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So it's finally here, the emissions trading scheme.
What will it do for NZ? What will it do for the production of Carbon? What will it do for our economy?
Answer: Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
This is not a debate about whether man is contributing any significant way to climate change? It goes beyond that into..."if man is contributing, will the ETS do anything?"
The clear answer is "No!"
What the ETS is (as descibed so beautifully by one of my callers this morning) is the stick. It is not an incentive, it is a tax...a fee...or a fine, take your choice.
If this was going to make a clear difference with pollution in NZ, then New Zealanders would be behind it...but it wont.
A classic example is a courier company that runs around Auckland with 'Carbon Neutral' stickers on their vans...good you think they are not emitting carbon! Well no, that's not how it works. They are still emitting the same carbon out of their vehicles, they are just paying a offset fee. They are purchasing carbon credits to hide their guilty sin!
Other points of interest with the ETS that we learned about two weekends ago with the Nick Smith interview.
If you have trees that qualifies you to receive money from the ETS, then it's more like a loan than an actual payment. The money that gets paid to individual New Zealanders is nice for them, but if those trees ever come down, through natural means or by the hand of man, then the owner of the trees has to pay back upwards of 70% to the government. It's probably closer to GST than anything else, a big money-go-round that will end back with the government.
If you have trees planted before 1990 they are not eligible for a payout, but if you cut them down you will be fined for it.
In the first year, the government will be paying out over $900 million to foresters, but only taking in $400 million from the ETS...the rest will come from our taxes, we will be subsidising the ETS through our taxes.
And finally, don't believe the hype over the ETS just being on fuel and electricity, this will effect the price of every 'Goods and Service' we have. Example, if you own a book store, and your power goes by hundreds per annum, as a book store owner you'll need to recover that cost...so up goes the price of books, or maybe an employee will lose a little work. Yes some businesses will absorb the price increases, but they will still be there. Nick Smith said on air that it will effect the price of everything.
I am not pro-pollution, no one is, but let's get realistic, if anything is going to be an incentive for New Zealanders to stop producing carbon...it's a carrot.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Minister Dr. Nick Smith on the ETS
We had Nick Smith for 90 minutes answering all the questions you could think on the upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme. Below is the interview in full.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part One
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
Part Two
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
Part Three
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Part Four
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
Part Five
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Colbert Simplifies the Oil Spill
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Obama's Simplified BP Oil Spill Speech | ||||
| ||||
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Thanks to the UK Election, MMP is here to stay.
Next year New Zealanders get the chance to voice their opinion in a binding referendum about our electoral process.
The question is whether we want to keep MMP, or try something else.
The recent election results in the UK have sealed the fate of the upcoming electoral process referendum. It has reminded us all of the unfairness of the FPP system. 29% of Brits voted for Labour which equated to 258 seats, whereas the Liberal Democrats attained a respectable 23% of the vote, however, they only received 67 seats. The Lib Dems got more votes overall that they did in the last election, but lost seats. They are a smaller party today than they were after the previous election.
How is that fair?
Much like the anomalies in the UK election, there are anomalies in New Zealand’s current electoral system. The most obvious is the threshold. New Zealand First placed fourth in number of votes at the 2008 NZ Election, getting more that ACT, the Maori Party, Jim Anderton’s Progressives and United Future, nearly 100,000 New Zealanders wanted NZ First to be a part of the current governing parties, however due to the 5% threshold, they no longer are.
There is also an issue with accountability. A List MP can come in through a confidence and supply agreement and put forward legislation that changes the fabric of New Zealand society. There then seems to be no way that the people of NZ can hold them accountable. An obvious example of this is Sue Bradford.
The problem that faces those in New Zealand who would like to see any other electoral process other than MMP is that we don't understand any other system...STV, CV, SNTV, IRV?!? What the hell are they? They sound like they belong on the back of a car to me (I've always wanted a Commodore STV) and because New Zealanders en masse don't understand the other options we will choose to stay with one of the two we know, MMP or FPP.
People who are nervous of MMP will now look at the UK elections and go with the 'better the devil you know' option. People under 40 who never really used FPP will stay with what they know and the rest will be split - leading to the retention of MMP.
MMP is a satisfactory system. It is fair that the 157,000 people that want to vote for the Greens but don't have enough population density in one area to win a seat, should be represented in parliament. I do think that some changes need to happen though. John Key and Phil Goff have both stated they will vote for MMP and it has been said that if MMP is retained there will be a ‘shake up’.
A shake up is exactly what is needed. I have five suggestions.
The first is that we should either lower the threshold to 2%, or we should make the threshold 5% for everyone, and it shouldn’t matter if you have an electoral seat or not. ACT currently has 5 seats, but only 3.65% of the vote. This is because the equation for list MPs changes if you win an electoral seat ala Rodney ‘perk-buster until I can have them’ Hide.
Secondly, List MPs should not be able to put forward legislation. This wouldn’t stop parties like the Greens from putting forward legislation; it would just require them to have a sponsor MP to put the bill forward. This gives the NZ people a direct line of accountability. If an MP sponsors a bill that the public does not like, that MP can then be held accountable at the next election by their constituents.
This leads straight to my third point which is that an MP can should have to choose whether they will stand as a list MP, or an electoral MP, but not both. Politicians need to be made to understand that the electoral MP has more responsibility and there for is a more valued position to hold.
Following on from this, my fourth idea is that the electoral seats should be weighted more heavily. This could be done easily by giving list MPs one vote in the house, and Electoral MPs two. A List MP gets a vote for their party, and an Electoral MP gets a vote for their constituents and a vote for their party. One would hope that that may mean at times an Electoral MP may vote ‘yay’ and ‘nay’ on the same bill if the feeling in their electorate was contrary to what their party line was…this may be a little unrealistic though. If that idea was in place now there would be 192 ‘votes’ in parliament, and you would need 97 to have a majority. This number would obviously be a little fluid depending on overhangs. Under the current political make up, National would have 101 votes, Labour 62, The Maori Party 10, The Greens 9, ACT 6, JAP 2 and United Future 2. Click here to see the last few elections under this system
Finally my fifth idea is not necessarily tied only to MMP, but just an idea I have always liked. I feel that if a PM is rolled or resigns from his position, then a snap election should be called immediately. New Zealand has voted for a National government under John Key. Would New Zealand have voted as readily for a National Government under, say, Bill English? It would be a very different animal, and not what New Zealanders have endorsed.
Philosopher Joseph de Maistre said in 1811 “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” – “Every country has the government it deserves.” In New Zealand in the 21st century we will get the government we deserve partly based on how we choose to elect them. It is time New Zealanders not just got the government we deserved, but the government we need.
joe@averagejoe.co.nz
http://twitter.com/patbrittenden
The question is whether we want to keep MMP, or try something else.
The recent election results in the UK have sealed the fate of the upcoming electoral process referendum. It has reminded us all of the unfairness of the FPP system. 29% of Brits voted for Labour which equated to 258 seats, whereas the Liberal Democrats attained a respectable 23% of the vote, however, they only received 67 seats. The Lib Dems got more votes overall that they did in the last election, but lost seats. They are a smaller party today than they were after the previous election.
How is that fair?
Much like the anomalies in the UK election, there are anomalies in New Zealand’s current electoral system. The most obvious is the threshold. New Zealand First placed fourth in number of votes at the 2008 NZ Election, getting more that ACT, the Maori Party, Jim Anderton’s Progressives and United Future, nearly 100,000 New Zealanders wanted NZ First to be a part of the current governing parties, however due to the 5% threshold, they no longer are.
There is also an issue with accountability. A List MP can come in through a confidence and supply agreement and put forward legislation that changes the fabric of New Zealand society. There then seems to be no way that the people of NZ can hold them accountable. An obvious example of this is Sue Bradford.
The problem that faces those in New Zealand who would like to see any other electoral process other than MMP is that we don't understand any other system...STV, CV, SNTV, IRV?!? What the hell are they? They sound like they belong on the back of a car to me (I've always wanted a Commodore STV) and because New Zealanders en masse don't understand the other options we will choose to stay with one of the two we know, MMP or FPP.
People who are nervous of MMP will now look at the UK elections and go with the 'better the devil you know' option. People under 40 who never really used FPP will stay with what they know and the rest will be split - leading to the retention of MMP.
MMP is a satisfactory system. It is fair that the 157,000 people that want to vote for the Greens but don't have enough population density in one area to win a seat, should be represented in parliament. I do think that some changes need to happen though. John Key and Phil Goff have both stated they will vote for MMP and it has been said that if MMP is retained there will be a ‘shake up’.
A shake up is exactly what is needed. I have five suggestions.
The first is that we should either lower the threshold to 2%, or we should make the threshold 5% for everyone, and it shouldn’t matter if you have an electoral seat or not. ACT currently has 5 seats, but only 3.65% of the vote. This is because the equation for list MPs changes if you win an electoral seat ala Rodney ‘perk-buster until I can have them’ Hide.
Secondly, List MPs should not be able to put forward legislation. This wouldn’t stop parties like the Greens from putting forward legislation; it would just require them to have a sponsor MP to put the bill forward. This gives the NZ people a direct line of accountability. If an MP sponsors a bill that the public does not like, that MP can then be held accountable at the next election by their constituents.
This leads straight to my third point which is that an MP can should have to choose whether they will stand as a list MP, or an electoral MP, but not both. Politicians need to be made to understand that the electoral MP has more responsibility and there for is a more valued position to hold.
Following on from this, my fourth idea is that the electoral seats should be weighted more heavily. This could be done easily by giving list MPs one vote in the house, and Electoral MPs two. A List MP gets a vote for their party, and an Electoral MP gets a vote for their constituents and a vote for their party. One would hope that that may mean at times an Electoral MP may vote ‘yay’ and ‘nay’ on the same bill if the feeling in their electorate was contrary to what their party line was…this may be a little unrealistic though. If that idea was in place now there would be 192 ‘votes’ in parliament, and you would need 97 to have a majority. This number would obviously be a little fluid depending on overhangs. Under the current political make up, National would have 101 votes, Labour 62, The Maori Party 10, The Greens 9, ACT 6, JAP 2 and United Future 2. Click here to see the last few elections under this system
Finally my fifth idea is not necessarily tied only to MMP, but just an idea I have always liked. I feel that if a PM is rolled or resigns from his position, then a snap election should be called immediately. New Zealand has voted for a National government under John Key. Would New Zealand have voted as readily for a National Government under, say, Bill English? It would be a very different animal, and not what New Zealanders have endorsed.
Philosopher Joseph de Maistre said in 1811 “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” – “Every country has the government it deserves.” In New Zealand in the 21st century we will get the government we deserve partly based on how we choose to elect them. It is time New Zealanders not just got the government we deserved, but the government we need.
joe@averagejoe.co.nz
http://twitter.com/patbrittenden
>>
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Jon Stewart on 'Israel v Flotilla' and 'North v South Korea'
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Clusterf#&k to the War House - Korean Peninsula & Middle East | ||||
| ||||
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Genuinely Funny TV
It’s called Tosh.0 and it features on Comedy Central, Mondays at 8pm. It uses viral videos off the internet and contrary to most ‘clip’ shows ala ‘Funniest Home Videos’ or the gawd awful 2Tube this is genuinely funny.
Some clips below
For more you can check out the show on Comedy Central on Sky, Mondays at 8pm, or if you want a quick giggle, there are heaps of clips on youtube.
Some clips below
For more you can check out the show on Comedy Central on Sky, Mondays at 8pm, or if you want a quick giggle, there are heaps of clips on youtube.
>>
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
'Pitch' Invaders
Do you love to laugh when those (normally) drunk miscreants run onto sporting grounds during the game? Television don't show them anymore as they fear it will encourage others to do the same. I've always found it kind of funny.
One 17 year old kid probably won't do it again after he was tasered for running onto the ground during a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game.
Check it out
The crowd didn't seem to like it, they booed. For me, much like the humour I get from someone running on the field...I found this 17 year old getting tasered kind of funny.
One 17 year old kid probably won't do it again after he was tasered for running onto the ground during a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game.
Check it out
The crowd didn't seem to like it, they booed. For me, much like the humour I get from someone running on the field...I found this 17 year old getting tasered kind of funny.
>>
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