Last month, we learned that Solid Energy, an SOE, has been subverting democracy again by using public money to pay for a report aimed at undermining the government's climate change policy. In a defence unworthy of a four-year old, they have claimed that they were not the only government department doing this - but refused to identify the other culprits. So, I've been using the OIA to try and find them. Unfortunately, so far, it has drawn a blank. Timberlands, Mighty River Power, TransPower, Genesis Energy, Treasury and DoC all deny having funded the report in question (though some have funded other work by NZIER). And now we can add the Ministry of Transport and Ministry for the Environment to that list as well. MfE has funded other work by NZIER, including "two firm-level case studies based on cost modelling of potential ETS impacts" - but they didn't fund this report.
So, who does that leave? MED (who are late), MAF, and Meridian. Or of course the other option: that Solid Energy was simply trying to lie its way out of trouble.
