Hard News: Congratulations, Mr Key
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Angus, that report, which I am aware of, does not say that NZ dairying is the most efficient agriculture in the world, as measured by inputs.
It says that across a range of agriculture NZ is significantly more efficient than the UK, such that food miles do not tip the balance in favour of the UK.
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.
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.
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.
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Does anyone know where the house Key grew up in is?
That would be 19 Hollyford Avenue, Bryndwr.
It's not a bad spot, near the park, swimming pool and one of the best high schools in the country and, as I said above, in an area where public and private housing is well mixed.
Hobsonville could be like that if John Key doesn't wreck it.
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He pulled out that appalling line about 'having no kids makes you inferior' - citing the fact that the front bench of the Labour Party had one child between them whilst the National Party had 23.
The scary fundamentalist Christian/Wairarapa side of my family does this continually. 'Did you know that there are no Christians/Catholics/straight people in the Labour Cabinet? Helen Clark won't allow it! Ian Wishart says etc., etc., etc.' It's always stated as absolute fact, and they are quite surprised when anyone calls them on it.
I'm always tempted to ask if they know that Michael Cullen's a 400-year-old Illuminati from the hollow earth, or that Helen Clark spends her free time secretly piloting a Nazi UFO around Antarctica, but I usually bite my tongue.
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The farmers in question are amoung the worlds most efficient users of carbon/kg of produce, they are by world standards the complete opposite of polluting. An ETS sets farmers/business as convenient political scapegoats and does nothing to tackle global warming.
Even if we take this as read - and I agree with George, btw - allowing farmers to escape their environmental obligations is simply a bad idea in the long term, because of the perverse incentives it creates.
And if farmers (the dairy industry in particular) really had the country's best interests at heart, we'd still be able to swim in our rivers as they would voluntarily clean up their own cow-shit, rather than fighting tooth-and-nail to pollute as they do today.
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That would be 19 Hollyford Avenue, Bryndwr.
Bryndwr suffers severe deprivation when it comes to vowels. Otherwise, not so much.
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aussies giving us heaps
Two words to the supercilious prick over the ditch...
John Howard
If we ever get anywhere close to electing someone like him more than once I would leave, but not for Australia.
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John,
Caleb D'Anvers
Cullen and Clark secrets is best line all day
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Angus, please lay out which of our large agriculture production competitors will have a significant difference in ETS-incentives? As I understand it, both the EU and the UK have ETS schemes in place that are currently working on getting agriculture included.
Latin America, Asia, Africa. When rainforests are cut down to make way for cattle ranchers, saying lets increase the world price of beef is a chain of logic that does not work.
I'd also like your view on whether or not we should be reducing emmissions overall in our economy? Particularly given we have signed up to Kyoto like every other developed nation. Do you simply think taxpayers should wear the cost? Or is a whole-of-market ETS not the way to do it?
I think we should not look to selfishly reduce our emissions as if were are isolated from the world. If cattle production were to cease in Europe and be taken up here a net reduction in AGW gas production would be achieved, the world would be healthier. Kyoto would of course penalise us severely.
I have had this siimilar discussion with a few "Greens" and they typically bring up benefit of enhancing a clean green image by complying with Kyoto. None have yet been able to make a case for how punishing efficient food producers for the inferred purpose of getting more tourists to fly thousands of miles to NZ in commercial jets is actually a win for the planet.
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Latin America, Asia, Africa. When rainforests are cut down to make way for cattle ranchers, saying lets increase the world price of beef is a chain of logic that does not work.
If we could have more control over the chopping down of rainforests, I'm sure we would, but they're not our rainforests.
The excuse "this is a bad thing, but other countries are worse at it" always feels pretty lame to me in relation to the climate. We don't own the planet, but we do need to take a bit more responsibility for our part of it, and encourage other countries to do the same.
Particularly when it ends up with arguing for polluters in our country getting a freer ride.
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yeah - I seen books around by that Wishart fella - who is he?
Or is that a whole other thread? -
He pulled out that appalling line about 'having no kids makes you inferior' - citing the fact that the front bench of the Labour Party had one child between them whilst the National Party had 23.
And yet it was National MP Katherine Rich who decided to leave politics in order to spend more time with her young children.
A career in politics seems almost incompatible with being a hands-on parent. Male or female, you pretty much need a "wife" who can look after things while you're putting in the hard yards.
So while a childless MP wouldn't have the first-hand experience of being a parent, they also wouldn't have the distraction and extra stress of parenthood.
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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?
Australia, the EU, the UK and us are all looking to use mutually tradeable CER's - so it will at least be removed from those markets.At the point that Latin America, Asia or Africa seriously confront our agricultural efficiency such that a carbon charge tips the balance, then I'd expect them to be in there as well. That is far enough away that I imagine they will be - any country that refuses to sign by then will likely be hit with trade tarriffs that will more than make up the difference
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Re Wishart:
What does he do now that there’s a change of government?
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Re Wishart: what does he do now that there’s a change of government?
Oh, he'll happily keep finding evidence of Islamic anarcho-feminist-lesbian-terrorist moles to explain away every pothole the Key government encounters.
Labour's eventual re-election - no matter how soon or how late - will seal his belief in the power of this atheist conspiracy. It really is a beautifully sealed little universe he inhabits.
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Bryndwr suffers severe deprivation when it comes to vowels. Otherwise, not so much.
Where I come from "y" and "w" are perfectly servicable vowels.
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Re Wishart:
What does he do now that there’s a change of government?
Oh, I'm sure he'll find some Natactuf MPs with shocking secrets to uncover, such as a same-sex lover or believing in evolution.
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PAS hivemind strikes again...
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A career in politics seems almost incompatible with being a hands-on parent. Male or female, you pretty much need a "wife" who can look after things while you're putting in the hard yards.
There was a doco on some years ago featuring the WAGS of pollies - John Tamahere's wife was the most telling - when asked how does she cope, she said:
"Just like any other solo mother."
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Where I come from "y" and "w" are perfectly servicable vowels.
What, the Kapiti Coast?
On the other hand, what could be more kiwi than coming from a place with no vowels? Brundwur, whuch us nur Jullie Purk.
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Re Wishart:
What does he do now that there’s a change of government?
Next verse same as the first, and whatever Sam F. thinks, you're huffing some good glue if you think he's going to do National any favours. Remember an avowed homosexualist is widely tipped for Attorney-General, Treaty Negotiations and the Arts portfolio. Sinister...
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Sinister...
Is he left-handed too? I didn't realise that...
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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.
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I'm sure Wishart will be more than occupied with Obama's election. Isn't there a passage in Revelation explicitly stating that the Antichrist would be born in Hawaii? OMG!
Thank you.
:)
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whatever Sam F. thinks, you're huffing some good glue if you think he's going to do National any favours.
None taken, in what seems to be the preferred lingo of PAS passive-aggression... :P
Seriously, though, point accepted. I meant no reflection on National or its supporters by asserting that Wishart might eventually blame the new government's failures (like our late government's failures) on some kind of pinko homosexualist conspiracy. The tentacles of the Illuminati surely aren't restrained by party lines, but from hanging around Wishart's blog, his base does seem to believe that National is somehow more family-friendly and thus less touched by the evils of godless society. They stand to be disappointed when National fails to institute the impossible paradise of their delusions, and they will be confirmed in their nuttiness accordingly.
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...
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Just as an aside note to the discussion, I've been very pleased with the post-election commentaries from both Tim Watkin on the Pundit website, and especially Gordon Campbell in Scoop. It's the sort of level-headed and well thought-out material that provides a welcome antidote from the more hysterical punditry from some areas of the MSM. However, I enjoyed Braunias's SST arch portrait of John Key. One of the best things he's written in ages.
Both seem to realise that much of the future is, of course, speculation, but I think the educated guesses they have made seemed to come from a pretty reasonable place. That said, I will disagree with Watkin on Key's speech- as I've already mentioned I found it vapid, smug and uninspiring.
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
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