6 March 2007

Key stumbles with policy on the hoof

The announcement today by John Key and Nick Smith that National would give foresters carbon credits dating back to 1990 show’s his political naivety by making up uncosted, unaffordable and unfair policy on the hoof," said Forestry Minister Jim Anderton.

“The value of carbon credits accrued to New Zealand from forest plantings since 1990 is $1.24 billion. This can only come from two places, taxpayers or from farmers, motorists and major industry. John Key’s uncosted policy-on-the-hop would create large windfall gains for a few forest owners at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.

“Mr Key must come clean on how many credits National would devolve, what this will cost and where the money is coming from. To suggest he would give away the credits and offer tax cuts is simply not credible - unless Mr Key has a plan to seriously scale back social services and sell assets.

“To claim forest owners have a right to credits from trees that were planted before carbon credits were even invented is to suggest farmers, motorists and the rest of New Zealand should pay for their emissions dating back to 1990. I look forward to John Key telling the rest of New Zealand they should pay for emissions produced before climate change was widely known about.”

The majority of Kyoto forests were planted before the Kyoto protocol was even negotiated at the end of 1997, before it was signed by New Zealand in 1998, ratified in 2002 and well before it came into force in February 2005.

“The Government has already devolved carbon credits for Permanent Forests and is now consulting on a range of options to encourage afforestation. One option proposed is to devolve credits to those who plant new forests from the 1st of January next year. This would be a world first,” Jim Anderton said.

“It is instructive that the National Party did not include devolution of carbon credits in their Blue-Green discussion document, which was launched just before Christmas and with so much fanfare. Today’s announcement by John Key, which has been clearly orchestrated by National party strategist Mathew Hooten, who moonlights for Roger Dickie's Kyoto forestry lobby, is the latest evidence of National working with vested interests who wish to line their pockets at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.

“The only good news in this announcement is that John Key appears to have finally accepted the reality of climate change and seen the opportunities of the Kyoto Protocol. This is a complete flip flop from his statement to Parliament regarding climate change that ‘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’.”

“The newly anointed emperor of the National Party has no clothes. I rest my case,” said Jim Anderton.

ENDS

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