As the Bill setting up the government's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) heads to parliament for a vote, parliament's most boring man, Peter Dunne, warns the scheme is in danger of collapse.
This is excellent news!
As everyone but the Green Party is slowly starting to realise, the scheme is an impost on industry that businesses just can't afford, while the science behind the scam is looking increasingly theadbare -- it's both unnecessary and destructive but, despite Dunne's heads up, it's not over yet.
The scheme is in danger, argues Dunne, because of the increasing uncertainty around its introduction, especially since the Helen Clark's 'dance of the seven veils' over fuel taxes and the delays and exemptions to the scheme -- a belated realisation that the costs the scheme will add to doing business in New Zealand is going to be calamitous. These announcements of delays and meaning are scaring of those who expected to make big windfalls from the rort.
It's also in danger because the Greens now say they won't vote for what they see as a watered-down impost on industry -- they don't want to give local industry an out, they want to see the full environmental noose applied. And while the Greens voice the fears of their voting public, United and NZ First have been reading the signs of opposition to the scheme from what they hope is theirs, and are rapidly backing away from giving Clark's scheme the support it will need when it comes to a vote very shortly.
However, it's not all good news. We're not entirely out of the woods yet: there's one twerp who is still likely to give it life. With the Greens threatening to pull out," notes the Dominion, "Miss Clark said Labour would look to National for support." Enter stage left, John Key. Flip Flop Boy. The Smiling Ass. Instead of reading the signs from the voting public, John Boy is still listening to his advisers. Clark's backdown on the new fuel tax is not good news, it's "an embarrassment," says John Boy. Labour's partial retreat on the global warming bandwagon is not a welcome sign they're listening to the voting public, it's a sign of "Labour of failing to deliver on climate change" says John Boy.
They guy is an idiot. Anyone with a brain could see that "failing to deliver on climate change" is a good thing.
Remember how the smiling twerp signed up to resuscitate Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill, just days after his MPs stood on the steps of parliament telling bill opponents they were dead against it? Expect to see history repeated as he signs up to a deal with Helen to resuscitate Helen Clark's anti-industry bill.
How many dead rats can you swallow before you choke.
7 comments:
Poor John Clueless. He has so carefully aligned himself left of Labour and now Labour are overtaking him on the right by abandoning some stupid climate change policies and now he can either flop or flip.
Let me paint another scenario: Labour will vote against the bill, and National for it!
Berend
You are likely correct!
One thing John the Key-ring does know is who owns him. His masters were looking to make untold from the emissions trading scheme. John dances the dances exactly as he is instructed.
Dance, John, dance.
LGM
LGM, your prognosis sends chills down the spine. Given the fact that there are people who get up in the morning, shave, shower and put on a collar and tie then go to work seeing who they can screw over; we don't have to look far to see who Jandal John's mates are. Traders in flimflam.
It beggars belief that he could be so unspeakably stupid as to support taxing the country to affect the weather. There has to be another reason, and your one fits well.
Amazing how creatures like the Greens (and Red John) support a policy of increasing the financial burden on ordinary people for the benefit of big pig government. An increase of tax on gasoline to the level of 30 - 40 cents a litre will cause great suffering for many. Greens, Reds etc. give a tinkers pooh about the harm and suffering their schemes will (and already are) produce. Ideologically blinded or pragmatically directed, these people are a perfect example of why "experts" and special interests should never be allowed the power to rule over others.
LGM
Actually, I understand that now we are signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, we'll be paying for our emissions on the international stage no matter what. It's just a matter of whether we choose a user-pays system such as the ETS to discourage further emissions, or whether it comes out of the national budget.
Three things, Katie.
1) Time to urgently unsign to the Kyoto Protocal, before the country dies of it.
2) You seem not to have grasped, Katie, that the point of the EST is to grossly enlarge the government's budget. Depending on whether you listen to the CEOs of BP and SOlid Energy, or the advisers from the Greenhouse Policy Coalition or from the Government's own advisory group, the ETS will be used to transfer somewhere between 5 and 80 billion dollars from private businesses to the government coffers. This is a direct tax on capital.
Not good enough.
3) ETS isn't even necessary. If you still insist on a Kyoto response, then how about a carbon tax whose rate is tied to global temperatures?
That's the basket I'd prefer the eggs to be in.
ETS isn't even necessary. If you still insist on a Kyoto response, then how about a carbon tax whose rate is tied to global temperatures?
This sounds like a good idea as similar trading is already taking place in the financial market. It is called Weather Derivatives Trading.
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