The Lignite Mirror Maze

Enter here at your own risk, into the world of Solid Energy, the NZ Cabinet and the Parliament from which it is derived. Lignite is what unites us, except that it divides us.

Once inside you are in a hall of mirrors where, under the tutelage of Lewis Carroll, nothing is as it seems.

Yesterday I thought I was asking questions, not of the Minister of Energy but of the Acting Minister. The real minister is preoccupied, understandably, with seismic duty to the south. Being an inhabitant of that region, I understand.


But in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, the Acting Minister is inexplicably absent. Alice is nowhere. There yesterday, gone today. And it is not permitted to comment, even jocularly, on the absence of a member. But in her stead, the Hatter is there.

So my questions to the Acting Minister go to the minister acting for the Acting Minister. This is odd, because some questions I wish to ask her concern the thoughts of the minister acting for her. And he is happy to reply since he understands what has gone through the acting, acting minister’s mind very well. Unsurprising, since it is him.

I choose to appear nonchalant since it is not good form to seem perplexed at the logic of the government’s procedural approach, and certainly not in the House.

No choice, then, but persevere in the hope that there is an exit with one’s notion of logic and ocular sense intact. So I ask the Acting Energy Minister (Parata) how she perceives Solid Energy’s position in relation to the Green Growth Advisory Group’s work entrusted by the Environment Minister (Smith).

No problem, replies Environment Minister Smith, acting for Acting Energy Minister Parata. In the view of Minister Smith, even if it were a threat, which he is not saying it was, it is but a trifle. In energy terms, it is 1/30th of all renewable energy. He does not address the question, just the question he chooses to address. The question to answer in Question Time is whatever you wish it to be.

Next question please. Does the Acting Minister (Parata) acknowledge error in denying that coal-mining can give rise to free carbon credits ‘downstream’? The acting, acting minister (Smith) replies that such a decision would not be for her (Acting Minister Parata) to make but rather for the Environment Minister (Smith). He looks back, gaze steady.

Next question please. How does the Acting Minister (Parata) reconcile seemingly contradictory statements on lignite subsidies made by two other ministers (Finance Minister English and Environment Minister Smith)? Simply, replies acting, acting minister (Smith). Finance Minister English’s comments have been taken ‘quite out of context’. He was referring not to ‘subsidies’ but ‘investment choices’.

Minister Smith’s comments, on the other hand, were not out of context, at least as far as the acting, acting minister (Smith) is concerned. And whether or not that might be true, New Zealand’s use of lignite per capita is tiny compared with three other countries. Next.

What about the 3 billion tonnes of overburden, Sir, or is that Madam, that will be left above ground? The acting, acting minister’s assessment is that lignite is extracted in New Zealand more efficiently than elsewhere. The Green Party, what’s more, or less, is wrong, in seeking to be ‘purer than pure’. Next. The Minister is enjoying himself, acting or otherwise. No-one is sure, including him.

Two final questions. Why is a government department an associate member of the NZ Coal Association whose mission is to lobby the Government? Because we are a society that values freedom of association, that is why. Individuals are free to join what they wish to join.

But Sir, MED is a government department. Very well, then, “speaking for the Acting Minister”, I say that I am sure she would be happy to have a discussion with the Minister of Economic Development. The Minister of Economic Development stares straight ahead.

But, Sir, if MED can pay the Coal Association to lobby the Government, should the Environment Ministry not pay the Wind Association to do the same? The acting, acting Minister’s reply is that, “wearing my other hat” (climate change), “I have had absolutely no lobbying from the Coal Association in the last 12 months”.

Now, have you used up your 6 supplementary questions? Good! Feel free to table any document you might wish, provided I approve.

And so it goes.

Some 30 minutes earlier, a member has been denied taking his post-by-election seat in the House for straying from the precise wording of the Oath. So words have meaning outside, and up to the threshold of, the Parliament of New Zealand. Or is that Aotearoa?

Once down the rabbit hole, everything is changed. All verbal laws are relativistic, and the meaning of a sentence becomes the product of word velocity times mass.

It is all clear to me now, depending on what we mean by ‘clear’.

Postscript
In June 2011, in the Year of Our Lord, an international conference of 400 scientists agreed that sea-level rise has been under-estimated by the UN’s IPCC, and the current projection for the century is 0.9 m. to 1.6 m