Reading the excellent Rod Oram's article in the Sunday Star Times on the Emissions Trading Scheme (which has been republished as a guest post on the excellent Hot Topic), one cannot but help think that something is amiss. We had an ETS, the previous Government saw to that; the present Government made some remarks about adjustments to ensure that the Scheme's requirements were not too onerous; but now we have been presented with something else altogether. The amended ETS is not an ETS at all, but a scheme whereby the taxpayer pays off the polluter. It is a corporate welfare system, in which we subsidise the polluters for their inability or unwillingness to clean up their act.
What's more, it looks like the revised ETS will put forest plantings back for a decade. So we will be less wealthy, more polluting and less arboraceous, all to help Mr Key and his backers.
And let us not forget the Maori Party; as Fran O'Sullivan observed on Saturday, their remarkable volte-face is in response to the demands of their own backers, the iwi corporations. The Maori Party have received little reward from the Government for their treachery, other than the bizarre promise of a racially based home-insulation plan.
During the General Election campaign, a friend (who was doing some contract work for the National campaign), was told by a group of National Party's backers that they regarded Mr Key as their investment. We can now see what they meant.
No comments:
Post a Comment