government’s earlier international negotiating stance and she correctly describes it. I would have suggested that if the National Party policy were put in place our international reputation would be gone by lunchtime. What is more Simon Upton will be spinning in his Parisian bed now; he is coming back to New Zealand soon so be careful. What is more— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not know whether it is just because it is a Wednesday but the answer itself ended up quite out of order. 
Larry Baldock 
: Has the Minister seen the report in the Australian 
 Sunday Mail  
of 18 July this year that quotes noted Professor David Bellamy a respected environmentalist as saying “The link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming is a myth.”; and is he concerned that by signing up to the Kyoto Protocol the Government will end up spending a great deal of money on solving a problem that in Bellamy’s words “does not exist”? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes as a matter of fact I have and I have heard Professor Bellamy quoted around the world. I have also read a lot of rebuttal of Professor Bellamy’s work—he is of course a botanist. But I want to make this point: if the National Party is so proud of its policy why has it not put it on its website? The policy is not on the website. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We get a question about David Bellamy’s policies and then we get a question about National’s website. How far are you going to let Ministers wander in terms of their ministerial responsibility? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I would love to be able to let nobody at all in this House wander; then we would have question time over in about half an hour. I allow a little bit of latitude. I think that is in the nature of parliamentary democracy. But I say to the member that his point of order was valid. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We sit here every day—and we are now well into August—and to our right sits a party that complains every day and raises countless points of order. [ 
Interruption 
] With respect if you check the  
Hansard 
 you will see that pro rata those members have had far more points of order and time-wasting than all the parties over here which put together outnumber them. My real point is there has to come a time when either they know the Standing Orders and know how to perform or do not turn up in this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: All I can say is I am reminded of a proverb which I will not repeat. I just say to the member that as far as I am concerned there are very few valid points of order raised during question time. Most of them are political point-scoring and I think if we allowed a little more give and take it would make for a more interesting House. But if members want the rules applied absolutely rigidly then they can ask me to do that. But I do not think that is in the best interests of a democracy. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Despite your having just made that statement—and I hope you do not regard this point as political point-scoring—I now raise this point with you. In the spirit of allowing a wide question time I did not raise this objection before the question was asked. It is my understanding that Ministers can be asked questions about matters that have been delegated to them—first from the Governor General then from the Prime Minister. I see here that we have a question to the Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Change. Does that mean we can now ask questions of any Minister whom we happen to know has some responsibility? For example could we ask questions of the chairman of the Cabinet legislation committee? It would appear to me that if we can ask questions of a person who is head of a ministerial group on climate change we can certainly ask a question of the chairman of the legislation committee which is associated with Cabinet. It would appear to me that we could probably ask a question of the Minister who is in charge of the Government’s public relations. If we know there is such a group are we now able to ask questions about it—even if we do not actually happen to know who the mysterious Minister is who is running the Government’s public relations? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well all I can say is this position appears in the ministerial list and has done for over a year and therefore members are perfectly entitled to ask a question about it. It is in the ministerial list a copy of which I am sure the member can get. I will get one for him if he wants it. 
Larry Baldock 
: Will the Government’s Kyoto policy be influenced by a recent article by the botanist Professor David Bellamy and backed by 18000 other scientists in which he states: “Climate change is a natural phenomenon.” and “Because carbon is the most important air-borne fertiliser in the world any man-made increase in atmospheric carbon levels would simply produce a rise in plant productivity rather than an increase in world temperatures.”; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No and perhaps the best way to describe why is to say that in January of this year Transpower found some of its pylons flattened by record winds; in February along came the Manawatu floods; this time last year 7000 people died in France; last week the Bay of Plenty problems were around us; and the week before last 70 percent of Bangladesh was under water. Either this is climate change or it is what climate change looks like. 
Larry Baldock 
: I seek leave to table the article from the  
Sunday Mail 
. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I seek leave to table a 9-page document entitled  
Annual State of the Nation Address 
 the fifth sentence of which states: “My ambition in Opposition is to be constructive”— 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.