A rubberstamp for Shane Jones' bulldozer

Last month, the Environment Committee caused outrage by allowing only ten days for public submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill. At the time, I pointed out how this was an abuse of the parliamentary process, a ratfucking of our democracy which did not give submitters sufficient time to make the "high-quality" submissions elitist Ministers supposedly want, and which would undermine the legitimacy of parliament and the state.

The committee has now reported back on the bill, approving it despite 95% of submissions being opposed. They've recommended no changes, because they simply didn't give themselves time to do so, and because it has emerged that the bill is still being written: the regime plans to introduce substantial amendments at the committee stage, without even a pretence of public consultation or democratic process.

This isn't "consideration" or "scrutiny" of legislation - it's a rubberstamp for executive autocracy. And it's not "government by consent" - it's simply a naked exercise of power, to bulldoze through corrupt legislation and ensure that Shame Jones gets his payoffs. Which probably makes Jones and Bishop feel big and hard and powerful, but there's a cost to bulldozing through democracy like this. And now that the regime has bulldozed through the democratic limits to pass their law, opponents of both it and any specific projects rubberstamped may not feel constrained by thse limits in their methods of opposition. Which isn't great for our democracy or our society. But I guess the regime simply regards that as a problem for next quarter...

Companies who buy "consents" under this law should not expect either the next government or the public to treat them as legitimate. And the next government should legislatively nullify every single one of them under urgency. Because a bulldozer works both ways, and having driven it through our parliamentary process, Jones and co can hardly cry foul when someone else seizes control, kicks him off, and reverses it back over him and his mates.

Climate Change: National rejects ambition

Late last year He Pou a Rangi Climate Commission reviewed our climate change targets, including whether to start including a share of shipping and aviation emissions in them. Their analysis showed that we could move further and faster and were likely to meet our existing targets a decade early. As a result, they recommended including aviation and shipping, and that our overall targets be strengthened, to -20 million tons of long-lived gases by and a 35% - 47% reduction in biogenic methane by 2050.

National was legally required to respond to these recommendations, and a year later, they finally have. Their response? Fuck that! Let the planet burn!

The government has rejected all of the Climate Change Commission's recommendations to strengthen New Zealand's emissions targets.

The move comes despite the Commission warning the effects of climate change are hitting New Zealand sooner and more severely than expected, and that New Zealand can and should be doing more.

[...]

The government acknowledged strengthened targets would help with efforts to limit global warming.

There also would have been co-benefits from a stronger target, including greater energy security and improved health outcomes, the response said. However, its analysis showed that would come at an economic cost to New Zealand.

So they're going to leave us to pay the economic costs of perpetual storms, floods, droughts, and fires instead.

Its unclear if this is driven by pure climate change denial, or a cynical desire to be able to criticise the next government when they do the necessary, responsible thing and adopt these strengthened targets and the policies required to meet them. Neither is acceptable. This is not the action of a responsible party governing for the long-term. As with their decision to renege on Paris, is is the action of a dogshit vandal regime, intent on ratfucking us out of a better future. The quicker we throw these scum out of office, the better.

Climate Change: A year of failed auctions

The final ETS auction of the year was held today, resulting in another failure. No-one bid, no units were sold, and so the year's entire allocation - 6 million tons, plus 7.1 million tons of cost-containment reserve - goes in the trash. Broadly speaking, because National destroyed confidence in the durability of climate policy, crashing the carbon price to ~$40/ton, well below the auction's reserve level.

The good news is that that unsold carbon won't be burned, and won't be reintroduced to the system in future auction allocations. Its gone for good. Which, insofar as ETS allocations reflect our desired emissions pathway and/or actual future emissions, is a good thing. But its not how the ETS is meant to function, and an artificially low carbon price set by political expectations is not going to provide a financial incentive for polluters to decarbonise. Instead, it does the opposite: encourage them to keep on polluting. Which is not a good thing at all.

On the other hand, if its all about political expectations now, maybe the opposition parties - who if we remain a democracy will be in power some day (and hopefully sooner rather than later) - should just start setting them directly. They've already signalled that the gas industry has no future, by announcing the intention to restore the drilling ban. Maybe they should start setting similarly direct expectations for coal users, or for fossil cars, or for our biggest polluter agriculture? Or would that be too great a departure from capitalist orthodoxy for the "Labour" party?

Climate Change: National reneges on Paris

In October 2016 the then-National government under John Key ratified the Paris Agreement, signing up to progressively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. As part of that we set a formal emissions reduction target of a 30% net reduction (from gross 2005 levels) by 2030. This was later strengthened to a 50% reduction. Throughout this process, successive governments have been clear that these targets are "responsibility targets": domestic reductions alone won't get us there, and so they expect to buy reductions offshore to meet it. But now National has said that actually, no they won't:

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the Government has no intention to spend on overseas carbon offsets, if New Zealand fails to reduce emissions to the level agreed under the Paris Agreement.

[...]

To date, successive governments have held off accounting for this upcoming cost in their books.

Now, Willis has confirmed there is no plan to change this.

“It is the Government's position that the most important contribution that New Zealand can make to reducing global climate change is reducing our emissions here at home, and we are working to achieve that,” she told reporters after appearing in front of the finance select committee for Scrutiny Week.

“It is also the case that the NDC the previous government set for us was well beyond what was required. ... We don't think New Zealanders ... would thank us for sending billions of dollars offshore to meet that Paris obligation.”

Fact check: Aotearoa's climate target is not "well beyond what was required". It is in fact woefully insufficient, and inconsistent with our (legally binding) obligations to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Willis' false claim marks her as nothing more than a dirty climate change denier, just like the rest of her party.

But the important thing here is that National has effectively announced that it reneging on the Paris agreement. This is a violation not just of the agreement itself, but also of various free trade agreements which reference it and require us to uphold it. Some of those trade partners have already raised concerns; now with the regime officially reneging then that seems likely to - and should - escalate into a threat of trade sanctions. It should also lead to action in the International Court of Justice to force adherence to the agreement, or pay compensation to those harmed by our refusal.

They're also abandoning over 75 years of foreign policy. Since 1945. Aotearoa has supported the "rules-based international order", reasoning that as a small country, a world where countries keep their agreements is better than one where they do not. National is pissing on that. Its not a very sensible thing to do, and it surrenders any right to whine when bigger countries do it to us. But National isn't concerned about any of that. They're driven by an ideology of climate change denial, fiscal short-termism, and pure ratfuckery, a desire to slag off the opposition for saying "we will meet our international obligations".

This is not the action of a credible, responsible governing party. Its is the action of a dogshit vandal regime, desperate to smash as much stuff and do as much damage as they can before they are thrown out of power. The quicker we vote these scum out, the better.

You don't win elections by telling voters to expect less

Aotearoa is broken. The economy is fucked. The dogshit vandal regime is smashing our democracy, our public services, and our society, while pushing the accelerator on burning the planet to the ground. People are crying out for change. And so Labour, the largest opposition party and so the de facto leader if there is a change of government, is telling them "nope, you won't get that from us!" First, we had finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds promising to continue the NeoLiberal austerity which has gutted our public services and allowed our infrastructure to decay. And now we have party leader Chris Hipkins - the de facto Prime Minister of any new government - telling people to dream smaller:

But the wider public-facing focus of the conference was a presentation of Labour as a very sensible-sounding Government-in-waiting, with small targeted changes to allow for more health spending, but nothing big enough for National to really attack.

[...]

Hipkins told media Labour would need to do more than just critique National to win. Yet despite borrowing the design style of New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for the posters the party faithful were waving at Hipkins, the new policy he had to offer yesterday was far less ambitious than anything Mamdani would put his name to – a new low-interest loan scheme to let 50 GPs a year set up their own practices. It’s hard to see this being a policy that defines much of the campaign. A small, easily achievable promise is exactly what Labour is eager to put out currently. The party will tell anyone who asks that it was making too many promises that hurt them last time they were in government.

Which will no doubt have the smooth-brained political consultants nodding and stroking their beards and murmuring sagely about "small target strategies". Quite apart from the inherent deceit - a "small target strategy" is one where a party deliberately refuses to say what it plans to do in government, so its lying to voters - its a mistake. In order to regain power, Labour needs to increase its vote share to 40% of the vote (it can get less if it is willing to deal with a three-way coalition situation, but 40% plus 10% from a coalition partner is the basic equation). Its not going to get there by telling people to expect less. While it might avoid offending swinging middle voters, its not going to inspire anyone to actually tick their box rather than shrug and stay home.

Its also a complete failure to read the room. People want change. Not just in people, but in policies. Not just in tone, but in substance. Sure, we want the current regime gone, an end to the regime's weekly attacks on Māori, poor people, parents, children, democracy, and everything else - but we also want the harm caused by those attacks to be undone, insofar as it is possible. We want te Tiriti restored. We want democracy respected. We want pay equity and worker's rights restored. And we want the health and education systems to function. But Labour isn't in any hurry to do that bit. They'll change the faces and the tone and stop the attacks, but they're not promising to fix anything (or at least, anything which might cost money - can't offend the rich, after all). It really is as if their entire critique of government boils down to it simply being a matter of the wrong people being in charge, and things would be infinitely better if only their team were the ones collecting the fat salaries and juicy appointments...

Fortunately there are other left-leaning parties who are actually promising to change things and undo the damage the vandal regime is causing. And because we have MMP, voting for one of them doesn't actually hurt the chances of a left-wing government (you're just contributing to a different part of that equation, while still helping to boost the total). So I'd suggest that if you're a left voter who wants more, who doesn't want to dream smaller and expect less, then vote for one of them and leave Labour to rot.