Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

Political ad-man John Ansell has called out National's "greenie in drag" Nick Smith, who along with Johnkey is intent on forcing a barmy Emissions Trading Scheme on unsuspecting New Zealanders from 1 July.

Ansell has shown Nick Smith to be a hypocrite, after digging comments the MP made back in November 2005, where he described Labour's proposed carbon tax as "madness".

At the time, Smith claimed to be vehemently opposed to a carbon tax which would "drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain"...

At the time, the National opposition launched a campaign arguing against the very idea of a carbon tax, including an axethecarbontax.co.nz website.

The appetite of Dr Cullen and this Government for more taxes is legendary, 43 new and increased levies and taxes have been introduced.

The latest is the carbon tax. It will add 6c per litre to the price of petrol, 7c per litre to diesel, 6% to all power bills and put the price of coal and gas up by 9%.

(Nick Smith, 2005)

That now rings as true as Labour's current 'Axe the Tax' campaign, which has Phil Goff and co. slamming the proposal to increase GST by 2.5% to 15%, while at the same time admitting the Labour Party is unlikely to reverse the increase (and certainly isn't considering "axing" it).

Ansell has labelled Smith's flip flop as "Nickpocrisy", as the Gnats prepare to go against the worldwide trend and force a crazy climate tax on kiwi workers and businesses, along with an increase in GST, and a significant increase in State spending.
The full impact of National's evil Emissions Trading Scheme isn't yet understood by the general public. But it won't take long. From July 1st, hard working New Zealanders will face substantial price hikes at the petrol pump and on their power bills, which will flow through to all other goods and services.

These new taxes are theoretically to pay for a ridiculous creation called "carbon credits", which is simply an underhand way of getting western countries to fund the workings of a left-leaning one world government.

(That plan however has stalled, with most countries in the world - including Australia, Canada, China, Russia, India, Japan, and the United States - backing away from the loopy and costly proposal).

John Ansell estimates the average New Zealand household will be saddled with at least $3,000 a year in extra costs because of National's ETS. And that's based on a carbon price of around $25. A increase to $100 which some are tipping will leave the average household facing a massive $12,000 bill every year!

NBR columnist Matthew Hooton recently noted that John Key's mind "must soon turn to extricating his government from the hole it dug itself by ramming its economically-vandalous and environmentally-pointless Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) through Parliament before Christmas."

Smith said in 2005 that "the only conclusion is that the carbon tax actually has nothing to do with Kyoto or climate change but is just an excuse for Dr Cullen to get his fingers deeper into the pockets of New Zealanders." Why can't he listen to his own words??

Despite the best efforts of the so-called mainstream media, the general public are starting to see through the bucketloads of green propaganda being thrown at them each day.

The relative failure of Earth Hour recently proved that New Zealanders can now see through the lies of "climate change". (Despite the internet hype, Rick Giles was totally right, and Earth Hour was an absolute bomb!)

Power consumption fell by just 2% during NZ's "Earth Hour" 2010. As TV3's resident greenie cheerleader Samantha Hayes said herself in her preview story, the "light switch vote will be a global gauge if people are feeling apathetic, or want action [about climate change]".

I take that tiny vote and general apathy to mean most kiwis don't want action on something based on lies and plain bad science.

* WhaleOil has added Smith's new name to his official Polictionary.

* John Ansell - Nickpocrisy

ACT Party leader Rodney Hide survived a debate over his leadership last month, according to NZ Herald political reporter Audrey Young.

The challenge to Hide's leadership of ACT was apparently led by deputy leader Heather Roy, and party founder Sir Roger Douglas.

The debate came to a head in late November, following the controversy over Hide's use of his parliamentary overseas travel allowance for his partner Louise Crome. The trip wasn't seen as a good for prolific perk-buster Rodney Hide, although Sir Roger Douglas has also been a heavy user of the overseas travel entitlement, including personal family visits in England.

ACT's only electorate MP, Epsom-based Hide formally apologised to the party's board and MPs after the media controversy, and confirmed he would pay back all the travel costs.

However while the leadership issue was discussed, any considerations of a challenge were dropped, after Prime Minister John Key indicated dumping Hide as ACT leader could end the party's coalition support agreement with the National Party.
Key told Heather Roy that her own Consumer Affairs ministerial portfolio would be in danger if ACT chose a new leader. Audrey Young says the squabbling within the Government's two support parties - ACT and the Maori Party - had John Key considering the idea of a snap election.

If true, that just indicates the National Party still fails to understand the MMP system, and is blinded by polling. Key's snap election idea was to try and give the National Party an outright majority in Parliament, rather than relying on minor parties for support to put through legislation.

However, despite the apparent continuing honeymoon in the polls for National, it is highly unlikely that voting under NZ's MMP system would actually have resulted in the National Party winning over 50% of the vote.

Minor parties traditionally fare much better at election time than polling would suggest in the rest of the parliamentary cycle.
National has also alienated many of its traditional supporters recently, pushing through an unpopular (and totally unnecessary) Emissions Trading Scheme (to "keep pace with Australia"??!), along with a failure to roll back any of Labour's excessive welfare regimes.

Key also rejected the 87.4% vote in a citizens-initiated referendum about Sue Bradford's "anti-smacking" bill, essentially dismissing the views of 1,470,755 voters. Key and English were also lightening quick to dismiss suggestions from a taskforce led by Don Brash, looking at how to bridge the income gap with Australia by 2025.
The Nats are lucky that many supporters just could not stomach voting Labour, but they would be arrogant to think that jilted members wouldn't protest by finding another party to support in a snap election.

However, Key's strong support of Hide is somewhat interesting, given the media storm over the ACT leader's comments at a fundraiser in Christchurch. Hide told a table of guests that John Key "doesn't do anything", which was entirely correct but a comment obviously not welcomed by the Nats.

Hide (perhaps unfortunately) publicly apologised for those comments, despite being 100% on the money. The National-led Government has done very little to move New Zealand away from social engineering and socialist path engaged by Hillin Cluck's Labour Party over the previous 9 years.

It is certain that a Labour Government in the same position would not have moved so slowly, or been so cowardly in winding back decisions and programmes put in place by the previous administration.

Back in 2005, a slightly less wishy-washy John Key correctly slammed Labour's expansion of the Working for Families scheme as "communism by stealth", but he and English have since refused to scale back state spending even to "mid-Cullen" levels.


* NZ Herald - Key steps in to save Hide's Act job

* Stuff - Brash economic recommendations unheeded

* NZ Herald - Don Brash to Garth George: You're wrong

NZ Herald cartoonist 'Body' understands rebel Maori Party MP Hone Harawira well. I'm sure he would probably prefer a New Zealand without all the annoying white people, going by the language in his recent email exchange.

* NZ Herald - Cartoon: That'll Please Hone

Despite the public protestations of inclusion, many within the Maori Party are still well grounded in their ideas of Maori separatism and Maori sovereignty.

Some understand that these ideals can be furthered by promoting individual responsibility, with funding for the likes of health and education following the individual (allowing for Maori education Maori health providers).

However others within the party (like Hone) can't see the woods for the trees, and want to cling to the big tax, nanny state control of their beloved Labour Party.

It is unfortunate that the National Party has been hijacked by Nick Smith's blind ambition to force through an unpopular, expensive, and totally unnecessary scheme to buy faux "carbon credits", especially when few other countries have anything similar passed into law.

Admittedly, doing absolutely nothing isn't an option (otherwise Labour's equally silly law comes in by default from January next year), but all that is needed is to repeal that bad bill, and agree not to put anything else in its place.

What in actual fact is the Government going to be "buying" with all our taxpayer money?? Carbon credits and the whole idea of a "trading scheme" for a natural gas is a huge farce, and one that more and more people are waking up to (despite the ongoing one-sided propaganda promoted by all those stupid journalists who swallow the PR fed by the IPCC's spokespeople.)