Climate advice for Australia
Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger has urged Australia to reintroduce a climate change commission to remove politics from the debate.
The Gillard Labor government set up an independent climate commission in Australia in 2011 but it was abolished two years later by Liberal successor Tony Abbott.
Last November, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern followed Julia Gillard’s lead and introduced an independent Climate Change Commission in New Zealand to steer government policy. Kuriger, who is leading the New Zealand delegation at the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum in Canberra, talked up the idea when quizzed by reporters.
‘‘In New Zealand we’ve just set up a climate commission so we’re taking it out of the political house of parliament,’’ the National MP said.
‘‘We have a group of qualified people who can bring in the science and work out what we need to do next and by doing that we’re going to get some more objectivity on it.
‘‘Let’s just give it to a group who can have a look at the science and go for what is the most effective.’’
She said it was not effective for climate policy to change when governments rise and fall.
‘‘We live on a three-year parliamentary cycle and so whenever the government changes we don’t actually need our climate change policies to be changing because it’s a long-term thing,’’ she said.
‘‘We needed a 30-year programme ahead of us instead of a three-year programme.’’