Scrap the Climate Change Commission

While New Zealanders are watching every dollar, Wellington has already spent $100 million on the Climate Change Commission and keeps handing it another $14–15 million a year to produce reports that duplicate work already being done in government or recommend policies that harm the country.

Those recommendations are not harmless paperwork. One proposal to tighten the 2050 emissions target would make the economy 2.2 per cent smaller, costing New Zealanders $2 billion a year by 2035 and $12.5 billion every year by 2050. The Commission has also proposed shrinking New Zealand’s dairy herd, punishing some of the world’s most emissions-efficient farmers and risking production moving to dirtier countries.

ACT will abolish the Commission and transfer its monitoring and reporting duties to the ministry that already measures New Zealand’s emissions and manages the Emissions Trading Scheme. New Zealand does not need two climate bureaucracies charging taxpayers for the same job.

ACT will:

• Abolish the Climate Change Commission as an independent Crown entity. The Commission will cease to exist.

• Transfer responsibility for monitoring and reporting on New Zealand’s emissions targets to the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport.

• Bring emissions monitoring together with the greenhouse gas inventory and the Emissions Trading Scheme, so one department is responsible for the work.

• End the Commission’s separate role recommending costly new targets and interventions such as shrinking New Zealand’s dairy herd.

• Remove the Commission’s board, executive and corporate overhead, ending the need for taxpayers to support a separate $14–15 million-a-year climate bureaucracy.

In our team's words:

ACT Candidate Paul Henry says:

"The Climate Change Commission has cost taxpayers $100 million since its establishment, and is costing a further $14–15 million every year it continues to exist. Left in place, that's another $42–45 million of taxpayer money gone by the next election spent on writing reports, duplicating work, and proposing ludicrous ideas that will be ignored.

"Their barking mad recommendation to increase our 2050 emissions reduction commitment would have lowered GDP by 2.2%. That’s around $2 billion a year by 2035, rising to about $12.5 billion every year by 2050, wiped from our economy to meet an arbitrary target.

"They put up proposals even Labour and the Greens can’t get behind. In the last term of Government they recommended tighter Emissions Trading Scheme restrictions, but Cabinet rejected it. Commission-linked advice supported a 54% net reduction for the 2030 emissions reduction pledge, but Cabinet opted for a 50% reduction instead. Even the left could recognise a stupid idea.

"We can’t afford to see taxpayer dollars blown on inefficient government agencies and counterproductive climate policies. To unlock New Zealand’s potential and make life more affordable, the waste and duplication need to go. Go sell stupid somewhere else, we’re all full up here."