John Boscawen MP, ACT New Zealand
Wednesday, May 5 2010.

ACT New Zealand Climate Change Spokesman John Boscawen today poured scorn upon Agriculture Minister David Carter’s claim at Mystery Creek that the Government needs to proceed with the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to avoid a potential trade backlash from Europe.

“If National proceeds as scheduled then, on July 1 2010, we will become the first and only country in the world to have such a comprehensive ETS.  It is simply not credible to argue that we’ll be penalised if we don’t lead the world on having an ETS,” Mr Boscawen said.

“Further, Mr Carter referred to National’s pre-election considerations but neglected the fact that the climate change situation has changed dramatically since then – only last week Australia announced that it was delaying its plans until at least 2013.  The US does not have an ETS, and nor do any of our major trading partners.  National needs to wake up to the reality of this changed situation.

“The Government also continually confuses the New Zealand ETS – a single country scheme – with that administered by the European Union trading bloc.  The two are completely different: our ETS will directly penalise all exporters, whereas the European ETS imposes costs on the European trading bloc and 80 percent of European exports are internal.

“Mr Carter also perpetuated the National Party myth that agriculture will not come under the ETS until 2015.  Meat and Wool NZ has calculated that the cost for the average dairy farmer is $10,200 per annum.  Less than a quarter of this is animal methane and nitrous oxide – which comes into the ETS in 2015 – but the overwhelming majority is electricity, petrol and the processing costs of dairy factories.  This starts on July 1 this year.

“Meat and Wool NZ also confirms that the cost of the ETS to dairy farmers is 7.5 cents per kg of milk solids – the MAF estimate of 2.5 cent, which Mr Carter quotes is just a fraction of the full true cost.

“It’s time for National to start playing it straight and being honest with farmers.  If this Government intends to continue with the ETS, it must tell farmers what costs they’ll be facing from July 1,” Mr Boscawen said.

ENDS