To Nick Smith from Ian Wishart 11 May 2010
Nick, I’ve listened with increasing interest to your disingenuous
attempts to disown your comments from 2005 when you said this:
“The madness of the Government’s new carbon tax is that New Zealanders
will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the
costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand
business for negligible environmental gain.
“Labour Ministers may take pride in being toasted at International
Climate conferences for being so bold and brave, but there is no
justification for New Zealand going out in the cold by itself on this
issue.
“New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions made up only 0.4% of the
global total and on a per capita basis our emissions are half those of
countries like Australia and the United States. We are the only
Southern Hemisphere country with binding legal obligations under Kyoto
and giants like China and India have got off scot free.”
You told Newstalk ZB’s Larry Williams that you made those comments in
regard to a “carbon tax” and therefore that they don’t apply to the ETS.
Not so fast.
Your argument against the carbon tax, expressed above, was not because
it was a tax rather than an ETS. Instead, your first mentioned reason
for scorning it “is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the
world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine
the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible
environmental gain.”
Indeed, the rest of your argument hinges almost entirely on the NZ
acting alone issue, and negligible gain.
Act has already exposed your legerdemain in trying to equate NZ’s ETS
with the much weaker European scheme, as some sort of misguided
justification.
I don’t care whether you call your July 1 scheme an ETS, a carbon tax
or one of Alison Holst’s crockpots...the arguments you made against
the carbon tax in 2005 are equally valid against the ETS for exactly
the same reasons.
Let the public record show your hypocrisy.
Regards
Ian Wishart
Author, international climate bestseller, “Air Con”