Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Before I call Mr Ardern, I advise members the vote numbers were given incorrectly in the vote on Part 2. The numbers should have been Ayes 62, Noes 54. I ask that members accept that correction.

I rise to speak in opposition to the title of the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill, because it is very misleading. The accurate title should be “Get Helen a New Job Overseas Bill”, or “Find a Position Internationally for the Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Bill”. Another title might be the “Mislead the Public of New Zealand Then Do a U-turn Bill”.

It was interesting to note that the Minister in the chair, Harry Duynhoven, took a call. I congratulate him on it, and also the Labour member who made a contribution in the last 2½ hours as we debated the bill. Both of them are learned, and both gave very sound contributions. The only problem is that nobody on this side understood what they were talking about, and that absolutely says it all.

The Minister in the chair said that through some acquaintance with some Dutch interests in energy—

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: No, through Meridian.

—through Meridian, and in discussions with some Dutch colleagues—I guess it would be fair to say—there was believed to be an opportunity for New Zealand to trade in carbon credits. I understood that is what the Minister said. The Minister is nodding, so that is what he said, but here is where I have a difficulty. I understood that the socialists on the other side of the House were going to nationalise the carbon credits and take them for themselves. Now, I am in a huge vacuum again. Maybe the title of the bill should be “The Minority Socialist Labour Government (Once it’s Found a Job for Helen Overseas) Bill”, and then the “Nationalise the Carbon Credits Bill” will trade them at the expense of Meridian or any private or State-owned company in New Zealand. That would be a much more accurate description of the bill.

Perhaps the Minister will take another call and clear this matter up for me, because, clearly, I am now a little perplexed about how one can trade carbon credits with Dutch interests after they have been nationalised—[Interruption] Clearly, the State can; the Government can. There is no doubt that the State can trade those carbon credits if they exist, and if it can find a market for them. But how does that help private enterprise or private generation, or anybody at all who is interested in investing in the energy sector, other than the State?

It might help the State, but what is the State doing in the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill? I will tell members what it is doing. It is building diesel-powered generation, it is building coal-powered generation, and it is prohibiting the very thing that this bill stands for—renewable energy generation. If one goes down to Card Creek and looks at the Dobson Dam—200 hectares of gorse—a private entity that wants to invest and produce a hydro-power station in an area that is energy deficient and make it self-sufficient in energy, on a side of the island where they have regular and reliable rainfall that is completely sustainable and could go on for 500, or 1,000 years, or for ever, the same minority socialist Labour Government that is proposing this bill is saying: “No, we’re not going to have a bar of that, we’re not going to allow them to do that, that is not within the precincts of what we will allow as the democratically elected Government of New Zealand”. But not for much longer; it is about to be changed.

So the title of this bill should be the “Stop the Development of Renewable Energy, Nationalise Carbon Credits and Find Helen a New Job Overseas Bill”. That would be a much more accurate description. Another title might be: “If I Can Create Enough Opportunities on the International Stage to Talk in a Whole Lot of Wiffle-waffle, Socialist-type Platitudes About How I Can Save the World From all Sorts of Ills, Then Somebody Overseas Might Find Me a Job Bill”. When it comes to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, let us hope that comes true.

Generally, I think the title of this bill is a fairly good one, but I have a couple of suggestions that might make what this bill is about a little clearer. It probably could have been called the “Levelling of the Playing Field (Energy and Climate Change) Bill”, because really that is what the bill attempts to do. It is not about giving a leg-up to renewable energies, but rather levelling the playing field.

It is often more difficult to get consents for renewable energy projects, because they intend to be more obtrusive. They intend to have more impact upon the public, and therefore there can be more objectors to them—for example, windmills or wind farms. If someone is able to perfect the engineering for tidal generation, it will be pretty hard to get consent for sticking something in the middle of Tauranga Harbour, for example. So this bill will help to level out the playing field.

Another title could be “It’s Definitely Not the Banning of the Coal Bill”. That is one that United Future would like, because that is the truth. This bill is not about banning the opportunity for coal generation. In fact, we think it might actually give some assistance to it. It could be called the “Responsible Common-sense (Energy and Climate Change) Bill”.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before the dinner break, I was just making some comments about possible alternative titles to this bill. I think I mentioned that it could have been called the “Not the Banning of Coal Bill”, because, clearly, this bill does not restrict the use of coal as a fuel. The final suggestion I would make is that it could have been called the “Common-sense Response to Climate Change and Not the Kyoto Amendment Bill”, because it is really a common-sense response to our need to take care of issues relating to climate change without going over the top and signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, which is a bureaucratic nightmare. With those comments, I shall end my contribution.

In speaking on behalf of New Zealand First I suggest that the bill be termed the “Resource Management (Transitional Change) Amendment Bill”. I wish to focus upon the words “Transitional Change”, because the bill picks up on a stage when we were accustomed to traditional energy sources—when hydro, coal, and gas energy and, more recently, thermal energy were more common. In the course of recent years we have moved to more serious and concentrated thinking upon the value of wind power; we have the example of, say, Genesis Energy’s biogeneration plant; we have modern gas turbine stations; and, particularly more recently, a greater amount of thinking is taking place about the possibilities of the fossil fuel coal being used again, not in its traditional sense but in a transitional way. Therefore, that is an appropriate name change for the bill.

Surely, it is a transitional change bill when one takes into account the fact that alongside this bill there is—I have perhaps laboured this point, but I will labour it again—no national policy statement that gives legal guidance to those who administer the Act. Until that is there, this bill surely must be an incomplete answer to the energy issues, and therefore it truly is a transitional change. Only when this bill in its enacted form has a national policy statement to go with it will there be some real guidance to those who would wish to operate under the bill. That includes not just councils but also those who make applications.

I suggest that that will be even more so because, with regard to this particular bill in its final form, there is no established body of law. Therefore, there will be uncertainty and inconsistency as to how this legislation will be applied. I strongly suggest to the Minister in the chair that until the requirements of a national policy statement are there, this bill might jeopardise the ability of the Government to give effect to its energy policy.

On behalf of New Zealand First, I say that we do not find this title helpful—particularly in 2004—with regard to the whole nature of this bill, which is incomplete and transitional. We suggest that the title “Resource Management (Transitional Change) Amendment Bill” would be a far better title, and would more completely encompass the bill’s premature stage of development.

I can say, in speaking to the title, that ACT opposes the title. We opposed Part 1, we opposed Part 2, we oppose the title, and, indeed, believe it or not, we will vote against and oppose the bill in its entirety. This is thoroughly bad legislation brought to this Parliament by this minority Labour-Progressive Government. It is bad legislation.

I will not dream up fanciful names. I think the way that Parliament spends time putting up all sorts of silly titles of bills has become a bit puerile—“It’s Not the Banning of Coal Bill”, which we heard from United Future, and titles like that. It becomes a somewhat puerile debate, and certainly beneath the dignity of an ACT MP. So I will merely address the title, make the point that this is bad legislation, and again call upon this Government and the Minister in the chair to do another U-turn and another flip-flop. That is becoming habitual for this Government, but Mr Duynhoven would actually be doing the country a service if he were to ring up his Cabinet Ministers tonight, call a special meeting of Cabinet, and tell them: “No, folks, this is doing huge damage to the country. We’re on a loser. We should pull this bill, and do a flip-flop.”

Mr Duynhoven should also tell Cabinet Ministers that they should withdraw the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol—that fundamentally flawed nonsense that this Labour-Progressive coalition Government has committed this country to. This bill is a consequence of that. It might be dressed up with the title “Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill”, but it is the first of many. We will have a raft of this sort of legislation. Local government does not know what will hit it when this bill is passed into law. It is frightful legislation.

It is not only the climate change aspect, as mentioned in the title; it is also the energy aspect, as also mentioned in the title. We in this country, regrettably, are facing a looming energy crisis. It is just starting to dawn on many New Zealanders. I know that the business sector is hugely alarmed at the crisis that will confront this country. Possibly as early as next year—which, I remind members, is election year—we could be facing one of the biggest energy crises that this country has seen. If this Government is prepared to do triple backflips and U-turns when it is enjoying great economic conditions thanks to Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson, imagine the amount of flip-flops and U-turns it will be prepared to do when a cold draught is blowing up its majority due to bad economic conditions, brownouts, pensioners not being able to keep warm in winter, and the power going off at 5 o’clock every night! That is the way we are heading because of foolish legislation such as this, and this Government’s foolish adherence to the fundamentally flawed Kyoto Protocol.

The Government has already confiscated the property rights of the foresters. It has stripped them of their property rights. The Government said it wanted a trading carbon model based on the sequestration of carbon. If that were true, if the Government wanted a trading mechanism, it would have left the property right with the foresters so that they had something to trade; instead, the Government nationalised it. Everything we see from the Government on energy is all about central control and nationalisation. That is what is leading to the crisis, and it is embodied in the title of this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.