Yesterday, in an effort to screw the PREFU and narrow the space for National to promise tax cuts, the government announced a $4 billion austerity program. Part of this was a $226 million raid on the climate emergency response fund - meaning less climate action. You'd think the government would have bothered to tell its Climate Change Minister about that. But of course they didn't:
As part of a $4 billion savings initiative announced on Monday, the Government will cut $236 million from climate policies on agriculture, transport and forestry.Regardless of what you think of the merits of cutting climate action in the middle of a climate crisis, this is a shitty and arrogant way to run a political partnership. And its worse because the Prime Minister thinks its perfectly appropriate. The casual attitude of disrespect displayed does not bode well for any future coalition arrangement between Labour and the Greens.One unusual aspect of the move is that climate funding is supposed to be ring-fenced solely for climate policies, but the savings will instead be returned to the general coffers.
Another unusual aspect is Minister for Climate Change James Shaw wasn't aware it would be happening. He told Newsroom he knew the Government was doing a savings exercise and evaluated a couple of policies he was responsible for, which didn't get cut. He was also briefed on a $10m cut to a waste policy.
But he found out about the remaining $226m in climate cuts at the same time the public did.
