During the last election, ACT campaigned on scrapping the ETS. As a result, they got a full select committee review of the legislation. Having achieved this, you'd expect them to participate, right? Wrong! According to an article in The Press last Wednesday (offline), they've missed half the meetings:
ACT has provoked outrage by demanding the emissions trading scheme (ETS) be reviewed and then failing to attend almost half of the public hearings.It's so typically ACT. A few years ago they weren't even bothering to turn up to vote, while collecting their full parliamentary salaries for not doing so. Looks like nothing has changed there, then.Emissions Trading Scheme review committee minutes show ACT MPs Rodney Hide and John Boscawen turned up to five of nine meetings between February and May to hear public submissions.
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Select committee chairman and United Future leader peter Dunne said Boscawen, who replaced Hide, had been ill. "Notwithstanding this, they have not attended as much as I would have expected," he said.
Still, there is a positive side: without ACT there to act as a spoiler, the committee might actually be able to reach a sensible agreement. And OTOH, ACT knows it can just veto that outside the committee room, so its no real wonder they're no longer bothering with the charade.