Posts by George Darroch
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
It sounds so bad I reckon it can't be right. I'm holding out until I hear the story from a more reputable source.
It's official. Yeah, I'm angry too. There is good cause to do this - in fact, it's how the scheme should have worked in the first place, instead of giving 50% subsidies to millionaires. But it still doesn't make it any less infuriating.
-
Whoops, replied too early
...Don't upset the farmers. But the farmers, cheeky bastards (there are some good ones of course) were always going to fight until they were completely insulated, and got the kind of giveaway that National has just put up. Hell, they were storming Parliament after an 80cent per cattle emissions reductions research levy.
You can't win if you don't fight. You have to pick your battles, of course, but climate change is something worth fighting against.
-
The entire climate policy area in New Zealand is one giant SNAFU.
This 2005 press release from the then New Zealand Government speaks volumes. We had a good climate policy, the price was set too low but could have been raised eventually, and it priced carbon directly for all sectors of the economy. It would have raised revenue that could have been cycled back into mitigation (insulation, home and business energy efficiency measures).
Labour abandoned it for political expedience.
-
I have to say that the police didn't impress me that much - if they had good community relations with the students associations, they could have worked with student marshalls, who would surely have created much less tension with the partying students. If you treat something like a riot, turning up in full gear, and making threatening statements beforehand, you're likely to get one.
I fully agree with Russell that the students are idiots, and that if it was a less privileged bunch the response would much less sympathetic.
But that this turned into what it did is at least partly the fault of the police. I have a strong belief that if people are having fun, and not hurting anyone, then there isn't a cause for the police to come in and start breaking things up by force. That's when riots start. A burning couch will make a mess, and is an idiotic thing to do, but if it's burning in the middle of the road it isn't actually much of a hazard.
-
Close to half (47%) of men in the sample support the death penalty. That's the surprise for me.
Not really a surprise for me. Men tend on the whole to be more in favour of confrontational ways of resolving problems Which isn't to get all John Gray - the difference, 39/47 is significant but not huge.
It also manifests in political choices. Men favour National and ACT by significant margins, whereas Labour has stronger support among women.
-
I know, I know. But the fourth Labour Government, and him in particular, made such a big deal about removing farm subsidies.
I'm sure that it will slip right past.
-
Does anyone know if ACT supports this? I know they're still out in the loony bin, saying that the laws of physics are broken, but since it's a Government bill...
If Roger Douglas votes for huge subsidies to farmers, the irony will be delicious.
-
National has committed to a 90% subsidy of whatever agriculture is emitting in 2015
Wait, so we're subsidising agriculture almost fully past 2015?
Head-desk
If it cost more to produce the goods, then farmers might change their methods, consumers will change their purchases. If the government subsidises 90% of it, we're just delaying the system having any impact upon behaviour and therefore our environment for most of a decade.
Yes, this is exactly the point. An ETS or carbon tax must impose costs on behaviours, by their definition. National, the Maori Party and to a lesser extent Labour all want to avoid imposing costs.
However, only if you get others to pay those costs do you avoid having them levied on the polluters.
If a dairy farmer's costs go up, then he or she can make a number of choices; weather the cost, pass it on to consumers through his prices and see demand decline, improve the productivity per unit emitted, work on low emissions techniques, or even grow something other than grass belching machines on the farm.
-
I/S, snap.
-
George could you explain the workings behind that $1b number?
This is very back of the envelop stuff, but;
Assuming a $20 carbon price (conservative, compared to international prices, and the Government is offering a $25 locked in subsidy price from 2013 for transport, energy and industry) and 35MtCO2e emissions for agriculture (see MfE's figures), that works out to $700m per year in subsidies to agriculture, every year for the next six years.
That's on top of the $430m that is being offered to transport, energy and industry.