CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour)
: Instead of the plan that we hoped to see in the Budget, National has simply caused uncertainty, which is haemorrhaging jobs and investment. It has stalled the emissions trading scheme, repealed the renewable preference for new electricity generation, and removed the biofuels obligation, all of which cost Kiwi jobs and new investment. The record reflects that National’s policies brought the emerging carbon market to a halt. That market would have been a major opportunity for our country to maximise our geographic, skills-based, language, and time-zone advantages. That opportunity was thrown away when the emissions trading scheme was put on hold, and the NZX put TZ1 on the market. The record reflects that the same policy has cost us enormous international investment in the forestry sector, along with hundreds of new jobs, while 8 million seedlings rot in the ground as foresters sit on carbon credits but have no certainty as to whom they might be able to trade them with. The record reflects that when the Minister of Energy and Resources, Gerry Brownlee, repealed the biofuels obligation under urgency before Christmas, an international company pulled out of building a 60 million litre bio-diesel plant in the Bay of Plenty, and the expansion of production plants in Auckland and Waharoa are on hold indefinitely as a result.
There is little in this Budget to remedy this appalling situation. Admittedly, Gerry Brownlee has attempted to fix his mishandling of the biofuels obligation by throwing $36 million at the sector in grants. These grants are an attempt to restart the domestic biofuels industry after decimating it via the repeal of the biofuels obligation. This Government has the temerity to accuse the previous Government of poor-quality expenditure. What could be poorer quality in the current economic climate than wasting $36 million? The Government could have and should have simply kept the biofuels obligation as a means of encouraging the production of biofuels in this country.
Where is the support for renewable energy generation in this Budget? New Zealand has an abundance of renewable energy resources that very few countries enjoy. Our hydro, wind, and geothermal resources mean that we are ideally placed to build an energy system that is affordable, sustainable, and reliable, but we hear nothing from National on this issue. Does National support the 90 percent by 2025 renewable target? Gerry Brownlee called it aspirational and said that he would be making an announcement in the coming weeks. That was in February, which was 3½ months ago, and we still have not heard anything. He continues to talk about a review of the New Zealand Energy Strategy, but still there is no action. All the while, a ministerial working group is beavering away on the design of the electricity sector. I ask the House how this group can do its job while the Minister refuses to do his, and will not provide basic direction on matters of policy, like whether we have a renewable energy target, and if so, what it is. What is worse is that electricity generators have told the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee that they are already putting the development of new generation projects on hold because of the uncertainty around the emissions trading scheme and the ministerial review. These projects take years to bring to fruition, and given our country’s need for more generation capacity every year, New Zealanders will
repent at leisure over the Minister’s inaction. Let us hope that we do not do so shivering in the dark or, almost as bad, relying on foreign gas imports for the first time to keep the lights on.
The National Government has made New Zealand a laughing stock internationally over its constant hand-wringing and flip-flops on the emissions trading scheme and on climate change generally. This complete lack of direction and ability to provide any form of credible leadership is costing New Zealand dearly in reputational terms. Just the other day Nick Smith came up with another excuse to further delay any progress on climate change policy. The Government negotiator told representatives at the Bonn Climate Change Talks that New Zealand would not confirm any 2020 pollution reduction target until it had undertaken public consultation. This announcement continues the parade of other excuses that he has used for not setting a target: awaiting new data, harmonisation with Australia, and investigating a carbon tax. The list goes on and becomes less credible and less consistent.
Finally, I have a few words about the home insulation package. Although almost everything that the National-led Government is reviving from Labour’s programmes in this area is less generous than Michael Cullen had promised and would have delivered, it is at least something. I pay tribute to some of the as yet unsung heroes of this story, because there is no sign that they will get credit for their contribution from the current Minister of Energy and Resources. As the New Zealand
Energy and Environment Business Week notes, the package is in no small part the achievement of a decade of research by the likes of the Building Research Association of New Zealand, and Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, a public health research pioneer at the Wellington school of medicine and health sciences at Otago University. Professor Howden-Chapman secured around $7 million to undertake research into the impact of unhealthy home environments on New Zealand’s chronically high levels of asthma and other respiratory illnesses during the term of the last Labour Government, between 1999 and 2007. The main funding for this scheme came from the Health Research Council, but Contact Energy, to its credit, also kicked in $600,000 over 3 years. The Ministry for the Environment came to the party at a similar level.
The Budget says that $323.3 million will be allocated to home insulation and heating over the next 4 years, starting on 1 July. It is not entirely clear from the Budget documentation, but $100 million of this money seems to have been taken straight out of Vote Health; $80 million is existing Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority money. So the new money here is $143 million over 4 years. Again, it is not clear from the documentation how the Government intends to make this money available. If it is on an annual basis, we are talking about only $36 million of new money—that is, not taken from other sources—available for home insulation each year. That will provide for grants of about $1,800, which was the figure mentioned in the Budget speech, to only 20,000 additional homes per annum. So it is a move in the right direction, but it is a long way from the 60,500 additional homes targeted every year in the Budget. With so much detail missing while Gerry Brownlee cobbles together the actual details of the package between now and 18 June, the jury remains well and truly out on the implementation of this first collaboration between National and the Green Party.
This truly was a Budget of lost opportunity. The country could ill afford it. The balance between our environmental integrity and economic well-being can ill afford it. New Zealanders can ill afford two more such Budgets. If this Government continues as it has begun, one thing is for sure: two more Budgets are all that it will ever get to deliver.
