Hard News: Congratulations, Mr Key
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New Zealand has some of the most efficient dairying in the world, in terms of output/inputs. Dairying is low output, but high value use of agricultural land and inputs.
Any efficiency of food production is not addressed by the ETS. The ETS applies sets tariffs to agriculture by location, not efficiency.
Your argument that the ETS would make NZ agriculture less efficient is also spurious. There are a range of measures that farmers could adopt that would significantly reduce their emissions, at low cost, but without incentive they have not seen significant uptake. This will not solve all of their problems however - research (which should have been paid for by farmers until Labour backed down) is being undertaken to reduce methane emissions from ruminants.
My argument is that an ETS would make NZ agriculture more costly, irregardless of its efficiency. If we had the most perfectly efficient dairy production in the world and N.Korea had the least efficient, the ETS would apply a tariff to our production not theirs. This is plainly wrong. I refer to the Lincoln document only to show that our production is by world standards efficient.
Climate change is a very serious business, and ultimately some sectors will have to wear some pain. It What farmers are currently demanding is that we either wear the entire cost for them, or do nothing. Neither is an acceptable solution.
I sort of disagree because climate change is indeed a very serious problem and it deserves a very serious response. The ETS is focused on the wrong sectors. The sectors that need to bear the burden are the inefficient ones as judged by their "carbon footprint". For that reason I would favour an all encompassing carbon tax on consumption, to fairly apply penalty on the basis of AGW pollution.
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Incidentally, how many commentator have already invoked Night of the Living Dead when talking about Douglas? Seems like that's a meme that will stick
Isn't there a Trace Hodgson cartoon along those lines?
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Incidentally, how many commentator have already invoked Night of the Living Dead when talking about Douglas? Seems like that's a meme that will stick
Isn't there a Trace Hodgson cartoon along those lines?
I think there is- in fact, __Listener__cartoonist Chris Slane got on the bandwaggon as soon as Douglas announced his candidacy a few months back. Expect it be invoked by cartoonists and/or satirists whenever Douglas waxes incoherent neoliberal nonsense to National's dismay over the next few years. Which is to say, often.
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Angus, so presumedly you agree that a globally-set cost of carbon, with all major players involved, would remove the issue you talk about?
Gareth,
Yes that would work, but I favor tax on carbon footprint for a pragmatic reason - governments are much better at collecting taxes than they are at regulating markets.
And yes this would mean we are "all" paying the price for global warming pollution, but the fact is that Western consumers are 3 to 4x more polluting than anyone else and deserve to pay.
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I think there is- in fact, Listener cartoonist Chris Slane got on the bandwaggon as soon as Douglas announced his candidacy a few months back.
Which reminds me that Slane has stood out as a leftie bastion among the rightward drift of the Listener, with his cartoons often in stark contrast to the Jane Clifton columns they accompanied.
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Kyle,
Particularly when it ends up with arguing for polluters in our country getting a freer ride.
I agree, only our "polluters" are in fact us. Our lifestyles are 2x more polluting than the world average, we need to pay for this excess. If we actually want to deal to climate change we need to confront our consumption and stop trying to shift blame to farmers or big business.
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__Sinister...__
Is he left-handed too? I didn't realise that...
Oh, speaking of - you know who else is left-handed? Barack Obama.
The Washington Post notes he's yet another left-handed president (recent presidential southpaws include Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton).
So the big question is: which hand does John Key write with?
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Finally.
I really need to start blogging about this AGW thing, I can't keep polluting other peoples comments sections.
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If we actually want to deal to climate change we need to confront our consumption and stop trying to shift blame to farmers or big business.
Won't happen with this government. My coal fuelled nosehair removal unit is quite safe.
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Does anyone else find it interesting that while all the talk before and immediately after the election was of a National-Act-UF coalition, that's not what's happening?
Rodney will be, Winston-style, a minister outside Cabinet. And Key will be taking his cue from Helen Clark and running a minority government, with confidence and supply from support from Act.
But what I want to know is ... did Act suddenly become radioactive for National after the country saw Douglas, or did Hide get the talk about having to STFU if Act was to be a full coalition partner?
It does seem like something shifted behind the scenes there.
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My coal fuelled nosehair removal unit is quite safe.
Hummph. All of my nosehair is fuelled by renewable sources.
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It does seem like something shifted behind the scenes there.
It did in 2005 as well, didn't it? Clark talked to the Greens on the night and then by the next day things had changed.
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Good move by Key I reckon.
What will be interesting is if ACT get all sniffy and disruptive sitting in their little corner with their yellow hat on under this Good Behaviour bond.
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I agree with Craig. Wishart isn't going to be too soft on National. He can always been relied on to speak wild-eyed hallucinations to power.
I'm wondering how long it will be before we get the first deranged comments (though not necessarily from Wishart) regarding Key's ethnic background or bollocks about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This sort of rubbish is thankfully absent from the NZ political scene but it still rears its head in Central / Eastern Europe and the U.S.
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A report on the radio news that life expectancy in NZ has risen. I wonder if the new government will congratulate the last one for this?
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Ministers outside cabinet are subject to cabinet collective responsibility.
Though possibly only within their portfolios, depending on the coalition arrangements in question.
The Cabinet Manual has strong "aggree to disagree" provisions precisely to protect junior coalition partners. And ACT's Ministers may very well be using them in areas where they do not have responsibilities (as for ACT itself, their other MPs aren't bound by CCR, so can can go as feral as they want; witness Ron Mark in the last Parliament...)
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But what I want to know is ... did Act suddenly become radioactive for National after the country saw Douglas, or did Hide get the talk about having to STFU if Act was to be a full coalition partner?
The latter I suspect -- and while this puts me in the minority report around here, it's an encouraging sign that the Four Horsepersons of the VRWC aren't looking for comfortable but reasonably priced accommodation before bringing about the Apocalypse.
Wouldn't it be a pisser if Key is turning out to be a hell of a lot like Clark in one important respect -- radical only in his ruthless pragmatism. And Rodders, I strongly suspect, got a crash course in the kind of razor-wire tightrope-walking the Greens and the Maori Party are much better at.
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Is he left-handed too? I didn't realise that...
Much as I like Chris Finlayson, I must admit that I've not watched him that closely. Could be taken entirely the wrong way. :)
I guess I'm so used to Wishart's assault on Labour that it's odd to think of an immediate channeling of the same vitriol onto National. My faith in Ian's miraculous anti-logic must be weak...
Oh, faithless. I've given up believing that there is any limit to the paranoid style in politics -- and remember, for those who've turned politics into a secular religion, apostates are always more loathsome than infidels.
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I'm flumoxed on Ian Wishart. He went to Onslow College at the same time as me. We were at an incredibly liberal secondary school. I'm pretty sure we were taught science not the bible. The only people I know who became loony god squaders after leaving school had been on some pretty serious drugs before the conversion. That doesn't fit with any Ian Wishart I can conjour to memory. So go figure. Perhaps he had a bad, you know, experience, with a woman...
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So Goff wants it, Good luck I say.Should get the support he needs
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So Goff wants it, Good luck I say.
He looks like Zeppo Marx. I wish I could think of something else nice to say about him.
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__Is he left-handed too? I didn't realise that...__
Much as I like Chris Finlayson, I must admit that I've not watched him that closely. Could be taken entirely the wrong way. :)
Gasped, then LOLed.
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I wish I could think of something else nice to say about him.
One thing I like about him is (from experience) that he has a no bullshit approach. I like his shabby little office also, around the corner from my street, it has an honest appeal even for us childless non Christian folk :)
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Rodney will be, Winston-style, a minister outside Cabinet. And Key will be taking his cue from Helen Clark and running a minority government, with confidence and supply from support from Act.
Which is perfectly sensible. While innovative (internationally speaking), such arrangements seem to be the best at protecting the interests of minor parties, allowing them both power and freedom. They also serve the intersts of the large party, by giving them some distance, and allowing them to call on different parties for different policies.
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Wouldn't it be a pisser if Key is turning out to be a hell of a lot like Clark in one important respect -- radical only in his ruthless pragmatism.
I wonder if that's exactly it - it's been impossible to pin down what Key stands for, but it's staring us right in the face. He just wants to be PMONZ, nothing more, nothing less, and he's going to hold onto that no matter what it takes. Just as RB said-
John Key looked more pleased for himself than anything else on Saturday night
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