Today I want to repeat some of what we have heard already about the shambolic handling of the emissions trading scheme by Nick Smith, who is the Minister responsible for it. Members might want to recall what the Prime Minister said at the allocation of portfolios late last year. Mr Key said on that occasion that Nick Smith had “a brain the size of the South Island”. Well, his management of the emissions trading scheme has gone from bad to worse, and it has culminated in this $110 billion blunder that we found out about last week. Ministers were told about this on Tuesday and made no public comment about it. It fell to the Labour minority members on the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee to reveal the blunder to the public, a week after Ministers themselves learnt about it.

What is good about that record, in terms of economic management? We are now told that the cost of Nick Smith’s changes to the emissions trading scheme in 2050 could be up to 16 percent of GDP on to the national debt—16 percent of GDP. That is a $92,000 burden on hard-working Kiwi families every year. That is $44 extra a week that they will end up having to pay because Nick Smith and Treasury could not get the numbers right, and not only could they not get the numbers right but they would not own up to it. They left it to the select committee to carry the can and make the announcement telling the public that the figures were wrong.

What was the Prime Minister’s defence of his embattled Minister when we found out about this? It was to attack Treasury, and to say “Never mind about Treasury’s numbers. Treasury can’t even work out what the deficit will be next year, so we don’t have to worry about their long-term projections.” Well, I ask members opposite who, if we cannot believe Treasury modelling, are we supposed to believe? Nick Smith’s dismissal of those Treasury figures as speculative because they look beyond the next 10 years should be a real worry for all New Zealanders. Responsible Governments, like the Labour Government that was in office over the past 9 years, plan ahead as far as they can. They do so for those big-ticket, multi-generational programmes like superannuation, like accident compensation, and like health; they have to.

Why is the Government ignoring Treasury advice on the cost of the emissions trading scheme? The reality is that the Government is simply running a diversion to cover for the fact that its emissions trading scheme changes will cost billions and billions of dollars in the years going forward. What do we get for this, in terms of environmental outcomes? The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, an independent expert of this House, was very clear. She told us in her evidence to the select committee that under the changes Nick Smith wants to this emissions trading scheme, emissions from greenhouse gases will rise; they will not come down. We will pay billions and billions of dollars in order to see our greenhouse gas emissions, as a country, rise. What sort of a scheme is this Minster being allowed to foist on this country? The reality is that under National’s scheme, taxpayers will be writing huge cheques to subsidise big polluters for years to come, at the expense of education, health, and growing the economy.

This is not the first time that Nick Smith has fumbled the numbers on climate change. He likes to pick and choose prices of carbon to suit his needs. When the Sign On campaign was in full swing, he was using a carbon price of $200 a tonne because it suited him then. But when he was outlining the costs of the Government’s emissions trading scheme he used a carbon price of $100. In his Cabinet paper he was using $25, only to be caught out trying to hide a $110 billion subsidy.