It wasn’t my job to hold a press conference and say I’ve had two private conversations… This is a matter between Mr Peters and Mr Glenn.

Now, I don’t know whose side of the story I believe or what the Privileges Committee will or should find.  But surely the reason the issue is before the Privileges Committee at all is because it is more than just a private matter between Mr Peters and Mr Glenn.  It is a matter of public interest. I’m not at all convinced the Prime Minister can credibly run the ‘it was private and it was none of my business’ defense.

Secondly she repeatedly said throughout the interview that this election would be about trust.  That worries me, because I inferred from that that she intends this campaign to be a dirty one where Labour will go out to prove that National is not trustworthy (and the PM says as much in the interview).  The last thing New Zealand needs after the 2005 election is an attacking, dirty campaign. Labour could still still, if it wanted, run on its record without turning this campaign into a nasty, personalised and muddy one.  I hope it will (and likewise other parties).

And, talking about running on your record, the Prime Minister says something like (apologies I didn’t manage to write down the full quote as she was talking):

It frankly isn’t credible for the National Party to spend years attacking Kiwisaver, Working for Families, 20 hours free early childhood education, cheaper doctors’ fees, and then turn around and say ‘we like all that now’.  That’s serious.  People who do that cannot be trusted.

Except that this is exactly the approach that Labour is taking on important environmental policies. It has spent three terms overseeing increased carbon emissions, deforestation, intensifying industrial dairy and worsening water quality.  And is now saying it is the ‘sustainability’ party. It may want to be careful about the emotive terms it uses to frame this election.

“If we take Mr Peters at his word, and I must as an honourable member, and I take his lawyer at his word, then Mr Peters would not have been in the loop on the source of the funding.”

(And she expresses a similar sentiment here in The Press)

But I thought the very crux of the issue was about whether we could take Mr Peters at his word? After all the card he held up said ‘no‘, not ‘not that I know of‘.

Seems the one of the big news stories for the week will be World Environment Day.  The Prime Minister, gearing up for World Environment Day tomorrow, started off her speech to a business symposium on the Emissions Trading Scheme well this morning:

I see climate change as one of the biggest environmental and political challenges of our time. It is a truly global issue which impacts on all countries, all economies, and all people.

The sheer scale of the challenge and the way in which it affects all of us, from householders through to multi-nationals, means we need comprehensive responses, which are inclusive of all sectors in the community.

Then after a bit more of this sort of rhetoric and a bit of praise for Green Party initiated energy efficiency schemes she gets down to policy:

One change to the Bill which the government is advocating to the select committee is to delay…

The government is also proposing to review…

A further change proposed by government is to delay…

Then once she has placated the major carbon polluters with policy she returns to rhetoric for the rest of us:

The effect of delaying implementation of the scheme would be to increase the proportion of the cost of emissions borne by the taxpayer. …Delay also deprives business of the certainty it needs to plan ahead.

That’s why our government doesn’t favour the calls from some to slow down implementation of the scheme, or to become a mere ‘fast follower’ on emissions trading. We believe there are far more gains from being a leader than being a follower.

Confused?

Question 1 – Jeanette Fitzsimons to the Prime Minister
Does she still aspire for New Zealand to be carbon neutral and “the first nation to be truly sustainable�, as she said in her Statement to the House in February last year?

and

Question 11 – Jeanette Fitzsimons to the Minister of Fisheries
Is he satisfied that the fishing industry is taking all opportunities available under New Zealand’s trade agreement with China?

Feel free to have a guess at what answers the Government will be coming up with this afternoon.  I’ll try to cover its responses when they’re out.

“It’s made a particularly tough challenge because you have an international economic slowdown, the fallout from the subprime crisis in the United States which has impacted on mortgage rates here without the Reserve Bank lifting a finger, you have a huge spike in oil prices - none of these the fault of the New Zealand Government.”

That’s all true to an extent, but you could equally argue that the Government ignored predictions that all those things were coming.  Peak oil theorists have been suggesting for decades that at about this point in time oil prices would begin to spike dramatically as we entered the point where we had used up more than half the oil on the planet.

Critics of the unrestrained free market, and some mainstream economists, have been warning that a global economic slowdown was coming as a result of the US economy being built on a sandcastle of constantly traded debt (a.k.a. the subprime crisis). And here in New Zealand there has been increasing concern that the Reserve Bank Act has been written in just such a way that it restrains the Reserve Bank from taking any course other than the one it is currently on.

The government can respond that National has also blocked its ears to warning about peak oil, debt driven economies and the Reserve Bank Act.  Nevertheless the ‘it’s not my fault’ line is always going to be tough one to spin when you are in your ninth year of government.

So what is the biggest cost associated with climate change?

Oh, and while we are on the topic of Rio Tinto, you probably should also read No Right Turn’s analysis of the economic benefit of Tiwai Aluminium Smelter.

Hat tip: Climate 411

It seems a bizarre system that allows one of the political parties to unilaterally decide when the election should be and then hold off from telling anybody else as long as possible.  Theoretically they can plan for it years in advance but nobody else can. 

Keith Locke to the Prime Minister:

‘Will she ensure journalists travelling with her, as part of the delegation she is leading to China next week, will enjoy normal press freedoms as outlined in international human rights treaties; if not why not?’

If Clark, who pulled an early election on a pretext in 2002, set this year’s election date now, that would strike a small blow for democracy…

With the date now fixed, other parties and candidates would not have to guess how to time their run and spending.

James notes that this would be an ideal issue for the Citizen’s Jury on electoral issues to consider, so that election dates could be set regularly in the future, rather than in decided upon by people in the most biased on positions; the politicians themselves. To use a sporting metaphor, which I don’t normally do, allowing the Prime Minister to decide the date of an election is a bit like giving the captain of one rugby team the freedom decide when the full time whistle should be blown.

Fixed dates would remove the tactical advantage flexible dates give prime ministers and thus also remove what amounts to prime ministerial presumption to exercise an ancient – and now surely anachronistic – royal prerogative.

It will be interesting to see if the Prime Minister responds to James’ proposal.

If the problem is the poverty caused by the 1991 Mother of All Budget cuts, why is the solution keeping young people in schools (or other forms of education) and a $9 million programme to check on 4 and 5 year olds (But no mention of money to do anything if we do identify conduct problems or anti social behaviour)? $9 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the 1991 benefits cuts. Labour has had 8 budgets to amend the wrongs of 1991 and create a welfare system that allows people enough money to support a family in dignity.

If this is the ‘sustainability government’ why is the biggest spending item in Clark’s speech today the Western Ring Route in Auckland, rather than much needed investment in public transport?What exactly does Clark mean when she announces policy for ‘all young people should be in or some other form of education or training until they reach the age of eighteen‘? Does this mean that young people who want to go out into the workforce will not be allowed to? Is this a new compulsory leaving age, a de facto compulsory leaving age, or further tough talking about the symptom of youth crime rather than the cause; poverty?

Why the need for this snarky attack on MMP:

‘Under proportional representation Italy has had sixty governments since the end of World War Two. In New Zealand the Fifth Labour Government is in its ninth year.’

Actually there was a Labour-Alliance government from 1999-2002, a Labour-Progressive government with the confidence and supply of United Future from 2002-2005, and from 2005 to today we’ve had a Labour-Progressive government with the confidence and supply of both United Future and New Zealand First. It’s not Labour that’s made MMP work but the voters who have keep the two old parties honest by forcing them to consult and cooperate pragmatically.

…New Zealand enjoys a priceless reputation as a nation with a pristine environment, which is clean and green, nuclear free, and, as our tourism promotions proclaim, one hundred per cent pure.

…These considerations, along with great concern about the impact of climate change on our planet, were very much on the mind of my government when we moved to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2002.

…Perhaps at that time, we were a little ahead of public opinion in New Zealand, where there was still a tendency by many to focus on the costs of becoming more sustainable, rather than on the opportunities and on the importance of being part of the solution to a global problem.

…The strength of the scientific consensus about the damage we human beings collectively are doing to our planet can no longer be ignored.

…This concern now ranges from how to prevent the loss of precious biodiversity to how to prevent catastrophic economic impacts as well.

…That is why I have issued a challenge to New Zealand – that we could become the world’s first truly sustainable nation, and that we could even aspire to be a carbon neutral nation.

…The following year we passed new land transport legislation with its central purpose being to achieve “an integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable land transport system.”

…There was also a fund established for projects to reduce emissions, available to incentivise electricity generation from sources like wind, or methane from rubbish dumps, which would otherwise have been uneconomic.