6. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) Link to this
to the Minister of Finance
Does he stand by his statement: “Advice we disagree with is bad advice; advice we agree with is good advice.”?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) Link to this
Yes. By way of illustration, if I may, there is one organisation from which we have received consistently bad advice for the last 12 months, and that organisation, of course, is the Labour Opposition.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
How can he consider the Treasury’s emissions trading scheme cost estimate of $110 billion to be bad advice, when the Prime Minister agrees with it enough to use the same advice to justify including farmers in the scheme?
The extra debt by 2050 suggested by Treasury only applies when compared against Labour’s heavy-handed scheme—a scheme that would drive New Zealand businesses and jobs overseas. As the Prime Minister has said, the figure is essentially nonsense, as it is impossible to accurately measure the effects of the emissions trading scheme 40 years into the future when so many variables are involved.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
Can he explain why he is willing to accept advice from Treasury on the costs of securing Māori Party support for the emissions trading scheme, but will not accept Treasury’s advice on the cost of a scheme to the taxpayer, when both assessments are based on exactly the same assumption of a carbon price of $25 a tonne to 2013 and of $50 a tonne thereafter?
I point out that the longer-term things are harder to measure. For example, the previous Government spent most of its time congratulating itself on being an excellent economic manager, but when it left office it left us with a decade of deficits, which just goes to show that sometimes when we look into the future we see different things.
Hon Darren Hughes Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Opposition argues that the Minister’s answer was fairly gratuitous in its nature. The Opposition spokesman on finance put to him a very simple proposition using figures, using specific year periods, and asking how the Government could use one set of figures in one category and then ignore exactly the same set of figures in another. All we had was a very political response from the Minister.
Hon Gerry Brownlee Link to this
The member got a perfectly reasonable answer. It set out to illustrate that although people may want to ask a question based on assumptions, it is reasonable for an answer to say that assumptions do not always give one the answer one wants to hear.
Mr SPEAKERI do not need to hear further; I do not want to be litigating the question by way of point of order. I think that the point raised by the Hon Darren Hughes is a fair enough point: the answers to questions that did not contain political statements have been overly gratuitous. I invite the Hon David Cunliffe to repeat his last question, and I am sure that the House will be interested in hearing the Minister’s answer.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will read it slowly and carefully. Can the Minister explain why he is willing to accept advice from Treasury on the costs of securing Māori Party support for the emissions trading scheme, but will not accept Treasury’s advice on the cost of the scheme to taxpayers, when the carbon price in both assessments is identical, at $25 a tonne until 2013 and $50 a tonne thereafter?
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
Further to the previous supplementary question, what advice, if any, has he received that refutes the fundamental problem with the emissions trading scheme legislation that the deal with the Māori Party is just one concession in a bill that contains billions of dollars of concessions for polluters and passes the mounting cost on to our children?
The member does not seem to understand that any emissions trading scheme has to balance economic opportunities and environmental responsibilities. We have taken a deliberate decision to moderate the emissions trading scheme to keep jobs in New Zealand. When will the Labour Opposition work out that without businesses, we do not have jobs and we do not have taxpayers?