by Russel Norman
New stats on imports and exports today. Once again a big surge in the value of oil imports.
$635 million of petroleum (and products) imported for the month of April, a rise of 13.2% over April 2007. For the year ended April 2008, the total value of petroleum (and products) imported was $6,504 million, a rise of 8.9% over the previous year.
Not to worry, Labour will keep spending about $6/$7 on roads for every $1 spent on public transport. And National will spend more.
Of course they say the market will sort it out. But govt spending on transport is not the market, it’s the state, and the state is controlled by people whose understanding of the world was formed at a time when oil was cheap and they still haven’t realised that that time is over.
If you ever wondered why the last tree was cut down on Easter Island just have a look at our parliament.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Mon, May 26th, 2008
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“If you ever wondered why the last tree was cut down on Easter Island just have a look at our parliament.”
The last tree wasn’t cut down on Easter Island. This is a silly myth.
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Indeed. With feelings running hot about the price of a block of cheese I am very concerned that few people talk about oil.
Try imagining how much oil contributes to the production of milk and thus dairy products.
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We’ve had this discussion before. There’s no doubt that there was massive deforestation on Rapa Nui, There’s plenty of evidence from archeology and paleo-biology that the island was forested pre-settlement, and there’s planty of evidence it was a barren landscape by the 19th Century.
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George,
The factor that is disputed how much is a result of humans or introduced species.
For Rapa Nui, three percent annual growth would mean that a colonizing population of 50 would have grown to more than a thousand in about a century. The rat population would have exploded even more quickly, and the combination of humans cutting down trees and rats eating the seeds would have led to rapid deforestation. Thus, in my view, there was no extended period during which the human population lived in some sort of idyllic balance with the fragile environment.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200/page/5
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>>the last tree wasn’t cut down on Easter Island. this is a silly myth.
the last barrel of oil wasn’t sucked out of the ground. this is a silly myth. oil was just harvested and wasted until it became technologically unfeasible to economically exploit anymore.
way to miss the point of the argument there…
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The thing is is what will happen to all those people who live in the cbd’s appartments and complexs when they realise they have no land to grow any vege’s?
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Oh by the way “Sabayon linux live”
chuck it on a 16 gig flashy take it where ever you go, self installs and reads vista/xp/2000 comes with it’s own built in blah blah blah and a very lovely interface, easy to use, similar and totally configurable.
i think the “buy now” version has Openoffice on it?
i liked it anyway
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Are you sure Labour is spending about $6/$7 on roads for every $1 spent on public transport? Vote Transport has $415m Crown contributions to New and Improved State Highway Infrastructure and $26m to PT (in Vote Transport) and $430m for development and maintenance of rail infrastructure (in Vote Finance).
In Vote Transport only the amounts in bold type are being appropriated at the discretion of Labour. The other amounts are statutory amounts payed “…from the national land transport fund, without further appropriation than this section” – being s9 Land Transport Management Act 2003 (cf. s15 Finance Act 1922).
If you’re talking about this money then I think it is only fair to include the subsidies payed by regional and local ratepayers for PT ($260m) and local roads ($400m). Averaged nationally PT users and local road users are each paying half the cost of their transport. Local road users also pay 1/4 of the cost of PT. Officially State Highways users pay all of their costs if the Crown contribution to highways is subtracted from the highway users contributions to the Crown. IMHO the Crown needs the highway users GST to cover costs imposed on the Crown’s non-highway activities by highway users.
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I don’t think that the observation about Parliament has anything to do with the science of lack of it in the study of Easter Island.
It has to do with the lack of any ability in our species to agree to do anything until the emergency happens. Even when we can see the emergency coming.
Clearly.
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What options does the govt have to reduce the current account deficit?
Supposing the ceramic battery is sucessful
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:EEStore
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:MIT_Nanotube_Super_Capacitor and transport ( and work) is based on electrical locally generated supply verusus cheap oil… does this have implications for population size and net domestic product?
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BJ the ability to act is a major weakness of a democracy since the only way to get elected is by promising something good that your party will give to the people. You must bribe the people with free health care or Tax cuts etc.
The people will not vote for a party that tells them something is going to happen in the future. They will not vote for you until after the event has happened. The problem with this is that once the event is happening its usually to late to do something.
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Has the rise in price resulted in a decrease in volume of oil imported? It would be pretty dumb to build more motorways in the face of decreased usage.
Our government isn’t dumb now, is it? ;^)
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The picture is a little more complicated than it first appears.
Oil imports have increased, as have oil exports. This is because NZ produces easily refined light crudes and condensates, whereas the refinery at Marsden Point can handle heavy grades. The current price differential makes it worth while to export our crude and import/refine crudes from elsewhere.
Given that we are a net oil importer, the overall effect is to increase our trade deficit.
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sorry kevyn, eyes glazed over half way through your post. give me a quotable figure that you think is the correct ratio between government spending on roads & public transport
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Labour (Crown) $1 for $1
Ratepayers $1.40 : 1
Road users $6.50 : 1
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Did I miss something, or have we, as a COuntry, not done rather well in reducing our oil imports??
If the rise in VALUE was only 8.9%, and the rise in price was closer to 23% that suggest we have EXCELLED in reducing our imports.
Price is an internationally determined variable, consumption is a locally determined variable, I would have thought the party would have been celebrating this loud and long as a success!
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so when we tot up central & local government what does that come to kevyn?
sorry to ask you to spoon feed me, only i’m sure you have the info easily to hand
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andrew,
From 2008/09 budget, in millions:
Road users direct to Transit $528
Road users to Crown $550-$700 (estimate range, not actually stated in budget)
Crown to Transit $415
Crown to Ontrack $438
Crown to superGold cardholders $18
Road users to PT/ATR $261
Regional rates to PT/ATR $261*
Road users to local roads $532
City/district rates to lr $532*
Road users to Police $273
Road users to policy advice and misc. transport administration $152
Total contributions to land transport:
Road users $1594 (excluding contribution to Crown)
Crown $871
Ratepayers $793*
*assuming only 50% of PT and local road costs funded by road users.
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jiminy cricket kevyn a ratio!
you said you disputed the ratio frog provided for government expenditure on roads vs government expenditure on public transport.
so what is the true ratio of total government (central government & local government) expenditure on roads to total government (central government & local government) expenditure on public transport?
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Andrew, I said I disputed frog’s ration for Labour’s land transport spending. Labour can’t legally instruct LTNZ or local government to spend money on either roads or PT. My point was that if Frog looks at the money that Labour is in control of then the ration is 1 to 1. It is only when you descend to the less politically corrupted levels of the government outside of Labour’s control that the more ethical 6.5 to 1 ratio becomes apparent.
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wtf i’m not interested in party expenditure
what’s the ratio for overall government spending on roads, to overall government spending on public transport?
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You might as well ask what is the ratio of government spending on new wind farms to government spending on new gas power staions. There isn’t one because there isn’t any government spending. It is SOE’s spending their customer’s money, or in some instances LATES. The government has statutes that allow it to regulate the price of electrity and road use but because the money legally belongs to SOEs it isn’t normal to refer to your power bill as being a bill owed to the government. Your road user charges or petrol taxes legally belong to LTNZ, so they aren’t government money any more than your power bill is. Which has been my whole point all along. The government’s spending on land transport consists solely of Crown contrinutions. The rest is either ratepayer or road user contributions. So the overall ratio of government spending roads relative to Pt is $1 for $1, or more precisely, $415m to $456.
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?
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