Category: Climate Change
When a new supermarket in Mt Roskill recently advertised for new staff over 2,700 people applied for the 150 positions. This desperate situation is being replicated up and down the country. It is symptomatic of an economy in trouble.
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has asked the High Court to rule on the validity of NIWA's "Seven Station" New Zealand Temperature Record (NZTR) that features prominently on its website and is used in information it passes on to schools and is also used to support the emission trading scheme, resource consent applications for wind farms and many other key aspects of policies designed to “fight climate change”.
The madness of the Government’s new carbon tax is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain. A further concern is its impact on inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate. It will add to the costs of fuel and power and these flow right through the economy to basics like food. This puts pressure on inflation, which in turn drives up interest rates and the kiwi dollar. The Government’s carbon tax is a classic example of the way the Government is making things tougher for the productive exporting sector. The worst aspect of the carbon tax is that it will not make one iota of difference to New Zealand’s emissions. Nick Smith 2005
Calls are mounting for the next phase of the government’s emissions trading scheme, due to commence on 1 July 2010, to be deferred. There are strong arguments for a temporary suspension of the scheme.
In Thursday’s budget speech the Minister of Finance, Bill English announced that this budget had four main objectives: “The first is lifting the long-term performance of the economy. The second is reform of the tax system, to make it fairer, more sustainable and more supporting of economic growth. The third is better delivery of public services, to make them better for users of those services and better for taxpayers. The fourth is to maintain firm control of the Government's finances, so we can return to budget surpluses and pull back our rising debt.”[1]
On Saturday some 20,000 people marched down Queen Street protesting against the government’s proposals to mine conservation land. The rally was organised by Greenpeace with some protesters bussed in from the Coromandel and others coming from Great Barrier Island. The well-orchestrated rally demonstrated how business-like environmentalism has become.
All too often something odd seems to happen to people elected to public office. Instead of being a conduit for the opinion of those they represent as promised in their election campaigns many morph into autocrats, convinced they know better than us how we should live our lives. Election promises and pledges are conveniently forgotten as the more ‘relevant’ issues of governance demand their judgment.
From north America and western Europe to east Asia and Australia, politicians are raising doubts about the costs of reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. But who would have thought that even in New Zealand, which likes to parade its environmental credentials, global warming is no longer cool?
Here’s an idea to address our continuing power generation anxieties: a nice new floating nuclear reactor. Minimal infrastructure required; just tie it up in a convenient harbour and plug it in. The first of these is being built in St Petersburg, Russia, and they will ultimately be available to tow to anywhere in the world. The present design offers 70MW of low maintenance, environmentally-friendly power (enough to supply a city of 200,000) and on a platform about the size of a football field. Just the thing, one might think, when the rain hasn’t fallen and the wind doesn’t blow, and the Cook Strait link is uncertain and the Waikato River is too warm to cool Huntley. Power when you want it, with zero greenhouse emissions.
Speech to ACT Annual Conference, Wellington, 27 February 2010: As you know I run the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, a public policy think tank that produces the biggest weekly electronic newsletter in the country. It enables me to keep my finger on the pulse of public and political opinion. It is from this perspective that I would like to share some observations that might assist ACT in looking forward.
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