Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, September 16th, 2011 - 14 comments
When it comes to making any kind of effort to saving the planet from catastrophic climate change I guess being even a “fast follower” was just a little too ambitious for the Key government.
Written By: - Date published: 6:27 am, May 25th, 2011 - 82 comments
National are bleating about Labour’s Research & Development tax credit – largely because as they have no economic plan of their own, so they can only talk about other parties’. But Labour’s R&D tax credit is in fact part of what’s desperately needed to get our economy moving in the right direction.
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, April 20th, 2011 - 14 comments
The United Nations joins those voices pointing out that Nationals”policy” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a complete sham. Reposted from No Right Turn.
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, June 30th, 2010 - 27 comments
In a moment of uncharacteristic political honesty, John Key has come clean on his ETS. It loads “disproportionate” costs on to householders. National’s scheme is all about keeping things sweet for their business mates – muffling the price signal that an ETS is supposed to send by (as usual) socialising the costs.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, June 25th, 2010 - 43 comments
The point of an ETS isn’t to just blindly pay more, it is to change our behaviour so that we don’t have to. National don’t get it, so they have brought us the worst of all possible ETS schemes. Badly designed and devoid of vision. An ETS with all of the costs and none of the benefits.
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, May 27th, 2010 - 21 comments
National is under extraordinary pressure on its ETS, and it seems to be starting to panic. While I can commend them for sticking to their guns (better a gutted ETS than none at all), I don’t have any sympathy over the backlash they are facing. They bought it on themselves.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, November 30th, 2009 - 72 comments
Mark your calendar, and turn out next Saturday for the Planet A Concert and March (the concert to be webcast live): In Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, you’ll be able to march, dance, listen to speakers, sing, and jump on bouncy castles in support of a good outcome in Copenhagen. From a massive free public concert in Auckland …
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 26th, 2009 - 77 comments
Never in the history of New Zealand politics has so much taxpayers’ money been hurled into the chasm with such contempt for the poor citizens who will pay billions out of their own dwindling pockets forever while rich polluters wreck the earth with impunity and bask in the profits. Never in the history of NZ …
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 26th, 2009 - 19 comments
Maori Party policy on the environment: We aspire to work together to make the economy great but not at the expense of our environment. Climate change affects us all and the biggest emitters must take responsibility to change the way they do business. Any cost they pass on to consumers must encourage environmentally responsible choices. …
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 pm, November 25th, 2009 - 31 comments
So, the National / Maori ETS is now law. Waiho mÄ te WhakamÄ e Patu. Shame on those who supported this appalling legislation and the anti-democratic process used to ram it in to law.
Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, November 25th, 2009 - 8 comments
Via Newsroom [offline], Pita Sharples has confirmed reports of an internal revolt within the Maori Party over its support for National’s ETS. The Maori Party will honour its deal to back National’s emissions trading scheme despite many in the party being opposed to much of the ETS bill, co-leader Pita Sharples has said in a …
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, November 25th, 2009 - 38 comments
Breaking news. It seems that turmoil within the Maori Party may derail the ETS after all: EXCLUSIVE: An 11th hour revolt within the Maori Party is threatening to torpedo the Emissions Trading Scheme deal with the Key Government. Even if the revolt does not succeed – Environment Minister Nick Smith is hoping to secure passage …
Written By: - Date published: 5:20 pm, November 24th, 2009 - 10 comments
Written By: - Date published: 2:32 pm, November 24th, 2009 - 33 comments
On his blog, Colin Espiner writes: “it’s also extremely ironic to hear Labour wringing its hands about the impact of the ETS when…HELLO…Labour passed the Emissions Trading Scheme!!!” Oh dear. That’s like saying ‘Labour is opposed to National’s ACC policy but Labour had an ACC policy of its own, hello!!!’ Labour isn’t (and I really …
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, November 24th, 2009 - 33 comments
So, as far as National and Maori leaders are concerned, it’s a done deal: “Maori Party to support ETS – bill to become law in days”. Unless (as suggested by Eddie) some Maori Party MPs remember their principles and vote against it, National’s ETS will be forced through parliament under urgency. NRT weighs in with …
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, November 24th, 2009 - 13 comments
National wants to get its shambolic ETS through the House this week. It’s not quite clear what the hurry is; there’s no actual reason why it should be passed before the Copenhagen meeting in December, it’s just an artificial deadline that National have set themselves. We already know the ETS will cost taxpayers hundreds …
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 19th, 2009 - 3 comments
A couple of days ago I raised (again) the question of why we don’t see more experts, scientists and academics contributing to public debate. Well here’s one example where they are doing so: Docs say emissions trading scheme will hurt Kids Senior doctors today said that the intended changes to New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme …
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, November 18th, 2009 - 24 comments
Nice Mr Key may be feeling the strain a bit. He’s starting to sound quite snippy: Meanwhile, Key has also slammed Treasury predictions that the proposed changes to the ETS would add $50 billion to the price tag of the scheme. “The numbers from Treasury are nonsense. Treasury can’t tell us what the deficit is …
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, November 17th, 2009 - 59 comments
The government’s handling of the ETS is a total shambles at every level. Even their fans at The Herald are pointing out the elephants in the room: Another sorry chapter in emissions farce It is rare that all-party select committees of Parliament cannot agree on some improvements to a Government bill even if some parties …
Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, October 19th, 2009 - 15 comments
The current National led government clearly regards the processes of democracy is an inconvenience to which it must pay lip service, but nothing more. The first signs appeared very early, with repeated abuse of the mechanism of urgency. This got to the point that even their fans at The Herald were moved to rebuke them: …
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 21st, 2009 - 6 comments
Rod Oram, as usual, has set the standard in commentary with his piece on the National-Maori Party ETS. The full article is here but I’ll lift the core points: Oram argues a climate change policy package needs three things: Put a price on emissions to incentivise change. We chose an ETS as the most effective …
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, September 20th, 2009 - 7 comments
I get sick of hearing our illustrious fourth estate refer to some piece of politicking as ‘good politics’. Who decides what’s ‘good politics’? The commentators, of course. And they define good politics as maneuvering to ones advantage, rather than getting good policies in place. Take the ETS issue. If they wanted, the commentators could say ‘National has …
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, September 18th, 2009 - 14 comments
I’ve got no problem with the government helping out those who are genuinely in need but forcing the taxpayer fork out $400 million (or is it 1.6b?) to subsidise corporate polluters is a disgrace. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2864572/Public-to-pay-tab-for-polluters This is corporate welfare at it’s worst. These businesses are simply bludging off the taxpayer. While you’re doing your bit …
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 18th, 2009 - 8 comments
Labour’s Charles Chauvel has released the paper records of Labour’s attempts to agree a bi-partisan ETS with National. In total, Labour presented three draft MOUs detailing possible agreements, each moving towards what they believed to be National’s position. Additionally, there was a letter from Phil Goff to John Key a month ago that clearly laid …
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 25 comments
People who treat politics as a game annoy me. People who see it all in terms of power and cliques and scoring points and winning at all costs annoy me a lot. These people have lost the plot. Politics is not a game. Politics matters. It matters to society, the lives of individuals, and the …
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, September 16th, 2009 - 26 comments
It never ceases to amaze me what short term thinkers National are. The plan (with the Maori Party) to gut the ETS highlights this issue very starkly. For the sake of short term appeasement of their backers in the polluting industries National are prepared to abandon the much more important long term considerations. Considerations like …
Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, September 15th, 2009 - 52 comments
National seems to be making a bit of a habit of shafting the taxpayer. Before the election we were promised significant tax cuts, “North of $50″ per week. We had John Key’s personal guarantee. Key said “New Zealanders will be able to believe our tax cuts, they will be able to trust our tax cuts…”. …
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, September 15th, 2009 - 21 comments
Hot Topic has obtained a copy of a draft memorandum of understanding for a meeting on the ETS that was meant to take place today. It shows that Labour was prepared to do more to help compensate polluters for the costs they would have faced while still paying a price for polluting, thereby still incentivising reductions …
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, September 15th, 2009 - 5 comments
A few important passages from the special select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme: In the long term, price caps stand in the way of market development and shield business from the real price of carbon to the economy…[National and United Future] recommend to the Government that if a short-term price cap is introduced, …
Written By: - Date published: 5:48 am, September 15th, 2009 - 35 comments
What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that an emissions trading scheme has two points: 1) encourage reductions in emissions 2) allocate the cost of emitting. The ETS does not, ultimately, create the price on carbon for New Zealand. That is created by our international committment, along with other countries, to limit our …
Written By: - Date published: 5:15 pm, September 14th, 2009 - 73 comments
Nick Smith has just announced a deal with the Maori Party to replace the existing Emissions Trading Scheme with a do-nothing joke. The new ETS will allocate polluting rights (carbon credits) free to polluters for the first years and then at a low capped price thereafter. Agriculture, source of 50% of our greenhouse pollution, will not be …
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