Written By: - Date published: 11:33 pm, November 27th, 2008 - 45 comments
Categories: climate change, flip-flop, Media, national/act government -
Tags:
National/ACT has only been in power a week, but the flip-flops keep coming. Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee will not confirm that that National/ACT will reversing the new light-bulb standards. This after they campaigned hard against these standards and Key repeatedly promised that under a National government people would not be told which type of light-bulbs they can use. Brownlee hasn’t confirmed that the policy will be dropped, but he is no longer confirming his party’s policy stands and that says it all.
Campaigning on reserving the standards was a typically hollow vote-grabbing move from National; the kind of politics that encourages you not to think too hard, just be outraged. ‘Don’t let the nanny state take away your lightbulbs’ – it’s enough to stir the brain-dead reactionary in all of us.
Just as predictable as National’s pre-election bluster is their post-election back-down. The fact is there was never anything extreme about the improvement in light-bulb standards that most incandescent bulbs can’t match: the Government sets standards for all kinds of consumer goods for safety and environmental reason among others (that’s why you can’t get CFCs in your refrigerator anymore). We are actually behind the rest of the world in raising our standards and will look positively Luddite if we lower them again. In fact, the choice to buy incandescent bulbs is going to be taken away from us soon enough because China produces 70% of the world’s supply and has already banned their use domestically. So, National will move quickly to get this inevitable flip-flop out of the way so the voters forget.
Now, we can’t blame National too much for cynically exploiting this issue then back-flipping any more than one can blame a polar bear for eating baby seals; it’s just what they do and they’ll do it as long as they can do it successfully. What is disappointing, though, is that they are allowed to get away with, first, the electioneering stunt and, soon, the back-flip.
Only one group has the power to effectively expose and disarm cynical electioneering. But the media’s ping-pong excuse for objectivity failed because it can’t point out that one side of the argument is complete bollocks. Worse, we had excitable columnists comparing the light-bulb standards to the third Labour Government’s public health regulations that (among a whole slew of other things) banned cats from dairies, which National used to whip up the knee-jerk conservatives. In a bizarre reading of history, they claimed banning cats from dairies had cost Labour re-election in 1975 and light-bulbs would do the same in 2008 – they failed to ask whether National’s promise was the right thing for New Zealand or likely to be kept by a National government. The fact that parties are permitted by the way the media reports politics to get away with this kind of dishonest crap is an indictment on the industry that is meant to perform a crucial role in informing us and protecting our democracy*.
Well, that notwithstanding, it looks like those excitable columnists’ comparison between the incandescent ban and the cat ban was valid but in a way they perhaps didn’t foresee. After all, when was the last time you saw a cat in a dairy?
*[I wonder if the media bigwigs have realised that it is this failure of duty that is driving people away from the mainstream media to the blogs for their political analysis]
Facebook
Twitter
Scoopit!
Janet – The Greens polled nearly 7% and 7% only. Green issues while adopted in Labour and elsewhere does not mean the whole of New Zealand is turning Green. It also doesn’t mean some stupid social stigma will be attached to those that use OMG the old lightbulbs. Get real.
People still have fireplaces and people still use coal. Do people give them social stigma? No. People still drive cars and older cars that use more emissions. Do they get socially stigmatised?No. So please don’t speak like you are everyone. Because anyone that would stigmatise someone over using old lightbulbs really needs to get themselves in check
GC, suddenly you’re all over telling everyone how to think – go take a cold shower and get over yourself.
Must be an Act convert, and they polled well below 5%
Janet
Choice is not a culture construct (what ever the &*^%$ that means)
Choice is choice.
GC – What’s environmentally unfriendly about a fireplace? Fitsimmons has a fireplace. As long as you’re burning wood there’s nothing wrong.
cultural construct – Pathetic sociology term.
bill brown – You get over yourself or would you stigmatise someone for using old light bulbs? Yeah I think you would. Such a shame.
Brett
Some people are in a position to exercise choice (because of wealth, access to resources, money, transport etc). Most people aren’t. Choice is not a neutral term. It is a concept that some people have created to justify their own access to, or desire for something, that other people can’t have (for a variety of reasons).
GC
Green issues are actually sustainability of the planet and support for humanity issues. Wait till President Obama gets going – being Green will not only be very cool, but finally people will realise that it is essential for our mutual survival.
Yes Green issues will become more relevant I actually don’t disagree with you there. As for Obama. Before Obama a number of states were already working on Green ideas and in America the best way is through the states though Obama will be a larger proponent of Green issues. I wouldn’t expect miracles from Obama and increasingly his team isn’t looking like change its looking like a government from the left. Which is fine but to me Obama’s whole rhetoric was a change and an America citizens can once again believe in. But when most of your team is made up of the same washington insiders as the Clinton administration I don’t see change. And also in America there are several steps where Green issues will be resisted. Unless Obama totally changes how Washington operates which I think looks unlikely. The Green movement there will only go so far. And it still requires action to be taken by the states where that will be more effective.
Green issues likewise will be relevant here. Just because people vote National does not mean we don’t care about green issues or in sustainability. But that doesn’t mean we’ll go down the route of the Green party and implement their policies. That is something most New Zealanders haven’t voted for.
QtR – I was using that as an example. And I used that as an example because 1 trees breathe in CO2 and 2. burning of wood still creates emissions. And 3. I believe you live in Christchurch which as you know has certain smog levels that are rather unacceptable and the council has implemented new standards in housing etc for what a person can or can’t use as energy. Thus even burning wood fireplaces have been tackled as part of that implementing. Thus by Janet’s analogy people could have been stigmatised for having wood burners. But that hasn’t happened meaning I can’t see how someone would be stigmatised for using old lightbulbs.
DB,
Choice is choice.
Whicha choice is whicha..?
There’s the choice of preferment(aka cultural construct (of becoming))..
and the optional choice – can have one, can’t another – as per the intended law re out with incandescents, in with low wattage light efficiency.
BTW: be interesting to note how incandescents are characterised since they do waste heat energy( excepting the infrared jobs at 250 watts for tiny bathrooms!)
and the choice most folks take the word to mean, between one thing and another, both retained or available..
Im always amazed how ordinary folk have fallen for Nanny State as a means of attacking the Political left. In a natural crisis like floods and slips these same people are the first to moan if “nanny state”action is not started at once.
The wealthy and privaledged among us have done very well out of “nanny state ” but as soon as a helping hand is given to working people the rich and their mates say
its nanny state .A simular motive is when the union movement gains something for its workers , the first in the queue to recieve are the non unionists. The left needs to capture the power of words ,and well before the next election.