Simeon Brown is working on National’s New 3 Waters called “Local Water Done Well.” But is it just a more expensive version with a privatisation catch?
how’s it going five years on?
This week Change Minister Simon Watts showed the depth of the Government’s thinking by releasing a three page brochure outlining its collective thoughts. If the Government is at that level of thinking the country is well and truly stuffed. And meanwhile ACT’s Mark Cameron wants to prevent local government from considering climate change when formulating regional plans.
My ire was raised this morning when I read a pile of PR drivel from acting PM Winston Peters about the Interislander. If he wanted to be useful looking at “critical part of our infrastructure” – then there are number of better things he could usefully do – rather than chasing headlines.
Nicola Willis’s decision to cancel the Kiwirail i-Rex contract without a back up plan is coming back to bite. As costs pile up for the taxpayer, we have already lost half a billion dollars, but that won’t be the final bill. And there are still no ferries.
The Government is hoping that Carbon Capture and Sequestration will reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emission levels. But it is refusing to protect forests and trees, which are the best Carbon Capture and Sequestration devices going.
Last week the Coalition Govt said they were doing away with the name “fast-track.” This is a Govt of professional lobbyists so I am not surprised by their attunement to marketing. “Fast-track” became bad for business. The name had to go. They have also weakened regarding fast-track because of opposition.
What should New Zealand Labour learn from UK Labour’s success in the recent election?
Chris Bishop has announced proposed changes to planning laws that will increase urban sprawl and damage to the environment.
The Government is in a rather precarious position relating to the contract to replace the ageing Cook Straight ferries, which clearly need replacing.
The grounding of the ferry Aratere is potentially a political gift to National.
The Government is planning to reverse Labour’s previous policy relating to permanent safe speeds around schools. The change will decrease safety and walking and cycling and increase car use. And the upside is?
National and their minion parties just announced another massive $400 million R&D subsidy for agricultural greenhouse gases by taxpayers for the low profit industry of pastoral farming. This joins the other large and hidden subsidies levied on tax and rate payers to support rural and state roads capable of sustained heavy agricultural and forestry trucks.
It was always going to happen but it still rankles that an attempt to get farming to at least confront the damage it causes to the climate is being put on hold.
Yesterday’s Greenpeace’s War on Nature protest in Tamaki Makaurau suggests growing unity on the left and an increasing determination to stop the Fast Track Projects Bill from being passed.
Only a fool insists on furiously flogging a dead horse to go faster on the track.
Be there, bring your whanau, bring friends. Make it noisy and passionate and make it count.
Defence cost us more than $6.7 billion in 2023/24. Why does our small, remote country have such a costly defence force? Is it fit for purpose – and in 2024, what is that purpose?
Maybe Shane Jones is at least partially right about mining.
“But the truth is that real gains only ever come out of a mobilised civil society and achieving a mobilised civil society is exactly what we have to do.”
– Russel Norman
In the past week Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins have both delivered future vision themed speeches. With some dramatic contrasts.
Powercuts in a wealthy country like New Zealand don’t make us third world. It’s bog standard neoliberalism which has both impeded upkeep of our infrastructure and blocked meaningful climate transition. Third world is when you can’t afford to fix, maintain and futureproof society. Neoliberalism is when you do that by choice.
The Guardian published a major report yesterday on what top climate scientists are saying about the climate crisis.
Yesterday in Parliament Julie Anne Genter lost her cool when Matt Doocey misrepresented what the last Government’s NLTP priorities were. Should she be sanctioned? Or should she get a medal for pointing out that Doocey was totally wrong?
Environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben nails it in two minutes.
There is absolutely nothing to worry about if the Fast-track Approvals Bill gets passed into law and Shane Jones gets extraordinary powers to decide on consent applications which normally would be subject to enormous rigour and oversight.
It is almost as if the environment was really cruel to senior members of the Government when they were kids. But whatever the reason this Government appears to be intent on wrecking the local environment with a degree of vengeance and stupidity not seen before.
UPDATE: government forced to release the list of companies it wrote to about the Fast-Track application process.
Yesterday was the last day for submissions on the nature and society destroying Fast Track bill.
There is a bill before Parliament right now that has the potential of blowing a rather big hole in our reputation as an open and transparent democracy.
James Shaw’s attempt to create a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is expected to be voted down soon by Parliament. But the New Zealand Supreme Court as well as the European Court of Human Rights have shown a willingness to recognise a right to a sustainable environment that some politicians refuse to.
“It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey. “In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and that would be deadly for the population.”
All those climate scientists talking about temperature recently? This is what it means for us, right here, right now, and for the rest of our lives
Please choose life today and support the strike in any way you can: attend in person, share information on social media, talk to people you know today about why it matters.
“this is going to take all of us using our voice for nature, in all the places we are, to make it clear that we’re not against regulation, we actually quite like it, but we want regulation that is isn’t unbridled and puts power in the hands of Ministers in a way that New Zealand has never seen before.” – Nicola Toki CE of Forest and Bird
Greenpeace is calling the Government’s new policy priority list “the next onslaught in the war on nature” following Christopher Luxon’s announcement this morning.
Veteran climate activist Cindy Baxter writes about the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on her home town and the challenges of resiliency planning going forward.
