OnPoint: Nick Smith. Spanking. Now.
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Fucking bastards.
Yes, and now that we are open for business,anyone can buy in.Don't care who you are as long as you can pay.What we got tomorrow?
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@ George
You'd rightly expect him and his advisors to recognise the limitations of the report, however.
If you knew who his advisors were you'd set a much lower expectation, and in any case you're assuming they and the Minister were wanting to use the reports' findings correctly...
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Still trying to figure my way around forests... who knew counting trees was so hard?
Have a look here
Ouuu, excellent. Exactly what I need for the thing I was researching before this distraction.
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Let me know if you want more.
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I kind of thought that checking these things was what Ministers had staff *for*, but I guess with all those cuts to bureaucracy they've got to do their own work these days. Clearly there are some bugs still to be worked out.
I'm sure the advice is available - it's a pretty straightforward case for government lawyers to advise on.
But you can only advise a Minister if they ask for the advice.
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It's a bit too late for that. Key has declared himself "comfortable" with her actions -- and expressed the view that it would be better if all the facts were out in the open at the start of any such debate.
That's thoroughly irresponsible. The vicissitudes of politics might mean he's got to help her out a bit, she's dug up and published personal information provided to her agency in order to discredit her critics. That's reprehensible.
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But you can only advise a Minister if they ask for the advice.
Well, she was on Campbell Live just now claiming she did ask for advice. She was also extremely unclear as to who, precisely, she asked. Sure as hell didn't sound like it was a lawyer. But apparently there are Rules, and she followed them. She can't say what they are, exactly, but they exist. And she knows what they are. Just not on live TV.
On the hypocrisy stakes, she also announced that she takes umbrage on behalf of those poor innocent women being bashed as bludgers, because, hey, it's not like she had anything to do with the bashing! She supports them! They just need to toughen up a little, is all.
*facepalm*
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It's our very own Sarah Palin! (I hasten to add that the comparison is not based on gender, but rather the insistence on down-home folksiness, particularly to disguise ethics and power abuse problems.)
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She supports them!
Yes, she is the bloody Minister of the department that is supposed to care for them..Spiteful (backed by the State) threatening cow.How many newly unemployed are happy she has all their details at her fingertips?
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How does this affect MPs' plea of privacy over their expenses?
Worms. Can of.
Opening up the Parliamentary Service to the Official Information Act is a "can of worms"? Whose side are they on in that?
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Whoops: I'd love to take you up on that. Want to give me an email at keith[at]point.org.nz?
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The Apaula-ing (call me Hon) Bennett...
sing along everyone...
The working class can kiss my arse
I've got the boss's job at last...and do remember - as she says on her website:
I am passionate about ensuring a brighter future for all New Zealanders. As the Minister for Social Development, Employment, and Youth Affairs, I have been given an opportunity to affect positive change in people’s lives, their families and their communities. I intend to get it right.
and of course -
And I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s willing to listen to ideas from outside the Beehive about how to get New Zealand through this global financial storm.
I guess she'll just have no truck with criticism or robust debate from the lumpen proletariat though...
...and apparently we can blame Murray McCully for misleading young Paula into thinking that she could do anything she pleased...Just before graduating with a BA in 1997 the opening chapter in Bennett's political life materialised. She got a job as East Coast Bays MP Murray McCully's electorate secretary. As McCully's PA she was not just working with McCully, but with members of the wider National Party as well.
"I couldn't get over their absolute belief there is nothing you cannot do. These were people who had not had the sorts of barriers I had had as a teenage parent....You start feeding off that sort of stuff and very quickly anything becomes possible," Bennett saidaccording to whoever this fanboy is...
Didn't she do well!
Paula, Hon, It's Not OK to bully people who disagree with you... whatever happened to:
"There is nothing so compelling as people telling their personal stories....
from her speech December 9 last year launching further initiatives in the It's Not OK campaign - hollow words...
It was the possibility of this kind of abuse of access to computerised information and the machinations of the Muldoonistas that drove Neil Roberts to spray "We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity" on a Wanganui toilet wall before making his final fatal explosive statement in front of the national Police Computer Centre in 1982.
Hopefully we are not heading back into those murky fear-filled days...
yrs Quixotically
Sam Lowry
Information RetrievalPS Become Paula's friend on Facebook
(plenty of room, Bill Gates has retired from Facebook 'cos too many people wanted to be
his Friend!)or email her on paula.bennettmp@parliament.govt.nz
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Lovely post Ian
Mrs Buttle. -
Also... an appology to Guyon (if you're reading this) regarding my earlier post, I've gone an read through the transcript. He did a better job than I had initially thought (still... apples/apples economic fudging is poltics 101, and Nick should've been called on it).
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I think I just heard the minister of something or other on the radio talking about trade and saying our clean, green image must be maintained "at all costs".
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So Keith is there any decent costing done as to what a 40% reduction in emissions may actually look like? Or any other target?
I find it frustrating that there's no sensible "this is what it would mean" analysis to judge how sensible the 40% reduction is. -
Do you not remember the level of the opposition to the attempt at a ETS? "FART TAX"!!!! Tractors up the steps of parliament! What do you suggest Labour should have done? Used urgency to ram through legislation in the teeth of hysterical opposition? We are not talking about the current National government, who seem to think that is business as usual. we are talking about Helen Clark's government.
Business in New Zealand fought a bitter campaign against any attempt by the previous government to create a meaningful ETS, because they clearly thought that if they could hang on until 2008 they would get a government they could lobby successfully to do nothing. And they were right.
So far, the business lobby have won every round. But they don't care. They've won the right to another decade or two of windfall profits, and when the chickens come home to roost, they'll just get the taxpayer to bail them out.
Quoted in full because there are a few issues that deserve consideration.
Firstly, if the previous Government were strongly committed to emissions reductions (and thus far I have seen no evidence that this was the case - that instead they were a wishlist item), then they would have been an issue that they would eventually have to have fought sectoral interests over. You can't make an omlete without breaking eggs.
By not fighting the Federated Farmers, and calling them out on their extremist positions (absolutely no responsibility for farmers at all, everything paid by you and I), they ceded the possibility of making a moral case, and arguing this on its merits. Yes, a fair proportion of the population agreed with the tractor drivers, but few of them were Labour sypathetic at the best of times. A good proportion of the population weren't impressed at all, and a larger proportion didn't know the facts of the matter and were muddled - but Labour refused to come out fighting and explain its case for fear of putting fuel on the fire.
I'm a firm believer that in politics you have to make the case for things, and try and establish new orders. Sometimes, you don't have the political capital. Other times you simply hang on for dear life, and hope that the weather changes, but 2003 was not that time.
In the early 2000s the Feds, ACT and Nick Smith (a key backer) were somewhat marginal, at least relative to other times in NZ history. The Government only has a certain amount of political capital to spend at anyone time before having to generate more, but I think that fighting the Feds wouldn't have been as costly as made out.
More importantly, it gave the opposition a template for successfully making the Government back down: Ignore the minimal cost imposed by a change or any of the compelling rationales behnid it - don't try and argue on fact, argue on emotion. Labour had managed to extinguish weaker versions of it on a number of issues previously (closing the gaps etc) but this was the first time it was applied properly. After their initial success, they applied it many times, almost all with success. You have to fight hysterical bullies if you're going to win.
You can't managerialise everything.
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George
If you wish to impose an ETS I strongly advise against engaging in factual argument. Instead you really need to ramp up on the hysterical bullying.
More importantly, it gave the opposition a template for successfully making the Government back down: Ignore the minimal cost imposed by a change or any of the compelling rationales behnid it - don't try and argue on fact, argue on emotion. Labour had managed to extinguish weaker versions of it on a number of issues previously (closing the gaps etc) but this was the first time it was applied properly. After their initial success, they applied it many times, almost all with success. You have to fight hysterical bullies if you're going to win.
Fact - NZ is a really excellently ecologically sound place to farm cows and sheep, because it has a mild, damp but seasonably variable climate.
Fact - NZ is not a particularly ecologically efficient place to grow trees, because it lacks the year round maximum intensity sunlight that is present in the tropical rainforests.
Fact - a NZ ETS will encourage the planting of trees and the removal of sheep and cows in NZ. By doing so it will in turn incentivise the farming of cattle and the destruction of rainforests in the tropics. An ETS will be bad for Planet Earth.
Any imaginable NZ ETS will harm the planet. The only way it could be worse is if we increased the incentives intrinsic to an ETS, by imposing a more dramatic target.
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Fact - a NZ ETS will encourage the planting of trees and the removal of sheep and cows in NZ. By doing so it will in turn incentivise the farming of cattle and the destruction of rainforests in the tropics. An ETS will be bad for Planet Earth.
This is the "The World is a Perfect Free Market" theory of the environment.
In which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to movements in emission production.
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@Angus
Fact - a NZ ETS will encourage the planting of trees and the removal of sheep and cows in NZ. By doing so it will in turn incentivise the farming of cattle and the destruction of rainforests in the tropics. An ETS will be bad for Planet Earth.
Not if you listen to KFA... this is the lobby group that Nick Smith is really scared of, not those Fed Farmers pussies...
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This is the "The World is a Perfect Free Market" theory of the environment.
In which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to movements in emission production.
Malaria - you might have heard of this disease - resides in mosquitoes found in the tropics. Florida is in the tropics, Queensland is in the tropics and Cameroon is in the tropics - imagine a world "in which it's apparently completely impossible for other parts of the world to respond in any way to" malaria...
Not impossible Kyle, but they do have a lot less money than we do. In case you hadn't noticed we are a rich and affluent country. What you apper to be callously suggesting should happen is that people in the 3rd world should spend just as much money as us protecting their forests. That will not happen. Brazillians are not going to be able to pay $60* each per week.
* this figure may be in dispute.
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Business Council for Sustainable Development calls for 20% by 2020 (Word link), with 30% if certain conditions that a) reduce the likelihood of carbon leakage and b) are more favourable to our measurement are met.
I think they've got "gross" in there incorrectly though? As they are talking about purchasing units on the international market where marginal costs incentivise you to?
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Kyle,
In case the analogy didn't penetrate, malaria exists pretty much entirely because the poorest countries in the world cannot afford to fight it. And the rich ones do not help.
With climate change the same shit will happen and it is worse. Because we (the rich) will be providing them (the poor) with a direct economic incentive to behave badly and then (I guess) scolding them when they do behave badly. It is sickening. At its very core the ETS movement is a bunch of rich pricks taking the moral high ground and telling everyoneelse to behave.
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@Whoops
I can only hope their fears are realised.
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In case the analogy didn't penetrate, malaria exists pretty much entirely because the poorest countries in the world cannot afford to fight it. And the rich ones do not help.
No I got that. New Zealand shouldn't try and reduce our carbon emissions because other parts of the world have malaria. Point well made, I can't believe I missed that yesterday.
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