Descending into Farce

High Dudgeon and Low Ethics

The gyrations of the Dynamic Duo in defence of the new Emissions Trading Scheme ("ETS") tax are descending into farce. First up in a duet is Environment Minister, Nick Smith pontificating grandly to the party plebs in Northland over the weekend. You know his cause has to be in deep horse stable-detritus when he has to invoke--wait for it--Gallipoli.

The challenge I give back to you is: when our Anzac troops went to Gallipoli, and when we've got our New Zealand troops in Afghanistan, do we really think those New Zealand troops in Afghanistan are going to make a world of difference to the final outcome there?

No, we don't. But what we do say, as New Zealanders, and what those Anzacs said in the tradition of New Zealand, is we as a country believe in doing our fair share.

How reckless, naive, and stupid can the government be? Has it escaped the notice of our grandiloquent Environment Minister that the cost of Gallipoli to this country was enormous--horrendous even? And doing our "fair share" meant sacrificing a generation of young men on the altar of military stupidity built on arrogance and false pride?

Gallipoli was not in any way a "fair share". The actual cost to this country was proportionately more than that paid by any other. And for what? Well, Nick has nailed it--for no purpose whatsoever. It did not contribute at all towards the winning of World War I. Except that we felt good about ourselves--well our politicians felt good about themselves. They were not the ones bleeding and dying.

Yet, for other reasons not intended by our historically perspicuous Environment Minister, the comparison of the ETS to Gallipoli is remarkably apt, but not for those enunciated so grandly by Nick Smith. Gallipoli was a stupid gesture. So is the ETS. Gallipoli was enormously costly to this country. So will be the ETS. Gallipoli was meaningless in winning the war--futile and empty. So will the ETS be as far as global warming is concerned. New Zealand paid a cost greater than any other nation involved in Gallipoli. It will do so again with respect to the ETS--which is why the Wall Street Journal has lampooned it as an act of incredible folly on the part of New Zealand, since we alone, of all nations, have decided to go the "comprehensive" route, going boldly where no nation has gone before. Fair share, indeed. Yes, the ETS will be another Gallipoli.

But Nick went on to evoke ethics in an attempt to paint the ETS as a moral crusade.

Dr Smith said proceeding with the ETS was also about "honouring our word to voters, to investors and to the international community".

"It's also important we honour our word to foresters. Both National and Labour Government's exhorted them to plant trees with the promise they would receive the benefit of the carbon credits," he said.

Let's deal with the last bit first. The Government has made promises and commitments to foresters. If the Government were to back out now on the ETS, foresters would be up the creek without a paddle, since they had gone ahead on the back of Government promises and planted forests.

Well, we are sure that there are genuine foresters out there who saw the opportunity to make a quick buck at the taxpayers expense. In fact, we are told that all over rural New Zealand farmers are busy cleverly exploiting and rorting the system, letting land return to scrub as the new cash crop--since the Government is about to bestow upon them money from on high for teatree. How different is this, really, from the subsidies to farmers under Muldoon that led to thousands upon thousands of acres being "converted" out of scrub into farmland, schemes which then crashed and burned once the government was forced, under dire economic straits, to remove the guaranteed price supports, which caused the bubble in the first place? In the end, governments cannot keep their "word" when they engage in economic lunacy. In the end the damage is too great. Unintended consequence of your folly, Nick?  A vast expansion of scrubland throughout New Zealand. Time, Nick, to back out now. It is only going to get worse from here.

And forests are indeed a totally empty gesture when it comes to carbon output. Chris De Freitas of Auckland University exposes the charade in an article in the NZ Herald.

Research by the former Forest Research Institute showed that, in the end, only 12 per cent of the carbon temporarily stored by forests has a life expectancy of longer than five years.

In forests used solely for pulpwood, most of the end products will be broken down by decay within five years. Even some of the short-term benefits will be lost if fossil fuels are used to process the wood.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, Nick. We all love a bit of farce.

Ah, but it feels good to be so moral, to have taken the ethical high ground on the global stage, despite no other nation being so stupid. So, Nick having gyrated a high jig subsides allowing the other member of the Dynamic Duo, Prime Minister John Key to begin his dervish. Mr Key is also on-song with high morals and ethics.

Mr Key repeated his commitment that if the 2011 review of the scheme finds that "the rest of the world isn't doing more, we'll slow it". (Emphasis, ours)

Say, what? We could back out of the ETS in 2011? What about all those commitments that your duet partner was just crooning about--you know, to foresters, and investors and the "international community"? Ah, Mr Key and Mr Smith--you are either being disingenuous or you have given up on sense and sensibility. You have become an embarrassment.

If it would be the right and moral thing to do to wind back the ETS in 2011, it would be equally the right and moral thing now. If you would be prepared to "break your world" to foresters in 2011, why not in 2010? So, let's get rid of the gilded lily of high morals and ethics. It is a charade. Be honest. The only reason you are proceeding with the ETS is your arrogant stubbornness. To channel moral principles and ethics in its defence is shameful.

You disrespect us all when you parade as the Dynamic Duo of high farce.