I’m not entirely sure what James Shaw has been doing with his time.
But whatever it is, it certainly wasn’t spent nailing down a climate plan.
What he’s released today is very short on detail. Very short.
This is supposed to be a big day for the Government by the way.
The PM’s called climate change the nuclear-free moment of our generation.
Her government had copped it for doing very little about that for five years but this was going to fix all that.
This plan was so big it would make the economic upheaval of Rogernomics look like “a trial period”.
It was so complicated, James Shaw had to delay its release by five months to today to finish all the work on it.
So, it’s fair to say expectations were high.
In which case this will be a huge disappointment to the climate crowd.
It’s more notable for what’s missing than what’s actually in it.
The congestion charge that was expected to be in this announcement isn’t.
That decision has been delayed until later this year. They need to do some policy work.
The expected ban on new gas connections to houses is axed.
So, you can go ahead and add that gas stovetop to your house plans.
The biggest announcement in this is $569m to pay low-income families, earning below around 90K a year, to scrap their dirty cars and buy new EVs and hybrids.
How much to scrap a car? No idea.
How many cars to be scrapped? No idea.
They’re doing a trial before they decide.
Even Boris Johnson, who sits on the other side of the political spectrum, is doing more than James Shaw by banning fossil fuel cars by 2030.
That’s not in James’ plan either. It’s a proposal to maybe do that but no decision yet.
To be frank, climate change is not high on my list of prioritise personally. I’m not a denier, I just don’t care terribly.
So, I’m not unhappy about this announcement today, because I feel like I've dodged a cost bullet again.
But I do wonder what the heck they’ve been up to if it’s taken them this long to pull together a plan that has no plan in it.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
4 comments:
Even if James had a plan there's not a snowballs chance in hell of it being implemented because the Left don't do action, they only waste money for little or no return.
That's good news and bad news.
Good news in that they won't be able to enact the woke, crazy ideas the CCC came up with...
...but bad news that they'll still waste billions of our money trying.
In fact trying is the word. They really are very trying and need to go. Preferably to Antarctica which Extinction Rebellion say is almost ice free and quite balmy at this time of year.
If you don't make a definitive statement or don't initiate a timeframe, then you can't be held to it!
The whole climate thing is the biggest con job out, people like to be fooled because they are dumb, and that is what these scumbag climate scaries are working on, including our dumb elected polictians who have no real idea where this bullshit will take our country.
With NZ contributing only 0.1% of the world emissions what is the point in spending all of this money, and the hardships any new legislation will surely create to achieve something that's probably unmeasureable. China is increasing their emissions by approx. 15%, 50X our annual total output. This crowd are delusional and clueless. Motor industry professionals say that their EV schemes don't work and in some cases are counterproductive, artificially increasing demand just pushes up prices.
But our dear leader will be able to front up at climate change conferences to boast how much she is doing to stop the see level rising, so it's all worth it, isn't it?
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