Thursday, 30 November 2006

Multi-party climate change summit urgently needed

United Future leader Peter Dunne says National leader John Key's about-turn on climate change makes it more important than ever that the government convene a multi-party summit on climate change policy.

"The government is poised to make significant announcements about climate change policy in the next few weeks, but has so far shown no real interest in working with other parties on the issue," said Mr Dunne.

"That is why most of its efforts to date have failed, because it has not been able to build a parliamentary majority for its plans.

"The signs that things will be any different with this next set of announcements are not much better ? Labour's response to my call a couple of weeks for multi-party summit has been a deafening silence," he said.

Mr Dunne said Mr Key's comments yesterday change things significantly.

"Now there seems to be a chance of arriving at a genuine multi-party position on climate change ? if Labour will talk.

"When Mr Key was elected leader of the National Party and spoke of working with other parties, the Prime Minister welcomed that, saying she looked forward to such opportunities.

"Because climate change is bigger than any partisan politics, there is no greater opportunity for parties to work together.

"The challenge now for Labour is to demonstrate this by convening a multi-party summit as a matter of urgency, otherwise it will stand accused of preferring to play politics as usual with the future of the planet," Mr Dunne said.

ENDS

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