A perplexing weekend. I was watching Q & A, Paul Holmes was interviewing Don Nicholson the ACT candidate for Southland.
Paul Holmes said that we need innovation and Labour’s $800 million R & D policy was good, and to fund it farmers were being brought into the ETS early, “farmers are sore about that” he said, “but why should they be?” he said. “We need high tech development.”
Maybe Paul, because the money is supposed to be saving the planet. It is bad enough that the Govt is going to make farmers pay for emissions that don’t exist but when people like Holmes think farmers should be happy to have 10% of their income taken unjustly and used to fund high tech development and ‘we need high tech development’ one has to wonder.
Well I have an idea, why doesn’t Paul Holmes put 10% of his salary towards high-tech development, he might be sore about that, but why should he be, we need high tech development.
Holmes, like Goff does not seem to understand the purpose and the function of the ETS. It is not a tax that raises funds for the Govt to spend willy nilly.
Cunliffe and Joyce have released alternative budgets for Labour’s new tax policy.
For some reason they have included revenue from agriculture being in the ETS. Cunliffe thinks the Govt will get $4.8 billion over 15 years from agriculture being in the ETS.
Stephen Joyce who is probably going to be the next finance Minister reckons the Govt will only get $483 million.
So much for saving the world it is a tax grab.
I don’t know why they have included agriculture’s ETS costs because other sectors ETS payments are not included in their budgets. Only conclusion would be the difference in entry date of 2013 for Labour and 2015 for National, which provides extra revenue for Labour. But 2 years of ETS payments don’t mount up to a lot, which leaves the possibility that Labour is planning to do more than just bring agriculture in early but also ramp up the percentage contribution.
National’ scheme has agriculture paying for 10% of its emissions; this stinks because agriculture’s emissions have increased by only 8.4 % since 1990 so 10 % is too high anyway. The contribution increases 1.3% each year under National which is pretty disgusting considering 10% is too high to start with, but this contribution percentage must be going to increase a lot more under Labour if they plan on sucking $4.8 billion out of the farmers in 15 years.
Truth is they won’t get a penny because as I have said repeatedly, the Govt does not get the money. The only one getting money is the one with the trees. And that’s only if they want to gamble on the carbon market. One dime per tonne on the US market at the moment I heard, might have been a joke, don’t know, don’t care.
For the sceptics among you, a MSN poll showed that even after all the scientists said their thing and the big spread in the NZ Herald with disaster pictures of floods and the scientists blaming global warming for them. 60% in the poll did not believe global warming was causing an increase in extreme weather. People are not stupid, well 60% of them aren’t anyway.
Frank says
With the both Labour and National budgeting on additional tax revenues from farmers under the ETS, do you really think that 200K of research will be sufficient to convince them to drop these policies?
Robin Grieve says
I hope it will Frank. One thing about the people of NZ is they detest injustice who ever is the victim of it. The idea is to show them what an injustice including biological emissions in the ETS is. Then we use the pressure this creates to make a change. Don’t forget National will need a coalition partner either this time or in 2014. National were 55% in the polls this time 3 years ago and they only got 44% of vote. ACT want to scrap the ETS.
neil says
how do we as farmers increase carbon in the soil i under stand AUS IS DOING ALOT OFREASERCH in this area surely this what weshould be consentrating a good deal of erfort on
Robin Grieve says
My understanding is that soil carbon is not increasing under most farming systems. I am not an expert but I suspect that under pastoral farming while a lot of soil carbon is created by decaying organic matter etc, there are also significant losses through micro organism respiration. This would explain the losses of soil carbon when pasture is converted to forestry, the losses continue but the renewal process through pasture decay is less.
I would guess the more nitrogen and fertiliser that goes on, the more grass that grows so hence the more soil carbon laid down. Whether this then increases the rate of soil carbon loss I wouldn’t know but the figures suggest this is the case.
My suggestion is that farmers shouild look upon themselves as custodians of soil carbon in the same way the rain forest is seen as a store of carbon so too the soil. There is more carbon in the soil than in the entire biosphere and atmosphere combined. By continuing to farm pasture as opposed to trees or cropping farmers are preserving this store of carbon. Under the CFI Aussie farmers are going to be paid to do this. Preserving soil carbon stocks is as valuable as preservibg the rain forest, farmers need credit for that.