New Zealand's Prime Minister: Climate Change bill a "load of rubbish" and "hoax"

Via Andrew Bolt in email, some surprising revelations about New Zealand’s Prime minister and his previous opinion of the ETS. It appears he has done a complete about face from his very strong opinions of 2005.
http://topnews.net.nz/images/imagecache/bigthumb/sites/default/files/key_john.jpg
The Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, (shown above) has just introduced the world’s first Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) today for new Zealand. It is not going over well with voters.

This is the same man who, when in opposition, described anthropogenic climate change as a hoax on the 10th may, 2005.
See Hansard debates at:

EXCERPTS:

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) : “I rise on behalf of the National Party to give the good news to the people of New Zealand—that is, the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is a load of rubbish and the National Party will not be supporting it, for very, very good reasons indeed.”
“Yet here we are down in New Zealand, a very little country with about 0.2 percent of the world’s emissions, putting a self-imposed straitjacket on our businesses, and waving a huge flag that says: “Foreign investment, don’t come anywhere near us. Australia is over there—the West Island. Go over there to pour your dollars in.” To the Chinese we are saying: “Come in and buy as much coal as you like from our West Coast. We’ll sell it to you and you can burn it without a carbon charge—but, by the way, to those back here in Aotearoa New Zealand we will be slapping on a carbon charge and you won’t be able to operate.”

“This is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem. Even if it is a problem, it will be delayed for about 6 years. Then it will hit the world in 2096 instead of 2102, or something like that. It will not work.”
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July 1, 2010 5:44 pm

Jones: If Chesterton said anything like that, he was misquoting Emerson’s famous dictum:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
People often forget the “foolish” part.

old construction worker
July 1, 2010 6:31 pm

Way to go NZ. (As hundreds of your dollars flow out of your country) Since you are dependent on foreign oil, why not become dependent on foreign Carbon credits. You will create so many new “green” jobs (like caulking windows) you won’t even notice the 2.2 job lost per 1 “green” job like in Spain.
I can it coming down the track, can you. A Carbon credit cartel
Remember
Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country;(which is being done not only with the input side, but with the output of a byproduct, CO2) if you control food, you control the population;

TimM
July 1, 2010 8:31 pm

David Segesta says:
July 1, 2010 at 8:14 am
Hopefully our New Zealand friends will see these politicians for what they are and throw them all out at the next election.
Unfortunately the other major party (Labour) would only introduce an ETS with twice the cost.
I think this NZ ETS is really going to be a test case. A lot of Kiwis seem to believe it is our moral duty to be at the bleeding edge of environmental causes (look up Pete Bethune for example, the anti-whaling activist on trial in Japan). The litmus test will come soon, the most vocal environmental campaigners tend to be living off other peoples’ money – in NZ mostly social welfare. When the real costs of this ETS start hitting them in their wallet we’ll see how dedicated to the cause they really are.
Our elections are likely to be Nov 2011. NZ runs an MMP voting system, so we have a number of small parties who support the major parties in confidence and supply. Only one party (ACT) are against the ETS, and they are part of the governing coalition (giving confidence and supply to John Key’s National Party). Having voted the previous labour-led government out in 2008 (after 9 years in gummint) it is likely National will be returned next election. The best we can hope for is that the ACT party gets a larger share of the vote and has more influence in the next coalition.
The National party is seen as right wing, although really they’re probably still to the left of America’s Democrats. The ACT party has far more right wing values, but NZ seems to be very cagey about moving too far to the right. Probably because the last Labour-led government increased middle class welfare so much that less than half the voters are net tax payers.
The only way up for us is to hit rock bottom first. At least the ETS should bring that about quickly. We need a 12 step program for socialismoholics.

tango
July 1, 2010 9:01 pm

its too late for NZ we australians can watch on the side line to see what will unfold and i don,t think thay will be very happy. RUDD should go and live over there he might be ably to give them some advice.

krazykiwi
July 1, 2010 9:08 pm

NZ environment minister Dr Nick Smith was being sued by a timber company for $NZ14.7m. After 3 acrimonious years they ‘settled’ with no sign of money changing hands. Now forestry interests in NZ are set to reap a windfall in govt-issued ETS credits, as are Maori forestry interests. Maori are essential MMP coalition partners for the government.
The about face, and the staunch persistence on implementing this ETS in the face of unparalleled public opposition suggests to me there’s a very dark, and possibly very corrupt story or two lurking.

SteveFromWinnipeg
July 1, 2010 9:23 pm

A kiwi says:
July 1, 2010 at 5:04 pm
John Key is a hungarian jew. I hate stereotypes, but if israel and the soviet oligarchy are the examples I hate jews in power more than the stereotypes.
fantastic. when i look up the definition of an oxymoron im certain ill find your picture. Obviously John Key is a member of the ZOG (zionist occupational government) and our only hope for the future is for Yaweh, god of the aryians to throw down the money grubbing Zionists in a fit of holy revenge. while its happening they can round up the blacks who are unfairly raising the price of watermelon by overconsuming and the mexicans that are depressing the cost of oranges.
i can only hope the level of my sarcasm isnt at the point where someone might snip me.

July 1, 2010 9:30 pm

TimM is correct, to vote Key out would merely be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. We’re screwed no matter how you look at it.
However, if you have a large enough income, NZ is still a great place to live. You just have to accept that we are never going to be a wealthy nation becuase it upsets our sense of social justice too much to do what needs to be done.

TomRude
July 1, 2010 9:37 pm

The next BS from New Zealand:
From Yahoo.com
“(…) Major efforts have been initiated to speed up the ozone hole’s recovery, including the 1987 Montreal Protocol and the phasing out of CFCs. Even so, a study by Guang Zeng and her colleagues from New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research shows that that the recovery, in concert with climate change, may do harm as well as good.
The study, detailed in the May edition of Geophysical Research Letters, revealed that variations in atmospheric circulation due to climate change will cause a 43-percent increase in gas exchange between the stratosphere and the troposphere, the layer of Earth’s air at the surface and our air supply. As more and more ozone is replenished in the stratosphere it will also have more opportunities to seep into the air we breathe.
Some ozone is currently present in the troposphere, though mostly as smog from car emissions and other pollutants. It can be harmful to human respiratory systems and the environment.
If carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase as expected from unabated emission, Zeng said the ozone layer will cool off, blurring the temperature boundary that separates it from the troposphere. Within the next century, more ozone than ever before will surge into our air, her computer model study predicts.
Zeng hopes that future studies of the impacts of climate change will account for the atmospheric composition of both the stratosphere and troposphere, as well as the movement of ozone between the two, to paint a better, more accurate picture of the Earth’s environmental future. “

July 1, 2010 10:12 pm

A couple facts for those unfortunate enough not to be Kiwis:
– the ETS is a watered-down version of the previous Labour shocker of an Act, and has two review points over the next five years. If the rest of the world has gotten over its evangelism aboot AGW, and our trading partners have found a bus to throw their ETS’ under, then these reviews will pick that up and act accordingly.
– The primary reason for retaining an ETS is the trading impact on a highly export-oriented nation. In tougher economic times, non-trade barriers, such as the lack of an ETS, can quickly be brought into play by governments pushed by their own constituencies, against ‘foreign imports’. So, just sheer traders’ common sense is in play here, in an increasingly protectionist world.

Mike Jowsey
July 1, 2010 10:59 pm

Segesta says:
July 1, 2010 at 8:14 am
Hopefully our New Zealand friends will see these politicians for what they are and throw them all out at the next election.
Yes, well the alternatives are worse. Point is, a lovely wee democracy like NZ has been totally sucked in to this charade. And the silent majority are still silent because they don’t have a clue. As late as yesterday the Climate Change Minister (there’s a clue) Nick Smith was telling the MSM that this scheme would cost the average NZ household $147 per year. Absolute BS. More like $1500 to $2000 p.a.
But the MSM simply reports what the Minister said. No investigation, no balanced viewpoint, no checking of facts. So the silent majority thinks, “Gee, I can afford $147 a year as insurance to save the planet so my grandchildren won’t burn my effagy”.
Little do they know.
I am just flabbergasted. Am a 5th generation New Zealander, worked, paid taxes, voted all his longshort life, and I am so depressed by the incoming tide of greenie, socialist, communist, thou-shalt, tax-you-stupid, environmental claptrap that I am about to get on a cheap boat to USA and join the 11m illegal immigrants over there. (Just kidding!)
OMG – my world is upsidedown. Global Bullshit.

Christopher Hanley
July 1, 2010 11:55 pm

“…. John Key had told Investigate Magazine that he wanted to ‘have flexibility so that if the science deteriorates and the climate change sceptics are right we have an ability to alter the impact on our economy’…..”.
As I understand it, an ETS (cap + trade) must be open-ended, otherwise it will not achieve the intended (pointless) result.
The value of the permits at any time is entirely dependent on the number of permits on offer by the issuing government.
An ETS creates an entirely artificial market and if there is a likelihood that in the not-so-distant future a government may free up the issue of permits or scrap them altogether, the market will lack the confidence to trade freely.
If a government interfered in a freely operating market in such a way without warning, in any democratic country with an independent judiciary, it would be up for massive compensation to existing permit holders or would have to buy back the permits at the current trading price.
It’s no surprise to me that John Key, like that other ETS enthusiast Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull, has a background in merchant banking.

Chris
July 2, 2010 12:10 am

@Cal Barndorfer and others;
Common sense check please – how on earth can a Bill, even a ‘Climate Change’-related one, be a hoax? Are you serious? You think the government is going to waste time drafting a ‘hoax’ bill? What are they going to do, pass it into law and then yell ‘gotcha’? No, he’s referring to climate change as a load of rubbish and a hoax. The title is correct, as far as I can see.

Roger Knights
July 2, 2010 12:17 am

Gary Hladik says:
July 1, 2010 at 11:09 am
thethinkingman says (July 1, 2010 at 10:30 am): “This is a good thing, wait and see what the world will learn from disaffected Kiwis.”
But if we haven’t already learned from Spain…

Give it time to be bruited around and to sink in.

Mark.r
July 2, 2010 12:46 am

Our GST tax is going up 2.5% soon too. Car registrations are going up $30 and more.Also the politicians wages may go up 10% if they drop their travel perks.

Mark.r
July 2, 2010 1:01 am

“In addition to electricity and petrol, industrial processes will also be included in the ETS from the 1st of July although the Bank has failed to allow for this. Processing of basic food stuffs, like milk and bread, will be captured by the ETS and will percolate through the economy.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1003/S00167.htm

July 2, 2010 2:05 am

Many Kiwis believe a whole load of myths about themselves; myth #1, the vision Kiwi farmers have of themselves as bronzed and tough individualists – Federated Farmers, the major farming association, is actually one of the most successful political lobbying groups in the country which uses its economic clout very effectively.
Myth #2 is that every suburban Kiwi lives on his own ‘Quarter-acre Pavlova Paradise’, to quote Austin Mitchell, when the average surburban house site was a full quarter acre, a mortgages to build houses were cheap and we had full employment, but those days are long gone.
Myth #3; Kiwis are independent thinkers. I remember a lecturer shouting at a class back in the late 70s ” If the politicians told you it was raining elephants, you’d just go and buy stronger bloody umbrellas!”
My dad cautioned me to be wary of politicians – “voting for the buggers only encourages ’em.”

David, UK
July 2, 2010 2:09 am

Well, you know what they say: You can tell when a politician is lying. His lips move.

Richard
July 2, 2010 4:02 am

Trouble is who do we vote for? And what is Rodney doing I wonder? Has he sold out too?

Patrick Davis
July 2, 2010 5:24 am

“Brendan H says:
Different administrations, different policies. As for Key’s 2005 comments, at the time he was in opposition. Oppositions oppose. He did so in a vigorous manner, which has come back to embarass him. Happens.”
No I think you miss the point I was trying to make, and I quote from one of these “Civil Servants” I met, “If you want real power in Govn’t, don’t be a Minister, an MP or even a PM”. That’s the point! The “Civil Servants” you don’t see are in control, literally in control. That is one reason why voting in NZ is futile. All you do is shuffle puppets about. And NZ’s implementation of a German based system of proportional reprentation called MMP. It’s a dogs breakfast. So many list MP’s “get into Parliament” on the coat tails of elected MP’s, it not funny! Helen Clark was Health Minister, and she set in motion the destruction of the, once, superb NZ public health system, before she became “Party Leader”. Now she’s in the UN!!!! Scary! Similarly, Richard Prebble, Labour, set about destroying industry in NZ, before the so called “economic miracle”. He split from Labour and formed the ACT party.
You cannot trust any polotician, and I am stunned many people still feel there is trust. The days of genuine democracy died in Greece a long time ago. But what voting gives the “ordinary” person is a sense of “envolvement” in the process, albeit, in reality, certainly in NZ, Aus and the UK, is a waste of time.

LarryOldtimer
July 2, 2010 10:39 am

As per the usual, people in general think only of the rise in costs of their utility and fuel bills when increased costs of energy are concerned. The simple fact is that each and every product we use and/or consume, and every service we receive or utilize has a hidden but substantial cost of energy included it the price tags of those products and services. About a dozen years or so ago, I read an excellent article about a study done regarding those hidden energy costs, which stated as a conclusion that close to 80% of the cost of living in the US could be attributed to the cost of energy.
Thus, in the overall scheme of things, not only will the direct costs of energy be substantially increased, but the costs of all goods and services will be substantially increased as well.
Better get used to the fact that the standard of living of all Americans, lest of course the few elite, will be substantially reduced when use of these hugely expensive “alternative energy” sources becomes widespread.

Brendan H
July 2, 2010 6:38 pm

Patrick Davis: “That’s the point! The “Civil Servants” you don’t see are in control, literally in control.”
I understand the point you are making. But on the example you gave, I’m not convinced. The facts are that a state-owned bank was sold off under a National Government, and then another state-owned bank was created under a Labour Government.
You seem to be suggesting that “Civil Servants” were pulling the strings in the background, although you don’t explain why they would do one thing at one time and its opposite at another.
Perhaps you are suggesting that “Civil Servants” are in cahoots with the bankers. Or the UN. Or something.

John Westman
July 3, 2010 6:21 pm

Anthony has just completed his successful tour of Australia. As one of those who organised things, I thought it interesting to comment about a surprising outcome.
At the meeting in Wagga Wagga, we got word that a local greenie from the university was in attendance: We were expecting trouble. I told 2 of the speakers about the potential trouble and to be ready.
All the speakers (3) did their presentations with Anthony going last. Anthony had slide after slide with shots of defective recording stations throughout the USA. The defects were generally causing erroneous high readings of temperature. Intermixed with the presentation was Anthony’s comments was that we use this data for the world record. It did not require Einstein to understand the point that Anthony was making. Lo and behold we did not get a single boo from the potential trouble maker. I suspect that this was because of the strength of Anthony’s argument. That is, that the world’s temperature data has been compromised by faulty recording stations and bad siting.
Thanks Anthony!

Fitzy
July 3, 2010 11:10 pm

Unfortunately this ETS scam will hit us in NZ profoundly.
We’ve have the ETS this week and soon a rise in our Goods and Services Tax -GST, similar to British VAT in just a few more weeks. So every product and service will rise twice in a matter of weeks. Not to worry, since public outcry over politicians perks abuses, they’ve drop their perks, and given themselves a 10% pay increase, because thats more acceptable….right….
Thoughtfully, Politicians have allowed Government controlled power companies to continuously raise their charges, because those companies MUST return an escalating profit to the main shareholder – the Government, which always, always get passed onto the Taxpayer – surely the genuine stakeholder. However many a commentator have pointed out the recent tax cuts made, will take the sting out of the GST rise,…what the government gives, it takes back and then some.
I encourage all WUWT readers around the world, to fight their governments moves to install an ETS, it will bankrupt whats left of the collapsing New Zealand economy.

John from CA
July 9, 2010 12:31 pm

NZ carbon price system hikes household costs
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/01/4592514-nz-carbon-price-system-hikes-household-costs
Most transport fuel suppliers increased prices by New Zealand dollars 0.03 a liter ($0.12 cents a gallon) Thursday, taking the cost of standard gas for vehicles to NZ$6.80 ($4.67) a gallon. Electric power prices also began rising, as producers using carbon-based fuels passed their carbon costs onto consumers.
“It brings us no pleasure in putting that sort of price impact on New Zealanders, but that’s what we have to do if we are going to do our fair share around this huge challenge of climate change,” Climate Change Minister Nick Smith said.
He said households on average will pay an extra NZ$3.00 ($2.10) a week for vehicle fuel and electricity.

DMS
July 11, 2010 12:45 am

Now the shackle is on, the milking starts. NZ has always been the test ground of the Globalist NWO gang. Our Politicians are enslaved as we are our. If we do not comply then we become another Greece or Iceland. Does not matter which party you vote for.
Thanks Helen, you did a great job like so many others in selling us out, hope you are enjoying your rewards there in New York
Carbon Tax is a social political control tool. Every educated person that takes the time to put 2+2 together knows Climate change (They don’t call it Global warming any more) has nothing to do with man made emissions. Its natural, always has been and always will be. They grew wine in Medieval times in the north of England. Polar bears are great swimmers. The glaciers are not retreating everywhere and islands are not being flooded. Wake up people turn off CNN and the other spin machines for the NWO. Check the real science, go to http://www.friendsofsceince.org