National has no plan for the Economy, Energy or the Environment

National has no plan to deal with economic, energy and environmental issues, says Labour's Environment Spokesperson, Charles Chauvel.

Mr Chauvel was commenting on remarks by Environment Minister Nick Smith at the 6th Australia-New Zealand Climate Change & Business in Sydney today.

"New Zealand's biggest eco-challenge is to keep an agriculture sector that contributes to wealth, while minimising the sector's adverse effects on the environment.

"Apart from suggesting that farmers should plant trees on their farms, Nick Smith's address to the conference said little about this challenge.

“He referred to the Global Agriculture Alliance, which experts agree - and the Prime Minister has admitted - will be unlikely to lead to the sharing of any intellectual property that may be created to minimising animal emissions.

"On energy, Nick Smith referred to a National Policy Statement on renewable energy generation to incentivise such generation that would be introduced by the end of the year.

“Yet such incentives already existed in the previous Government's renewable preference legislation, repealed under urgency by National in 2008. Two years later, National is backtracking, and much progress has been lost.

"Nick Smith went on to claim credit for other rehashed Labour schemes, such as Warm Up NZ, subsidies for solar heating and energy conservation campaigns. He referred to the biofuels subsidy - which Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has already admitted is a failure, and talked about promoting electric cars - although there are precisely two such vehicles on the road in NZ right now, one driven by the Minister himself.

"Nick Smith's speech was embarrassing. It showed that National has no plan for the economic, energy and environmental challenges that lie ahead. We will move backwards, instead forwards towards a lower-pollution economy, as long as this Government is in office", Charles Chauvel said.
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