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Environment

Labour's Carbon Tax: Uncertain, Bureaucratic

"Yesterday the Clark Government announced their cap and trade system to be imposed upon local producers," says Peter Cresswell, Libertarianz Environmental Spokesman. "This is a system whereby a bureaucrat decides who can emit satanic gases and how much they can emit 'as of right,' after which producers must buy carbon indulgences from a supposedly developing market of such indulgences."

"The Clark Government figures they need a flagship policy on which to hang their 'sustainable nation' claptrap, meaning they intend to go into next year's election on a policy of shackling industry and raising food, fuel and power prices."

"Sounds like a winner," says Cresswell.

"If - and it's a big IF - you're going to shackle industry in the name of better weather, then a carbon tax that at least offers some certainty to producers is better than a system whereby production is capped by bureaucratic fiat-- and a carbon tax whose rate is linked to actual global temperatures and that is a substitute for another tax is even better."

"But such economic considerations don't bother a government in election mode who are blind to anything but electoral advantage -- even if that perceived advantage is based on nothing more sophisticated than rising prices, a shackled industry and a pipe dream," Cresswell concludes.

"And you can be damn sure it won't bother John Key and National either, who if elected wouldn't lift a finger to change a thing."

"It's enough to make you vote Libertarianz!"

ENDS

www.libertarianz.org.nz

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