Quite shocking. Cunlifffe should immediately announce a policy to ban new vehicle sales. The Greens will agree. This will deflate those who attempt to avoid his higher taxes. It's just disgusting how some people want to spend their own money.
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They are of course entitled to spend money on whatever they like. But certain sectors are always moaning about something going wrong, and yet when they get the chance, they don't always invest in the best longer-term assets or infrastructure. They buy fast-depreciating but non-essential capital items, primarily because it reduces the tax they would otherwise pay.
And now from National's Leader.
Quote:
Colin James's Otago Daily Times column for 8 July 2014
The toughest issue for the next term
Two senior cabinet figures talked international affairs last Wednesday, one all crisp intellect, one a conversational amble. No prize for guessing which was Tim Groser and which John Key.
Both made the optimists' trade case, Groser with a wide span at a conference on China where some weighty foreign academics spoke. Some of those experts were treated to Key's later perambulation at the Institute for International Affairs (NZIIA).
Peter Kennedy, the ex-diplomat who runs the NZIIA, was quintessentially diplomatic in referring to Key's reliance on only one page of notes. That was a measure of how seriously Key took his audience.
Others at other conferences have remarked on such offhandedness, asides and, for agricultural types, a swear-word or two.
Key's focus was trade, including tourism, as if "foreign affairs is trade", as Sir Robert Muldoon infamously said. Asked about the wider relationship with China, he talked about moving up the value chain. Asked about tension in the South China sea, he began: "I just sort of hope...". He forgot, till prompted, to mention Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit this week.
His only reference to climate change, a major international matter, was in the context of forums where he talks to big leaders on the sidelines. In his reference to the Pacific forum he talked up New Zealand's renewable energy project there, then added that those small states "say to bigger countries that we (the small island states) don't have a big footprint in climate change but we take it seriously and you (the big countries) should take it seriously too".
Does big-in-the-Pacific New Zealand, with a rising footprint, broken emissions trading scheme and few complementary measures, take it seriously?
The Greens, Labour, probably Internet-Mana and forest-growing iwi say not. Even Winston Peters, who wants sectoral strategies to cut "fossil fuel carbon", which excludes farmers' methane and nitrous oxide, with costs shared across the economy, condemns the ETS in its current form. He identified the risk of doing too little as an international market reaction -- what others call risk to the clean-green brand.
National's difficulty with climate change policy is that it sees action as a cost and therefore a brake on its dominant project, to speed up GDP growth.
If anything, parts of the local private sector are now edging ahead of ministers. International examples: more than 100 multinationals now say they account for stocks and use of six capitals, including natural capital; some others now price pricing carbon into their accounts for internal purposes. Here Business New Zealand's Sustainable Business Council section has begun to meet the public sector natural resources sector chief executives who have been conferring for several years and who at the last election presented a combined natural resources briefing to relevant incoming ministers.
Even the Treasury has begun to take a bit more notice and will part-fund next year's natural resources conference the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) drives. And that sector's thinking, including on climate change, is to feature in the pan-public service briefing to the whole government chief executives will assemble in early September. MfE is still not a "central agency" but it has more weight now.
There is movement in the cabinet. Last Thursday's freshwater national objectives discussion paper, though scoffed at by Labour and Greens, is a significant step. Sources say that is because Bill English took the matter in hand.
There is also progress on waste management, a focus at National's conference.
Environment Minister Amy Adams has often seemed more a minister for the economy than for the environment -- witness her proposal to refocus the Resource Management Act to upweight economic factors. She and Key now blame Labour for blocking the RMA processing improvements also in the proposal, though Labour broadly backs them. Key also disingenuously said last week the bill reducing housing land development contributions didn't have the numbers, even though Labour backs it.
Natural resources, particularly water but by definition butting on to climate change, will be a major focus if National gets a third term. It needs to be if English and Co are to maintain business confidence to invest as they go towards the 2017 election. Then, as now, a change of government would bring a major regulatory switch if something nearer a consensus isn't developed before then.
And there is a GDP option. Early findings in research at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development are that environmental constraint rules can and often do prompt innovation which has wider benefits.
In other words, to see environmental action only as cost is myopic. Which no top politician can afford to be.
* An aside in the light of last week's column: More turned out for David Cunliffe's keynote on Sunday and cheered more loudly than for Key's a week earlier. Hmmm.
ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz
Colin James, Synapsis Ltd, 04-384 7030, 021-438 434, fax 04-384 7195, P O Box 9494, Marion Square, Wellington 6141,
ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz, website www.ColinJames.co.nz
Working on your figures alone EZ, that means at least 10 billion or 7/8 of that debt was from Labour, that's something you have previously totally denied. Thanks for finally owning up to the fact Labour left us in debt. Only last week when we debated this you called me a liar, now you confirm Labours debt. Own goal right there - again - & now we know who was indeed the liar.
So lets have a look at that debt- At least 10 billion from Labour, National inherited an expanding public sector at a time when the economy was shrinking. The financial crisis cut government revenue just at the time when its spending was rising pretty sharply. Earthquakes don't come cheaply these days and has add to the debt greatly ($18 billion and counting the last time I heard) & the economic recovery had taken longer than expected. National has had to to deal with its ageing population too. Add in the costly programmes put in place by Labour, including KiwiSaver, Working for Families and interest free student loans.
Due to all the above factors our national debt increases by million and millions of dollars per day with interest alone and that's all before National can go to work to try and stop this train wreck inherited by the last Government. $27 million interest per day due to the above. Wow.
Schools could get as many as 21 extra teachers under Labour's election-year policy, according to new calculations. That's per School - are these guys idiots, where are these teaches going to teach, in the toilets? That's 21 new classrooms per school, how much is that going to cost? Where are they going to put 21 new classrooms per school, on the footy fields. Do these guys actually think before they speak? Many question without answers.
Cuzzie, you may not realise that there are spare classrooms spread about the place, especially in the provinces. We either pull down classrooms or use them, I'd prefer the latter.
Now about your figures on Labour's debt. Do you really believe what you wrote there? I won't quote it so you can go back, check your figures and delete the post. Otherwise you will look a bit foolish. Or, show us this data you quoted, give us a link to it. You won't be able to find it, because it is completely without basis in fact.
Labour paid off nearly all of the Crown core debt over the last three terms they were in office. That's a fact.
On the contrary, all facts are quoted from media sources. I'm busy for the day so unless you back up on what you just said, you'll look even more foolish than what you already are. I look forward to reading that later on. You are two one eyed for your own good EZ.
No spare capacity at either of my two local primary schools. So are we going to bus kids to the country EZ?
All this dog-eat-dog argument about who did what to whom and who milked the cow and who spilled the milk is about as valuable as tits on a bull. the vast majority of voters accept what their leaders say and go on to vote as they have done and their fathers have done for the same party for generations. Sometimes the electorate becomes a bit uneasy about the incumbents and either stays home or casts a vote for some silly outfit. And the government changes for a term or two. The electorate is not uneasy about the current lot but they are uneasy about the alternatives or some of them. Forget about the mickey mouse economics - it may make you feel better about your side but the public can't understand it because we have been on the edge of ruin for decades according to which ever side is in opposition but it never happens. John Key is Mister Easy in the public eye and he will win. Still open to further wagers.