Sharples: ‘ETS short-sighted, that’s why we supported it’

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 14th, 2009 - 27 comments
Categories: climate change, ETS, maori party - Tags: , ,

maori-party-john-keyI could hardly believe my ears when I heard Waatea News on RNZ this morning. Pita Sharples admitted that the Maori Party knew supporting National’s ETS would mean worse environmental outcomes and would cost the country $110 billion in subsidies for polluters but they did it anyway to keep the price of fuel a bit lower.

Sharples claimed that was to help poor Maori. Bollocks. Under National’s ETS the increase in petrol prices will only be a few cents a litre less. That’s barely noticeable to a family. Say your family uses 50 litres a week (enough to drive 500km in an average car) even a 3 cent rise only costs $1.50 a week. No. The people for whom fuel prices really matter are companies that use heaps of it – like the iwi-owned fishing and forestry companies . The Maori Party put the interests of the iwi-owned polluters ahead of the people and the environment.

Sharples admitted his party had sold future generations down the river: “In the long term it’s going to cost New Zealand a lot of money but, in the short term, which is what we need now, we went for that [lower fuel costs].”

I’m sorry, but how can that possibly fit with Maoritanga, the Maori Party’s kaupapa or any sensible code of ethics? Sharples’ attitude is ‘let’s make profit now and leave it for the mokopuna to suffer the price of our avarice’.

The Maori Party as it stands now, led by Turia and Sharples, is beyond redemption. They have sold out everything they stood for and abandoned the people they claim to represent, all so they can have the perks of office and shovel taxpayer money at the iwi corporate elite. Despicable.

27 comments on “Sharples: ‘ETS short-sighted, that’s why we supported it’ ”

  1. tc 1

    You have to appreciate his honesty……even though he’s exposed his party’s stupidity and inability (or apathy) to get more for maori over the medium to long term when they had Smith over a barrel.

    So this is the result when they hold the trumps………you wouldn’t ask them to negotiate for a beer in a brewery based on this and agree with marty that they have serious credibility issues with their own people to address.

    Most knew this but the scale of incompetance and sellout’s quite breathtaking for a ‘people party’ as they’ve been rolled on every single issue which is all part of Nat strategy….one less party of scale to deal with suits them nicely.

  2. Bored 2

    What a F*** up Pita. I have a friend who trains maths teachers who laments the low standard of maths through out the education establishment. It may be that Pita is representative of this or maybe maths just some pakeha irrelevancy you can ignore when you rort people in favour of some small ethnic class interest.

  3. Lanthanide 3

    I couldn’t believe it either. He sounds like a complete moron.

    I think the only redeeming thing he could have said would have been “we fully expect this ETS to be significantly overhauled in the medium term, so these long-term costs won’t come to bear on the taxpayer”. Except National really wouldn’t like that, of course 🙂

  4. Yamal 4

    Just shows that ETS in any form is a waste of money. Does not matter who pays up front we all get shafted 1 way or the other.
    Marty – no matter what ETS we have it will cost us all big time. Our standard of living will fall, in some cases dramatically.

    Tell me this, using reasonable approximations only:
    Average work salary in India is USD1000PA
    Average work salary in NZ is USD20000PA

    With ETS being a RE-DISTRIBUTION of wealth what is going to be the outcome:
    1. India salary goes to say USD15000PA, NZ salary goes to USD25000PA?
    or
    2. India salary goes to USD8000PA, NZ salary goes to USD11000PA?

    It will be #2 under the terms of Copenhagen, we all lose wealth in the west and give to the 3rd world.

    When workers in NZ finally realise this is the outcome I bet they will not be as ‘keen’ to save the world as they are being shafted by their so called mates.

    • Lanthanide 4.1

      Yeah, having an annual income of $20k US is really going to give me a lot of comfort when storm systems as a result of climate change decimate my house and community.

      • luva 4.1.1

        I am not for a second denying climate change.

        But in which century were houses and communities not decimated by storms.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.2

      It will be #2 under the terms of Copenhagen, we all lose wealth in the west and give to the 3rd world.

      That is what would happen in a free-market anyway as can be seen by our decreasing living standard over the last couple of decades.

  5. Yamal 5

    More comfort than USD11000. Remind me again, how was the US hurrican season in 2009?

    • snoozer 5.1

      and how was it in 2005, yamal? You can’t pick a single year to get a trend. dork.

    • snoozer 5.2

      yamal. Your numbers are just made up by you to support your argument. So they’re meaningless.

    • Clarke 5.3

      If simply having a high per-capita income was able to make up for large-scale environmental damage, New Orleans would be fully rebuilt by now.

  6. Not only is he losing for Maori, his personal self respect is going down the toilet. Just listening to how he now talks is really quite sad.

  7. Bill 7

    Did I pick that up correctly? Did he really say that people don’t understand how Maori think as Maori? Did he really say that they think in ‘the now’ like their is some enlightened Maori way of thinking that I’m just a wee bit thick to quite get?

    Is he seriously expecting anyone to buy into an idea that Maori think in a fashion that is superior (it’s like spiritual man, it’s in the now man!’). Does he maybe expect all us thickies to nod slowly in unison as the comprehension slowly dawns that the problem is the failure of reality to fit into Pita’s ‘now’ moment, rather than Pita being a complete fuckwit?

    • snoozer 7.1

      If you cloak your selling out in ‘cultural differences’ you make it harder to criticise.

      • Bill 7.1.1

        yeah, but that that had nothing to do with cultural difference.

        He was positioning himself as ‘the wise one’ or ‘of the wise ones’ which then allows sheer arrogance to dismiss any and all criticisms.

        I mean, I know the guys got a beard and all that and it could be held to be sagely grey.

        But then all that remains to be said is that he’s a sad washed up charlatan who might have fared better in the 19 fucking 60s when people were quite willing to suck on gurus sucking them dry….’cause he sure as hell can’t play that race card and sell any wise native earth custodian shit can he?

  8. Tigger 8

    Look you racists, Pita has far bigger things to worry about than these small kumara. Didn’t you see the announcement about the Maori flag? That’s what matters. A piece of cloth with a pattern on it. Not this ‘global warmthening’ stuff…

    • Zaphod Beeblebrox 8.1

      I’m wondering if Rodney will be able to get the ACT flag flying over the bridge (and why not United Future as well). The only problem will be the EFA- if Rodney can’t wear his yellow jacket, what chance a flag everyone associates with your political cause being seen as political advertising?

      Anything other than the United Tribes’ flag at Waitangi would be a traversty- hopefully Ngapuhi will say something about this.

  9. Jim McDonald 9

    I was away from the radio then so thanks for the link.

    It’s lousy spin and he should work harder at making a more credible argument.

    If he intends to venture into the spiritual *now*, the first step to take is to be mindful of self-authenticity and to actively uproot self-delusion.

    Turn & twist as much as he can or likes but it is difficult to see the arrangements as putting power ahead of other things that matter.

    • Jim McDonald 9.1

      Edit:
      Turn & twist as much as he can or likes but it is difficult to see the arrangements as anything but putting power ahead of other things that matter.

  10. tc 10

    The only thing the maori division of the national party (aka the maori party) has got right is not ditching Hone………not a decision their twin-leaders wanted, one forced on them by the party I’d suggest.

    Sharples/Turei’s legacy will be hard to shake as more credible/intelligent leaders inhereit shonky deals and attempt to put forward a more rounded approach.

    Does labor have the guts to paint them as the party of priviledge who’ve done nothing except side with nats to deteriorate taxpayers standard of living on ETS/ACC or leave them alone as the prodigal son whom they hope returns to the fold……yeah right !

    • Galeandra 10.1

      Weel, Goff tried…. now we get the idea why the media wanted to paint him into the racecard corner, don’t we? The Standardistas helped, too, of course.

      [lprent: We have a range of opinions. ]

  11. Rich 11

    Tariana TURIA

    Meteria TUREI is the joint leader of the Green Party and would never support shit like this.

  12. Adrian 12

    Anybody still calling Phil Goff a dogwhistler? He blew the whistle alright, but on these bullshitters and charlatans.

  13. Clarke 13

    At a social engagement last night a colleague described the Maori Party as “The Iwi Roundtable”, on the basis that their policies were functionally indistinguishable from the Business Roundtable … it seemed a very accurate moniker.

  14. George.com 14

    “Sharples believes his parties agreement with National is beneficial to Maori”…even though the latest manifestation of this agreement in the form of the ETS is hugely unbeneficial to NZ and the environment long term.

    rob

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