ETS Widening Gap With Australia

Extracts from Hon John Boscawen's  response to Prime Minister's Statement; Parliament; Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Mr Speaker,

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party to respond to the Prime Minister's speech, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge and congratulate the Government on much of what it has done during its first term.

I say "much", but not all.........................

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............................We have also seen a very significant cost to the economy in the Emissions Trading Scheme.  This scheme was introduced by the previous Labour Government, came into effect on January 1 2008, and operates as a massive subsidy to foresters.

What the previous Labour Government essentially put in place was a massive grant that gives tree planters a one-off gain of about 230 tonnes of carbon - around $5,000 a hectare. 

The previous Labour Government put into place a grant system that requires New Zealanders to pay some $500 million a year more in electricity and petrol to subsidise those massive subsidies.

Nothing annoys me more - nothing makes me laugh more - than to hear Labour Leader Phil Goff stand up and talk about the price of electricity and petrol going up.  Mr Goff knows full well that the Emissions Trading Scheme under the previous Labour Government would have resulted, not in a five percent increase but, a 10 percent increase in the price of electricity.

While we can be thankful that the scheme was modified by National, the fact is that it should not be there in the first place.  It should not be operating as a $500-million-a-year subsidy to foresters.  The previous Labour Government put into place a system to pay massive subsidies to foresters, which required the National Government to carry it on.  Anyone in the industry who was smart knew that.

All New Zealanders are paying for that with their electricity and their petrol.  If anything is contributing to that gap between New Zealand and Australia, it is the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Thank you.