ETS

8 years ago no-one had heard of John Key, we all knew Nick Smith was “special” but never in out wildest dreams did we think that the communists Greens would run a long term sleeper agent program to hijack the National Party.

Prime Minister John Key says his Government is unlikely to amend its emissions trading scheme (ETS) before it takes effect on the energy and transport sectors in July despite calls from business groups, farmers and Act.

Nine business groups, including Business NZ, the Road Transport Forum and the Major Electricity Users’ Group, wrote to Mr Key and other ministers last month to express their concerns about what they saw as the “widening disconnect” between New Zealand’s ETS and the policy responses to greenhouse gas emissions among our major trading partners.

Yesterday, Mr Key acknowledged the concerns raised in the letter, but said his Government intended implementing the ETS in its current form and on time.

So, the exporters, the business and the people who risk their capital to build businesses, employ people and keep New Zealand running, wrote to the Prime minister to politely tell him that being the only country in the world to implement an ETS and place our world competitiveness at risk to try to mitigate 0.02% of the world’s alleged carbon problem.

Key’s answer? Naff off.

We know that Nick Smith is “special” and we know the Greens are economic saboteurs but what we didn’t know is that John appears to have been a sleeper agent for the communists Greens. The Greens have said jump and John Key has said how high?

National dug itself this hole because it operated under a set of assumptions which have quickly proven to be false.

It claimed there was a global trend towards ETSs.  In reality, the only jurisdiction with an ETS was the EU, but its scheme is far more limited, almost broke and the price of carbon has collapsed below 1 Euro. Our ETS presumed a price of carbon of $50 per tonne.  New Zealand is alone in seriously contemplating including all gases and all sectors.

The government also believed Australia and the US would soon launch similar schemes (quickly abandoned by both Rudd and Obama), despite those with deeper knowledge of their political systems advising that was highly improbable.

It is not in dispute that China, Russia, India, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Iran, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia and Ukraine – the world’s other emitters in the top 20 – have no intention of introducing ETSs. None, zero, nada, zip intention whatsoever.

John Key may think he can smile and wave through the public opprobrium that is about to descend on National for launching the ETS and whacking costs up significantly on anything we consume that requires transport, he can’t. Labour too shouldn’t be smiling because their little campaign to “Axe the Tax” won’t and the costs associated with this ETS will be far greater than effect of an increase in GST, especially for those at the bottom of the heap that Labour wants kept there.

John Key may think he knows best, he may not be a sleeper agent but he most certainly looks to be wrong and a sleeper agent.

This is Rodney Hide’s speech  on the CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE (MODERATED EMISSIONS TRADING) AMENDMENT BILL Second Reading, the bold parts are my edits

Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): Let me be clear about a number of things. First up we have a very, very good Government. Certainly, we have an excellent Government compared with* the Government that we had for the previous 9 years. But even a very good Government can make bad policy. Even a good Government can make bad policy, and with this Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill, we have a very good Government making atrocious policy. Not only do we have a very good Government making atrocious policy but also we have a good Government following an atrocious process. The Ministers of this Government who are voting for this bill and for this process have to accept that responsibility, and so does every member of Parliament who is voting for this legislation today and confirming the process that has been followed. Let me also make it plain that the ACT Party totally opposes having an emissions trading scheme for New Zealand. An emissions trading scheme for New Zealand will hike the costs to business, to farmers, and to hard-working New Zealanders right at the time when we can least afford it. There is no doubt about it, an emissions trading scheme will put up the cost of basic goods and services for ordinary New Zealand families. That is what this bill is doing to New Zealanders, that is what an emissions trading scheme will do, and that is why the ACT Party is the only party prepared to stand up in this House to oppose having an emissions trading scheme. Following the election we had a difficult situation with regard to the emissions trading scheme, because we had National committed to the emissions trading scheme and the ACT Party implacably opposed to it. We agreed to have a comprehensive review through a select committee. What we wanted, and what the select committee was supposed to do, was to do the rational thing for the country: to look at the options and to provide the costs and the benefits. It never happened. To this day this Parliament and the public of New Zealand still have no idea of the cost of this scheme. They have no idea of the cost of an alternative, such as a low-level carbon tax, or the cost of having a simple delay for a couple of years. They know nothing. Then we discovered that the Government had done a deal with the Māori Party in order to put through the select committee the changes that National wanted to make to Labour’s emissions trading scheme.

Charles Chauvel: Disgraceful.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: Well, that was not disgraceful; what was disgraceful was what happened next. That was the true disgrace. At that point, I said on behalf of the ACT Party to the Prime Minister and National that we understood that they did not have the Māori Party’s vote all the way through and that if there was any difficulty with the vote, then they should come and talk to the ACT Party. I said that we opposed the emissions trading scheme, but we were prepared to help the National Government for the good of the country and, indeed, we were prepared to swallow a dead rat. We were prepared to swallow a dead rat in order to get a better result for New Zealand. National never ever* came to the ACT Party in order to discuss the options for the reform or the delay of the emissions trading scheme. National made a decision to commit to the Māori Party and to lose any negotiating power that it might have had. I accept that it is the prerogative of Nick Smith and the Prime Minister to do that. They are the ones with the votes. They are the leaders of this Parliament and this Government, but I say that the result was bad policy. It was atrocious policy and an atrocious process, and New Zealanders were sold out. What have we discovered? We discovered that all of this had to be done in a great rush, ahead of the rest of the world, in order to be done before the talks in Copenhagen. We are ahead of every other country. We discovered today at question time that this deal with the Treaty clause in it was concluded, according to the Minister, only after 1 o’clock yesterday, which was a couple of hours before it was announced. We know from the Minister of Māori Affairs that the deal was concluded only at 12 minutes past 3—presumably, that was when he was told that it had been accepted at Cabinet—which was 18 minutes ahead of the deal being made public. The deal with these five iwi and with the Treaty clause will now be passed under urgency, with no proper parliamentary scrutiny and no public input. It was agreed to only yesterday and it will be passed into law today.

Hon Dr Nick Smit: Tomorrow.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: Oh well, it will be passed into law tomorrow, but I say to Dr Smith that we are in urgency thanks to him. I will read this Treaty clause to members: “In order to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” I challenge the Minister for Climate Change Issues* and the Māori Party to stand up in this House and put on record in Parliament what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are. If we are to have Parliament giving effect to something, then I think it is quite reasonable to ask what we are giving to effect to in this Parliament. We are not giving effect to the Treaty—actually, if we were giving effect to the Treaty, then we would not be having an emissions trading scheme—but we are giving effect to the principles of the Treaty. I would remind the great National Party, our support party, of National’s position in 2005. It is our job to be remind National of its principles, its position, its philosophy, and its policy. Its policy in 2005 was that the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi were to be expunged from all legislation. Why? Because, according to Dr Don Brash, who was the National leader at the time, the principles of the Treaty were undefined and unnecessary. Here is what Don Brash said in 2005, an election year: “This process”—that is, the process of inserting the principles of the Treaty every which way—“is becoming deeply corrupt, with some requirements for consultation resulting in substantial payments in a system that looks like nothing other than stand-over tactics.” I am sorry to say this, but the National Government, the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Climate Change Issues have allowed themselves to sell out* their voters and their supporters, to insert in legislation the principles of the Treaty that they were opposed to, and to cobble together this deal in the last few minutes before going public. They are ramming through under urgency, with no parliamentary scrutiny or public input, a deal for consultation for the principles to be given effect to and for regulations down the track to be passed. I say that Don Brash was right when he said that this process is becoming deeply corrupt, with some requirements for consultation resulting in substantial payments in a system that looks like nothing other than stand-over tactics.

Rodney Hide should be given the order of New Zealand for that speech. I personally am disgusted by the ramming through of this legisaltion, especially in light of the growing controversy surrounding the manipulation by scientists of data, the lies and obfuscations of leading scientists and the sheer gall of Nick Smith. My straw poll of National MPs suggests that most are deeply uncomfortable with this bill, the process and even the now the science that this bill is supposed to address.

This is from George Monbiot one biggest warmists.

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.

The science is corrupted, it is far from settled. What’s the rush Nick and John? Pull back now.

Even warmist Tim Flannery who confronted on Lateline with the emails of the global warming conspiracy, concedes holes in the “science is settled” argument and admits to what he never has before:

We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate…We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend.

And on these now-admitted uncertainties we must impose massive new taxes, shut entire industries, hand billions to the Russians and Chinese and change the way we live?

The science isn’t settled.

As for the hacking explanation from the dodgy, cheating scientists. How about this then for an explanation? It meets Occam’s Razor perfectly.

Charles of WUWT offers a new and interesting theory of the file: that the file was not “stolen”, it was “found”. See
here. Charles’ epithet: “Never assume malice where stupidity will do”.

Here’s his scenario.

The collation of files was made by the university in connection with the FOI appeal – an appeal that they were going to thoroughly document because of all the publicity during the summer. They then used the intranet server to share the file among interested parties for the FOI review on Nov 13.

And then between Nov 13 and Nov 17, someone came along and found this astonishing file sitting on the server. Sound impossible?

Read last summer’s posts on the “Mole” at CRU. Phil Jones had refused to provide station data claiming that it was covered by all sorts of confidentiality agreements (though he couldn’t find the agreements and couldn’t remember who they were with.

One day in late July, I discovered that they had left station data versions from 2003 and 1996 on their server – without webpage links but accessible all the same. They were stale versions of the requested data, but this data was supposedly hugely “confidential”. They were just sitting in cyberspace waiting for someone to download.

Charles hypothesizes that that’s what happened here. No hacker, no mole.

This theory could be disproved one way or another by the university’s FOI department. I’m sure that someone will ask them about their role, if any, in compiling the zip file.

Doesn’t anyone find it funny that those who posted copious extracts of Nicky Hagar’s book based on really stolen emails are now leaping to the defense of these hapless, cheating, lying scientists by denouncing the release of the documents as theft and citing privacy issues. There was no such defense when they published all the juicy details of Don Brash’s emails.

As reported here exclusively yesterday at Whaleoil the Maori Party and their elite maoritocracy backers of the chosen five iwi have sold out other Maori, Pakeha and other forest owners for what really amounts to blankets and beads.

They have agreed to support the National party and their unelected advisory group gets a state-funded junket to Copenhagen all for a measly $25 million. Meanwhile the $2 billion worth of carbon credit assets/land value are instantly thrown away and the biggest devastation to New Zealand’s economy will be rushed though under urgency into law before Friday.

I am ashamed to be a member of the National Party. National and the Maori Party have destroyed nearly $4 billion dollars in wealth and knobbled the competitiveness of the country in one go. It is therefore appropriate that on this evil day when the agreement was reached to kill the New Zealand economy John Key was wearing a pink tie. The irony was certainly not lost on me.

If there are any National MPs with any spine they will cross the floor over this deal, and vote down this law. It is undemocratic, it is wrong and it is based upon flawed and demonstrably false science and worse it will destroy our economy.

While Transparency International says we are the least corrupt nation on earth we have the irony unfolding right in front of us of a political party more corrupt than Winston First and politicians more corrupt than Winston Peters himself.

I am talking of course about the Maori Party. A party that has made it clear this week that all policy is for sale, not just for horse trading under the MMP system but genuinely for sale.

We have the bizarre situation where our democracy is actually shown to be a farce and that big maori business interests are simply buying policy that suits them.

The Maori Party is deeply divided over changes to the emissions trading scheme – but is unlikely to split its vote on the issue.

Sources say that they expect the party will continue to support the Government on the bill, despite the fact that three of its five MPs oppose it.

Not only is Nick Smith keeping his cabinet colleagues in the dark but he is also keeping the New Zealand public in the dark over his sell out of the Conservation estate to the maoritocracy.

1. JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Will he table the proposal presented to him yesterday by the iwi leadership group so that it can be open to parliamentary, media, and public scrutiny?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) : No. My discussions with the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group and the Māori Party are confidential, in the same way that our discussions with the ACT Party and other parties in Parliament are done on a confidential basis. No agreement has been reached yet; an appropriate announcement will be made when it is.

Hon Phil Goff: Why the secrecy?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I hear the Leader of the Opposition criticising that. I understand that that was exactly the arrangement when the Green Party came to an agreement with Labour on its amendments to the emissions trading scheme.

Nick Smith refused to let anyone know the detail because his excuse is that his “discussions with the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group and the Māori Party are confidential, in the same way that our discussions with the ACT Party and other parties in Parliament are done on a confidential basis.” Well excuse me Nick Smith. The Iwi Leadership Group, which includes the $100 billion woman Sacha McMeeking, is unelected to the parliament, unrepresentative of all maori, undemocratic in make up or selection and now negotiating for the financial future of New Zealand.

A select few, a Bro-minati, if you will, are making decisions on the future of our conservation estate in an undemocratic, secretive, back room deal to favour a select group of Maori over all other New Zealanders. It seems that the Maori party is the real party that has policy for sale.

They are starting to make Labour and all their cronyism and solicitation of funds for honours look very, very tame. They are essentially selling their position on any one policy plank each and everytime. In my book that makes them corrupt.

Labour and National are essentially honest when it comes to donations, they take donations from all comers but never would they tag it to a particular policy, no matter what the nutters at the The Standard would have you believe.

This particular deal needs the disinfectant of sunlight to clear up the very murky dealings that Nick Smith has appeared to embark us on. The poor Maori iwi like Ngati Porou, Tuhoe and Muriwhenua and Ngati Pakeha will simply miss not. While one cannot justify Hone Harawira’s troughing with his Paris it is easy to understand his anger of the betrayal of his iwi and mokopuna by the maoritocracy of his party. Tau Henare is likely to be likewise highly offended by these secret, undemocratic dealings. What appalls me is that Hekia Parata, of Ngati Porou, was put up to ask patsy questions for Nick Smith clearly without knowing that her iwi is not one of the favoured five iwi and so will get nothing from the Nick Smith organised manipulation of the democratic process.

This is worse than race based policy on the hoof, it is corporatised maoritocracy taking advantage and control of the Maori party.

Bob Jones is on fire, his latest article in the DomPost is hilarious and it is all about Rodney.

Under well-deserved fire by Hide in the House, Winston Peters insinuated as much. Rodney was unmoved.

“I do not see how my being gay constitutes an answer to my question,” he protested to the Speaker, who, even though she is packing it in soon, given what she has endured, still has to be excellent odds to pull a machine gun from her robes and rake the House.

I can see it now. Lying dying and bullet-riddled Winston will gasp through blood-flecked lips, “Point of order Madam Speaker. The reality is I’m fit and well.”

Nevertheless, Winston’s diversion certainly succeeded with the Press Gallery who promptly abandoned the alleged corruption issue for the more titivating possibility of Rodney’s gaydom.

“Are you gay Mr Hide?” they pressed. “Not so far,” Rodney happily retorted.

We shall watch for the possible advent of a pencil moustache to resolve this question, not that it matters as Labour has an iron-clad grip on the homosexual vote by virtually making it a qualification for candidacy.

The man is a card for sure, I think it is fair to say that Bob Jones is no fan of Winston First or Winston peters any longer and Labour’s adherence to fag-dom has turned him away from them as well.

He even has a swipe at Jabba the Maori;

His persistence with Winston Peters while Labour demonstrated hypocrisy and National cowardice, will have lifted his mana immensely and I now see the possibility of him back with three or four MPs. If so then he deserves it.

Mike Moore made an interesting observation about Hide producing an autobiography, specifically that no matter how self- serving, it indicated a genuinely passionate politician.

It’s too late now for those facing defeat to pick up the pen so Parekura Horomia, trailing the Maori Party in his electorate’s polls, can forget any thoughts about publishing I Fought Anorexia and Won, which given his spectacular success with this battle, might otherwise have been a best-seller.

This election will mark a full circle in Rodney’s tempestuous political career.

Classic Bob Jones

SFO talks to Jones – Rich Lister Sir Bob Jones has been interviewed by Serious Fraud Office staff deciding whether to launch a full investigation into the New Zealand First donations row. Sir Bob declined to comment, but well-placed sources told the… [NZ Herald Politics]

Winston Raymond Peters, 63, Member of Parliament of no fixed abode must be getting nervous especially since Sir Robert Jones has now spoken to two SFO investigators about the missing money.

Meanwhile Rodney Hide has handed over more evidence to the SFO as the crisis deepens.

We should be getting the “He’s guilty of nothing more than being helpful” statement from Clark anytime soon.