Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, October 14th, 2008 - 89 comments
Categories: climate change, economy, election 2008, Environment, families, greens, health, housing, national, tax -
Tags: nick smith
National’s Nick Smith has announced that they would cancel the $1 billion fund to insulate New Zealand houses, which the Greens won as part of the Emissions Trading Scheme. This massive programme would improve energy efficiency, create warmer, healthier homes and would provide useful employment during the downturn. A study, ironically carried out under National and mentioned to me by Nick Smith, showed that insulating a State house saves $2 in health costs per $1 of insulation – it actually saves the Government money to invest in insulation. But National would cancel the plan. Their priority is tax cuts right now, not a myriad of benefits in the future. I suspect for Nick Smith, personally, this is another ‘dead fish’ he has to swallow to get back into power.
This is part of a disappointing trend from National. Under the Tories, we would see Kiwisaver gutted, R&D credits gone, and no money for insulating homes. These are all programmes that are a long-term investment in creating a wealthy, more high-tech, healthier, more efficient New Zealand but National would rather use the money for tax cuts for the rich (something like 80% of the extra money in National’s tax cuts goes to people on incomes over $100K). It’s this short-term thinking that got us into trouble in the 1990s. They attacked our public services, education, health, benefits and cut taxes for the wealthy. The effects are still being felt now as the children of the Mother of All Budgets reach adulthood.
Now, more than ever, I don’t think New Zealand can afford to be run by a party that refuses to make long-term investments in the future.
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Coge,
as every building has it’s unique needs.
Agreed. This is one of the things EECA has been getting better at, but in general the broad brush approach does move things along.
A typical contractor will do the ceiling to at least R3.3, and the floors to R2.7, along with other minor items like HWC wrapping and draftproofing. It’s not a complete solution, but it gets 70-80% of the way there.
Whatever cash the householder has saved via the govt subsidy is then freed up to be spent on more specific items like good thermal drapes that the scheme does not cover.
They spent $1800 to save 530kwh of power worth $120.
The spend was just once… the saving was each year and every year in an environment where energy costs are rising much faster than general inflation.
Yup the payback periods are long, but the life of the building is far longer. The problem is of course that the average home is sold in NZ every 5 years or so, which means that individuals often struggle to justify the investment… they may never own the home long enough to see a payback.
But we act to solve this problem as a collective society, and over time we suceed in properly insulating ALL homes to a decent standard… then we ALL get to participate in the payback.
Stay in your paranoid fantasy then G.
It’s best for all of us really – you don’t have to front up with facts and no-one else has to take you at all seriously.
Quoth: Heinlein – Yep I do (and I might add I have all his books in my rather extensive library of science fiction – they’re still great to read).
He did have a preference towards a pioneer libertarian bent in a lot of his books. But as you say he was rather catholic in his political preferences. Shows up in things like The Man Who Sold the Moon, Time Enough for Love, etc.
The best depiction of the attitude was actually in one of John Varley’s books about a political group of Heinlenists…. Good book (and I’m damned if I can remember the title). I run across people thinking like that periodically and I tend to class then as Heinlenists these days.
But that is because I’m still a science fiction nutter (and history and computers and politics and…..) Oh hell I’m just a nutter – but a well informed nutter.
My favourite was “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. Rollicking yarn in classic hard sf style. Still recall reading it as a teenager.
Currently reading Vernor Vinge’s “Rainbows End”… obviously I haven’t grown out of the genre.
And was also a socialist state while the other was an oppressive dictatorship.
G, You’re under the illusion that socialism doesn’t allow freedom whereas the opposite is true. It’s far more free than your libertarian fantasy.
Red: That is mine as well. I’ve worn out 2 copies of that already from occasional rereading
I haven’t been buying books for a year. A wee budget crisis due to paying to get my leaky apartment block fixed. However there a quite a few thousand SF to reread when I get tired of coding, politics, etc…
Helps keep the mind in trim for thinking long-term, because that is what the SF is designed to help with. It is pretty obvious that some of the National MP’s (and their supporters) could do with some mandatory reeducation to help them to think past the short-term. They sure as hell don’t think long term – forced reading of SF would probably help.
Hah – back on topic…..
lprent – I’m grokking what you’re saying. I haven’t read as much of Heinlein as you, always more of a Frank Herbert and Philip K. Dick fan myself. I think they’re better writers. The big three to me weren’t really that great, but I do enjoy some of Heinlein’s work. For a story with a more of a left bent I suggest you trawl through your collection and find the short story, “The Logic of Empire.”
“the nobel prize winner in economics, puts a lot of the blame for the current financial situation on the bush administration. ”
Thereby totally devaluing the Nobel Prize to a piece of politicised crap. Not that it matters much, it’s been worthless since the political charlatan Gore won it. Leftists pursuing power will eventually ruin everything that ever amounted to something.
“G, You’re under the illusion that socialism doesn’t allow freedom whereas the opposite is true. It’s far more free than your libertarian fantasy.”
HAHAHA!!! Oh my word… now I’ve heard it all!
The point is economic freedom, Bastard. If you want an even more defined contrast I present you West Germany and the USA, which in the last century has produced more in every field of human achievement than all your sorry-assed socialist states put together!!
It’s entertaining to see the right hypocritically opposing a scheme that would actually result in less government spending. Is it the thought of the poor having a better quality of life, or the fact that the greens/left came up with the idea which causes you oppose it?
BDTR, this is the question you must answer.
Spending $1b to save $2b. But you oppose that on ideological grounds. You say it shoudln’t happen because it’s socialism, I say it’s a waste of $1b if the government doesnt.
Why do you have such a problem with reality and the figures that objectively represent what it happening in New Zealand?
The insulating plan would be great for the construction industry, I know in Wellington at the moment there is a massive surplus in workers (more so in Wellington for reasons unrelated too the market crash), and im assuming its a similar state around the country.
There are two essential freedoms in regards to economics (a rather narrow view of freedom you have there G but never mind).
1.) The freedom to fail
2.) Access to resources.
Both of which are non-existent in libertarianism except to the rich few. If someone on $30k/year in a libertarian society fails they lose their home, car, etc, etc. This couldn’t be considered freedom as they would be chained to the job that they have at a subsistence level. This leads into the second freedom I mention. Someone in that situation is highly unlikely to gain access to the resources they need to even be able to try doing something other than what they are. They certainly won’t have access to higher education or to start their own business.
Go study economic history in regards to that. It’s quite interesting as you’ll find that the progress made by the USA after the 1950s was funded by those socialist states – especially after the US dropped the Gold Standard in 1970s. You’ll also find that it was done through government funding (borrowing) and not through the free-market. The USA has been a net debtor for quite some time. They started turning this around a bit under Clinton but then they voted in the neo-conservatives with their neo-liberal policies and have since become the worlds biggest debtor. Not to mention that their entire financial system just collapsed.
“Why do you have such a problem with reality and the figures that objectively represent what it happening in New Zealand?”
If it was in reality a good idea, and a sound investment that would save people money- THEY’D ALREADY BE DOING IT FOR CHRISSAKES..!!! That gummint has to steal your money, and spend it on your behalf, suggests its not as good an investment as they say it is.
[lprent: interesting I wonder what trap you hit that time? Oh mis-spelling government...
]
the gummint printed the money so its theirs and always will be. a note is only a note. go down to the west coast and dig some gold if you want your own money. hmmmmmmm. ifyou were dead then you wouldnt complain about things you can do nothing about and dont mean anything anyway. are you perhaps just a muddle headed contrarian?
So I looked at the article on insulation cost savings that Norightturn linked to. The study used a skewed sample of households with respiratory problems, and the cost savings were almost entirely in the 65+ age group, almost all driven by reduced hospital admission for people with respiratory problems.
There are about 50-60,000 pensioner households in New Zealand. At 2,000 a household (yes, lets include them all, even the already insulated ones) that justifies expenditure of about $100 million.
So what’s the other $900m? A feelgood factor?
And if norightturn is going to use such abusive rhetoric, he should read his material a bit more closely so he doesn’t wind up looking like such an … er … idiot.
And I should read a bit closer too ! My source for 50-60,000 pensioner households seems wrong. There are probably at least 4 times that number. Still, assuming half are already insulated, we still only get about $200,000 in justified expenditure.
I mean $200,000,000. Still leave $800,000,000 of very low value payoffs. Jeez, I wish The Standard had an edit function (apologies).
soory but off topic…now on tv1….John Keys is a rude prick
“If it was in reality a good idea, and a sound investment that would save people money- THEY’D ALREADY BE DOING IT FOR CHRISSAKES..!!! That gummint has to steal your money, and spend it on your behalf, suggests its not as good an investment as they say it is.”
Primarily its been explained above why it should be done through the government, but there’s also a problem of some peoples short sightedness. If it were set up as “you bring the receipts in from insulating your house, and we will give you twice that amount back out of the health budget” then I’m sure heaps of people would be doing so, its not done like that how ever, that’s why the government should be running a program to do it.