Parliament is debating Part 1 of the government’s emissions trading scheme. It is hard work debating a bill that only appeared this morning and is more than a hundred pages long. In my preparation for the debate I came across this gem
The importance of getting this legislation right cannot be overstated. [The development of an ETS] represents the most significant economic reform since the deregulation of the economy in the late 1980s. Getting this bill right is also important for the environment. Poor policy can also have unintended adverse environmental consequences.”
Moreover, “the legislative process has been rushed and inadequate given the bill’s complexity and significance. The public has not had adequate time to examine and submit on the bill, and it is inevitable that serious mistakes will be made that will adversely affect New Zealanders”.
Thus, “this process has not been conducive to getting such an important bill right nor in getting the cross-party support needed to ensure the stability and longevity of New Zealand’s ETS”.
That was Nick Smith last year after Labour had taken a year to pass our bill, with a number of external fora and consultation period before the Bill was introduced. Breathtaking hypocricy as the government rams this through under urgency.
Hat Tip: Rod Oram
I hope this thing can be shelved but I am a realist.
Just what to expect from a dictatorial government – bad, covert policy forced through without thought or discussion.
Magic. It’s like alzheimer’s has already set in with that bloke.
Cactus Kate, you cant say that, is more likely his end of year bonus depends on it, which means his job in this instance.
I see the Last Post is calling out Oh so fair and impartial Speaker Smith on a ‘trick’ he used to get the other Smith off the hook on tabling a legal opinion. So the Speaker has thrown his reputation for impartiality to the winds to help out an old mate
All strength to you Grant. Please keep piling out these “That’s what I did in opposition, now it is a different story” and this is on legislation on the same subject….with last minute compromises. I almost wish I could appear like Banquo’s ghost in the Debating Chamber to haunt him, Nick Smith with all his contradictions. His cynical double standard is why people dislike politicians.
Where did my comment go??????
My comment was within the bounds of what’s acceptable on this blog so there was no reason for it to be deleted.
Can’t find any of your comments in moderation or spam trap Spud – don’t know what happened. Trevor
Watching Smith in the House last night (I made my poor husband and our house guest sit through the entire debate!) I was struck by the fact that Smith and his co-horts are all totally divorced from reality. It’s the sort of behaviour one sees in a dictatorship, not a democracy.
Ghostwhowalks The Speaker’s decision followed years of precendent. The deal is that if you are quoting from an official document directly there is a requirement to table on request. Nick Smith wasn’t yesterday – he was quoting from a document that was pure spin from his office that just happened to have a quote from the old Cabinet paper or possibly the legal opinion that informed the paper.
I’m not always a Lockwood Smith fan, and he did cock up early in his ruling on this but followed long term precedent in the end.
The original Labour ETS was shockingly badly designed. I’m frankly stunned that National have managed to take a bad piece of legislation and somehow make it worse. Unbelievable.
Look, firstly, we should be revenue-neutral emissions taxing, not emissions trading, which is bleedingly obvious to just about everyone who understands it, but it isn’t being done for solely political reasons.
Secondly, something this wide reaching simply has to be done with cross party support, but both National and Labour (and, to be fair on you, most other parties too) enjoy petty point scoring more than they seem to enjoy properly looking after this country.
Daniel J Miles:
While I agree that it is frustrating, I strongly disagree with the gist of your complaints.
Firstly, what are these ‘political reasons’ for an ETS over a carbon tax? (FTR, I agree that a tax would be better)
It seems to me that the political reason we have an ETS is that a tax was not doable in terms of electorate support. Politicians only rarely lead, they more often operate strictly within the bounds of political acceptability. This is a feature, not a bug.
On your second point, the reason politicians don’t always reach cross party agreements on significant issues is that they represent parts of the electorate that genuinely disagree about the solutions to problems, (or even if a problem exists). Again, this is not a bug.
If every one would just agree with me about everything there would be much less of this pointless division and arguing and we could just get on with it. [/snark]
Hi Pascal – I’m certainly not arguing that Labour should just say, OK, whatever, we’ll provide support to anything. I’m saying that it is imperative that both sides come to a compromise. But both sides don’t seem to really want this – Labour would rather let National just fail, while National seems unwilling to compromise for reasons I have yet to figure out.
With regard to your first point, that’s why we have representative democracy rather than direct democracy – because sometimes on huge issues people just haven’t put in the effort to have an informed opinion. I know how elitist that sounds, but the best thing that could happen to society in general is for people to realise what they don’t know – for example, I don’t have a goddam clue about the details of ACC, so I don’t go posting telling people what to do about it (or if anything even needs to be done) because I simply don’t know.
However, early on in the ETS thinking, interest groups lobbied hard for an ETS – most of whom, incidentally, seem to now be recanting that – and so a lot of people got the idea for no real reason that it would be best to have an ETS rather than taxation.
On an issue like this, where getting it right is so important, it’s up to our Parliament to provide leadership, just like was done over the smacking issue. Evidence is important, not uninformed catchphrases.
Wow, I fear I’m about to get crucified for this comment. I mean, if in ten years of living with a policy there is still strong resistance to it, then democracy has to prevail. But living with a policy for ten years and properly getting exposed to its ramifications in the real world, not just the catchphrases of interest groups, I would hope would change a lot of peoples minds.
Labour tried for a cross party compromise – National told them where to go and then they put up this piece of tripe legislation.
@Trevor – my comment didn’t go to moderation it appeared as normal and then this morning was gone. R.I.P comment
Thanks for looking.
@Tigger – I thought you were a dude!
@Grant – That’s not democracy if they force you to debate something so huge with so little time to prepare. Neither is ramming through the leglisation.
Spud
Tigger is a dude
Oh
Good for him 