The Government is not going to raise the price of petrol by 70 cents a litre to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, says Energy Minister Pete Hodgson.

Mr Hodgson was responding to a claim by Act MP Gerry Eckhoff that such a tax increase is being contemplated.

"If Mr MP Gerry Eckhoff wants to see Government policy on climate change he only has to look at the Cabinet papers we have been releasing routinely," Mr Hodgson said.

"Instead he has gone off half-cocked, as usual, on the basis of a passing remark in a year-old Treasury paper that has nothing to do with the climate change policy
process. The Treasury comment makes as much sense to me as Mr Eckhoff does, which is to say none whatsoever."

For climate change Cabinet papers see http://www.climatechange.govt.nz

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>