Judith Collins chose not to speak out against the climate change emergency declaration in Parliament to give her spokesperson Stuart Smith a chance to voice his concerns.
Collins made the revelation speaking to Magic Talk on Monday, reflecting on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's motion in Parliament last week to declare a climate change emergency on behalf of New Zealand.
Despite describing the declaration as "simply virtue-signalling" on The AM Show, Collins chose not to speak on it in Parliament, instead relying on Smith as National's new climate change spokesperson to deliver the party's concerns.
"I thought it was a good opportunity for Stuart Smith as our newly-minted spokesperson on this to really have a go at it and start to outline some of the detailed concerns we had with what Jacinda Ardern was talking about," Collins told Magic Talk.
"If I had taken the opportunity, which I could have, of speaking against the motion then it would not have given Stuart the same opportunity that we gave him. My view is it's not all about me.
"I was there in the debating chamber for Stuart's speech and to support him but I also think it's really important as a leader to give opportunities to members of our team to speak and to show what they can do. It's not all about me."
The Prime Minister made the declaration in Parliament alongside a commitment to make the public sector carbon neutral by 2025 by phasing out coal boilers using the $200 million state sector decarbonisation fund.
The Government is also requiring state agencies to only purchase electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles. If electrics are not appropriate for their needs, then there is a specific operational requirement that they must go through in order to demonstrate why.
The Government is also putting in place an energy efficiency building standard on all mandated agencies who occupy office space over 2000 square metres.
If Government agencies fail to meet the targets, they will have to offset their emissions; for example, they could fund native forest regeneration which will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, thus offsetting their carbon footprint.
"We issue declarations sparingly," Ardern said in her speech.
"The reason we have done this today is that those cases where we do issue declarations are often where there are threats to life, threats to property, or civil defence emergencies. If we do not respond to climate change, we will continue to have those emergencies on our shore."
Smith, who is MP for Kaikōura, responded to Ardern's speech in Parliament by echoing Collins and describing the declaration as "virtue signalling".
"Symbolic gestures just don't cut it - by declaring a climate emergency when there is consensus on what needs to be done. We need to drive our emissions down. A climate emergency won't change our approach to this."
Smith highlighted how in 2019 National voted in favour of the Government's Zero Carbon Act, which established the Climate Change Commission to advise governments on how to meet targets to reduce emissions.
The targets include zero net carbon emissions by 2050 and a reduction of between 24 and 47 percent of methane emissions by 2050. These targets are intended to keep global warming to within 1.5C by 2050.
"Lower emissions is the organising principle of the Climate Change Response Act, as it should be. To lower emissions we need an effective plan based on practical sensible solutions, not extreme policies such as declaring a climate change emergency," Smith said.
"The test for this Government is: do their policies reduce emissions effectively? Only effective policies can help keep temperature increases to 1.5C, as required by the Paris Agreement, and deliver net zero emissions by 2050.
"The task before us is monumental. Net zero emissions in 30 years is hugely ambitious, especially for a country that earns half of its income from the primary sector. We simply cannot sink investments into ineffective policies.
"New Zealand will run out of money long before it reaches its targets if we commit to policies that simply don't work. Our policies must lower emissions or be dropped."
Smith said the Government is "making it up as they go along" on climate policy.
"They've hardly even checked the cost effectiveness of their introduced emissions policies. This is inexcusable when there is so much at stake. Whatever happened to this generation's nuclear moment? If the Government is serious about climate change, it must be transparent and well organised with its analysis."
Collins told Magic Talk we can expect to see more of her MPs take the lead on issues related to their respective portfolios.
"I think it's really important that every person on our team feels that they're valued and knows that they have a contribution to make. That's something that you'll see in my leadership style. It really seriously isn't all about me."
