Guest Post: NZ Cannot Afford a Generous NDC Gesture

Posted on BFD by J M White

There is no New Zealand left for anyone to aspire to. Most NZ citizens couldn’t even tell you now what a New Zealander is since the very definition of the nation was destroyed by replacing identity with ideology.

Once a government starts distributing national resources to groups and foreign countries, everyone on both sides of the ideological divide realises that there is no more national interest and little point in working toward anything but gaining a maximum economic distribution to their own identity groups.

Lushington D. Brady: EVS - More Than a Bit Shite

As BFD readers are now aware, I take great delight in pointing out that EVs Are a Bit Shite. But it’s not all games and poking fun: it’s deadly serious, too. EVs are not just a bit shite. They’re not just an environmental disaster: they’re a global political disaster.

And almost no one in the mainstream media, let alone politics, wants to face up to it.

Kerre Woodham: Enforcement looks to be the main concern with National's road user charges

We've also got an election coming up in five weeks, haven't we? So it was another weekend and another presentation of party policies coming thick and fast, wasn't it?

Health targets from National, the scrapping of building consents from ACT, our ocean policy from the Greens, disagreements between National and ACT and Labour when it comes to the impending shake-up of our scientific research sector, and the proposal to introduce road user charges on all cars from National.

Lushington D. Brady: EVs — So Great They Have to Force Us to Buy Them

No-one was forced to buy a Model-T

Quick history quiz: why did motor cars replace horses as a preferred mode of transport?

Was it because the government banned horses?

Was it because the government put a tax on the horse-shit which was polluting major cities?

Or was it because motor cars were simply better and, ultimately, cheaper?

Roger Partridge: A point to the pointless

This week’s revelation that the Government has spent over $80m in rebates to Tesla owners should cause outrage.

And not simply because subsidising the well-off into new cars fails to pass the sniff test.

The real problem is that the payments have been pointless. Aside, that is, from putting smiles on the faces of new EV owners.

Josie Pagani: Who pays for our climate policies?

No, thank YOU Tesla buyers for saving us.

The EV subsidies going to brand-new Teslas alone total $80 million. Every dollar subsidising the world’s richest toddler, Bubba Musk, is a dollar that hasn’t been spent on, say, hiring more bus drivers and paying them well. Or buying a train track inspection.

Reporters this week established that the recipients of EV subsidies live almost exclusively in leafy suburbs. People who live in struggle street do not buy brand new $80,000 motors, or even relatively affordable brand new Toyotas.

And it is not just an $8000 handout to buy a new Tesla. They also get an ongoing $2000 a year top-up bonus of unpaid road user taxes. EVs still use the roads, don’t they?

Cam Slater: A Good Point, Who Indeed?

Josie Pagani writes at Stuff about the huge cost of the Government’s climate change policies, and outlines how most of those costs have been poured into the pockets of the wealthy in the leafy suburbs.