Monday 17 November 2008

Coalition, coalition, coalition [update 3]

To quote the great philosopher Tom Waits, "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."  David Farrar has all the small print about the 'coalition' deals between National & Act, National & Peter Dunne Nothing, and National and the Maoris.  I'm going to try and digest the details before commenting too much, and suggest you do the same.

In the meantime, how about thinking about a decent acronym for the new National/United/Maori/ACT Government?  NUM-nuts is the best I've thought of.

UPDATE 1:  From the NACT agreement:

"National agrees to a review by a special select committee of Parliament of the current Emissions Trading Scheme legislation and any amendments or alternatives to it, including carbon taxes, in the light of current economic circumstances and steps now being undertaken by similar nations."

On the surface, this is great news.  But I wonder which party, ACT or National, the "review" of the Emissions Trading Scam is intended to protect?  That is, is it a review designed to quietly extinguish the scheme, as I would like, and on which ACT campaigned?  Or to delay implementation of National's own ETS scheme?

And when will we know for sure?

In any case, the Appendix to the NACT agreement gives more details of the terms of reference for the proposed Climate Change Select Committee, which potentially offers plenty of scope to "hear competing views on the scientific aspects of climate change from internationally respected sources and assess the quality and impartiality of official advice" -- i.e., to point out the many warmist myths on which policy has to date been prepared.

One would hope that such a committee would prove as impartial and objective as the Royal Commission that so glorious kicked the Genetic Engineering bogey out of the park.  "Technology is integral to the advancement of the world," they said. "Fire, the wheel, steam power, electricity, radio transmission, air and space travel, nuclear power, the microchip, DNA: the human race has ever been on the cusp of innovation. Currently, biotechnology is the new frontier. Continuation of research is critical to New Zealand's future."

I look forward to a similarly ringing burial of the warmist mantra.

UPDATE 2: Blair M likes the NACT Agreement.  Gives ACT a soapbox and the Tories a spine, he reckons -- although it could also be a 'Public Choice form of National 'privatising their gains' and nationalising their dead rats by blaming them on the smaller party.

UPDATE 3: And Lindsay Perigo congratulates Rodney Hide on his Local Government appointment, although he doesn't seem to realise the portfolio doesn't unfortunately cover the RMA.  That's Environment. And the loathsome Nick Smith's got that portfolio sewn up -- he's the worm who calls the RMA "far-sighted environmental legislation."

5 comments:

StephenR said...

Tumeke has been waving MACTIONAL around...I think whoever it was deliberately ignored UF, but if you really want you could put an accent mark in somewhere :-)

deleted said...

While far from perfect... and giving reason for libs to be campaigning for further freedom, this should be seen as a victory for increasing levels of freedom in NZ.

Heck, even perigo said it was a step int he right direction, but the nats need to be watched VERY closely.

Anonymous said...

"Steps in the right (as in correct) direction" is about as much as we can hope for.

Overall a refreshing amount to be positive about after 9 years of unrelenting horror. Need to keep our eyes on them, no question, but at least we can safely bet we will be cheering them on or encouraging them to go further at least some of the time, rather than ALWAYS being in the anti.

Clunking Fist said...

"kick into touch"

Eh? Don't you mean game over, full time hooter, science the winner on the day, etc.

Blair said...

I don't care if National gives ACT all their dead rats. ACT would relish it. ACT voters are the very people who want to make the unpopular calls and take a bullwhip to nanny state. It does ACT no harm to be associated with unpopular decisions. 96% of the population did not vote for ACT, so they can only rise in popularity.