Thanks National + Act voters
From the National & Act confidence and supply 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.
National further agrees to pass forthwith an amendment to the ETS legislation delaying its implementation, repealing the thermal generation ban and making any other necessary interim adjustments until the select committee review is completed.
[via NRT]
5 responses to “Thanks National + Act voters”
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Oh boo, depressing bunch of sentences there. Hardly surprising though, is it? Brace yourself for more to follow.
You’re welcome. :-)
Wouldn’t mind writing up something about these last couple of politics posts, but it’ll have to be another day. For now, let’s just say that I value freedom — even when some people abuse it — more than I like the government trying to solve all our problems.
hi Ben — I look forward to that other day. Many awful things are done in the name of enhancing freedom (think of the deregulation of financial institutions), and it’s hard for me to see how that word relates to New Zealand’s response to climate change. For one thing, delaying implementation of the ETS means that emitters’ Kyoto liabilities are socialised (paid by government/taxpayer) rather than paid by the emitters themselves.
Ben must have a huge amount of faith in his fellow man to individually respond to climate change in an appropriate fashion at the macro-economic level — evidence of the deservedness of such faith I have never witnessed.
The Kyoto/ETS ethos is to blame game and deflect responsibility from consumers. Act are looking to institute a carbon tax that may properly target consumers for their carbon footprints. Act’s policy is better for the enviroment, whilst being worse for our Kyoto commitments.