by frog
A strange anomaly of the Emissions Trading Scheme is that electricity is facing a carbon charge from 2010, while fuel faces a charge in 2011. This meant that the electric trolley buses in Wellington faced the strange side effect that they could become less viable compared to diesel buses. Luckily Sue Kedgley and other stepped in and negotiated $100,000 compensation to Greater Wellington for one year to keep the trolley buses running efficiently during that year.
Sue made this announcement at the Wellington Greens’ launch of their election campaign on a flash new electric (and temporarily musical) trolley bus that whizzed around central Wellington in the drizzle, unloading about 40 Green Party members at bus stops around town to hand out leaflets and discuss the Green Party with Wellingtonians:
That’s Gareth Hughes about to accost some unsuspecting Lampton Quay wanderers with his smile.
And that’s Sue, Russel, Gareth and Mana candidate Michael Gilchrist.
There’s more from g.blog here.
Published in Campaign | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, September 9th, 2008
Tags: climate change, electric, Emissions Trading Scheme, Gareth Hughes, michael gilchrist, Russel Norman, Sue Kedgley, trolley buses
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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If even there was an argument not to use public transport, there it is.
You’ll be sharing it with drum-beating hippies.
Think I’ll stick to the beamer and stereo….
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You were so fast to spew out that crabby comment BluePeter, you forgot to proofread it to make sure it made sense.
Oh well.
The launch was great! Well done!
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Frog/Toad & co
Todays events re Owen Glenn and Labour have just offered you chaps the biggest lifeline and political opportunity you are ever likely to have.
NOW is the chance for the Greens to secure at LEAST 10% of the total vote, given the unquestionable levels of corruption you should be campaigning as from tomorrow as the only party of the left that is free from the taint of corruption and the only party of the left that the public can have faith in to be honest and up front.
To do this you will have to distance yourself from Labour and maybe even pull your support for the ETS, while that might go against the grain it will reward you tenfold if you really get stuck in during the election campaign and remind all those on the left that you are the only ones who can be trusted.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that you may end up as the official opposition party.
Seize this chance or go down with the sinking ship that is the Labour party.
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Got the message, BB. It is good for the Greens’ credibility.
But, pull the plug on the Government’s ETS now, well, no!
Personally, I didn’t support it because I, and a number of Green members, think it could be much stronger re mitigating climate change.
Once the Greens made their decision on it I decided I will support it – at least until after election day.
Then things will be up for grabs again, depending on the lie of the electoral land.
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Toad
I admit my motives are selfish ones, you will never get Labour to agree to pass the animal cruelty bill when you are a JUNIOR coalition partner, the only hope we have (and on this I am very much with the Greens) is for you chaps to do it when you are the govt or a much stronger force in any coalition.
You have a real chance to be THE opposition party after this election, OK, until today you might have had some chance to form part of the govt with Labour but you can kiss that goodbye now.
Strike out, distance yourself from Labour and become a REAL player in our system, you guys could end up with 15 plus MP’s after todays revelations, Clark and Labour are history, stop and think about the future of the Greens for one moment here.
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big bro – I’m hearing a subtext in your comments – you’re going to party vote Green, aren’t you!
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big bro,
You’ll get no spine from the Labours left wing branch. It simply doesn’t exist.
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Meghan
Good luck on the bus.
I prefer comfort, speed and good music.
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“..Labour’s left wing branch. It simply doesn’t exist”. Out of the mouths of babes BP.
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Spine, that is.
Does anyone in politics, except ACT, stick to their principles any more?
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bb and BP, you can rest assured that we’ll do what we always do with your advice.
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Valis
The Greens are doing great. Don’t change a single thing. Exemplary performance.
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So as a result of this fantastic ETS that is going to achieve nothing for the planet as a whole we are spending $100k on something thats already eco friendly !?!
I’m checking my calender and feel safe to say that April fools was months ago.
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Blue Peter – your “drum beating hippies” comment was funny and even funnier was saying that you’ll stick with your beamer!
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shorty, the $100k is just to cover a difference in phasing between electricity and liquid fuels as electricity comes into the ETS one year earlier. As the trolley busses *are* eco friendly, it would be dumb to penalise them.
There are several benefits of the ETS. It should halt our growth in emissions, which are among the highest in the OECD. By starting to take responsibility, we take a positive part in the dialog with larger nations to do the same. At least as important for New Zealand is that a price on carbon will help us transition to a low fossil fuels economy. The ETS does not solve all problems, but to say plays no part is simply false.
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>>we take a positive part in the dialog with larger nations to do the same
At what flippin’ cost! What is the cost of your talk-fests? Where is the risk management? Who is to say larger nations are going to pay the slightest bit of attention to some suicidal South Pacific backwater?
They didn’t get where they are today by taking policy direction from the unimportant.
Perhaps that should read self-important…..
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>>even funnier was saying that you’ll stick with your beamer!
Let me see now.
On the one hand, I have the option of leather seats, an excellent stereo, plenty of space, and no-one to bother me. Trapped in a traffic jam is merely an excuse to practice my singing.
On the other hand, I could be jammed next to some overweight social “worker” with questionable hygiene habits, sitting on a cloth chair stained with….well, something…..and forced to listen to some tuneless git on a banjo/gazoo/didgeridoo.
Quite frankly, I’d pay a high price to avoid the latter…..
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Very appropriate that this new trolley bus was made in New Zealand.
Well, actually, made in Canterbury, the same place that makes the elecyricity the bus runs, the sma place that made the money that paid for the bus, the same place that developed the GPS tracking ETA signs that are (hopefully) used at the trolley bus stops, the same place that pioneered walking school buses and 40kmh school zone speed limits and 60kmh arterial speed limits (sometimes even on the same roads). Move Parliament to Canterbury, I say, then we’ll get an ETS worth having
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tuneless git on a trolley bus, tuneless git in a beamer!
(btw, didgeridoo aren’t supposed to carry a tune).
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I don’t inflict myself on others.
And given I was a semi-professional musician in my late teens-early 20s, I can assure you what I produce is not tuneless
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not a didg player then?
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Valis >> As the trolley busses *are* eco friendly, it would be dumb to penalise them.
Even dumber to penalise the people paying the taxes. This is simply $100k pissed away on nothing. How many more tax soakholes are being created by ETS?
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Kevyn Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 10:52 am
> Well, actually, made in Canterbury, the same place that makes the elecyricity the bus runs,
Hardly any electricity comes from Canterbury, except for the very south-westernmost bit of South Canterbury. The Cook Strait cable runs from Twizel to Wellington, because there are no power stations of any significance between those two points. Of NZ’s 4 largest power stations, 1 and a half are in Otago, one is in Southland, one is in Waikato, and only a measly half of one is in Canterbury.
> the sma place that made the money that paid for the bus,
Canterbury’s not that big a part of NZ’s farming industries, or forestry, or tourism.
> the same place that developed the GPS tracking ETA signs that are (hopefully) used at the trolley bus stops,
ETA signs at bus stops in Wellington? you’ve got to be joking.
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Oh, am I frightened by the revelations of BP’s past involving ‘semi-professional’ music – does this mean we will finally get lurid details of groupies and road-trips, possibly taken in daddy’s old beamer?
‘Cos I’m sure, even as a young musician, a VW Combi-van would have been infra dig to a man of BP’s obviously rare tastes!
BP, get off your high horse – the people you are disparaging are all professional musicians, who volunteered their talents and time, very generously. Those of us who were entertained by them found it to be very pleasant, and created a fun, upbeat tone to the whole event, which could have been just another rainy couple of hours street-talking in Welli, without them.
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“Even dumber to penalise the people paying the taxes. This is simply $100k pissed away on nothing. How many more tax soakholes are being created by ETS?”
shorty, if you’re realy concerned about taxpayers, you’ll be happy that less of our Kyoto obligation will be borne by them due to the ETS.
“I don’t inflict myself on others. ”
Your funniest line yet, BP!
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>>possibly taken in daddy’s old beamer?
I was born working class. My folks owned a Volkswagon Beetle. Well, the bank owned it.
>>does this mean we will finally get lurid details of groupies and road-trips
Well, if you insist…..
>>BP, get off your high horse
I’m not disparaging those people directly. I’ve never heard them. I’m disparaging the notion that musicians on a bus is a good idea
Having been trapped with musicians on a bus (well van, actually) for long periods of time myself, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Eventually you learn to keep your eclectic tastes to yourself, else you get into fights eventually.
>>Your funniest line yet, BP!
Don’t like it, don’t read it.
Hit the scroll wheel, like I do with Phils posts.
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Kevyn,
Any indication how much of the trolley bus was actually made in New Zealand?
Useually they are imopted rolling chassis onto which the crowd in Ashburton? places a body.
Body is aluminium? panels and framing will be bought in from overseas. Alcan fatory for rolling aluminium has long gone.
If body is fibreglass then the resins and cloth will be imported.
Fabric for seat could be sourced locally?
More correct to say ASSEMBLED in New Zealand?
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kahikatea, This is one occassion when the biggest is deceptive. Canterbury’s power stations are all small but they are linked by canals in a way that they operate as though they are a single big “Upper Waitaki” power station generating a fifth of the country’s electricity. Except when it doesn’t rain in the catchment as happened for most of the past winter. I was drawing rather a long bow with my original comment.
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Gerritt, DESIGNED and ASSEMBLED in New Zealand, from imported parts. That’s a crucial value added difference from merely assembling CKD buses (or cars).
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