John Key’s newest tactic to silence farmers is to proffer himself a s their saviour by claiming his scheme is only going to cost $3000 per year per farmer while labour’s was going to cost $30000 per year in the year 2030
This presumes we are not going to have a labour government between now and 2030. This would be nice but I have to say that is not likely. Labour’s propensity to control us became too much for the electorate finally and history signals National will suffer the same fate sooner or later. My bet is it will be sooner and I base this on a couple of examples all involving Stephen Joyce. The guy is an absolute control freak, no cell phones, lower blood alcohol levels, raising the driving age, this guy is no fun whatsoever and he is John Key’s darling so it won’t be long before he is promoted and his ability to control us is increased and with it an eventual electoral backlash.
But anyway let’s not worry about that now. National’s ETS amendments will be passed into law this week under urgency. The Maori party will support it for some muskets and blankets for their people.
This gets rid of Labour’s bad bill and replaces it with National’s bad bill. While agriculture has now 5 years grace instead of 3 years it should not be seen as a better bill. So many of the important details about agriculture’s liability and how much is rebated can be changed by order in council by whoever is in government at the time. It does not need to come back to Parliament for major changes to be made. $30,000 per farm per year is as likely an outcome as $3000 by the time we get to 2030.
But what ever the amount is it is unjust, and this is what Mr Key does not understand. The tax that is being imposed is unjust because it is supposedly a penalty for activities that increase greenhouse gases and cause global warming yet there is no evidence that agriculture contributes to either of these. In fact all the evidence indicates that it does not.
In Edwardian times a tax was imposed for the purposes of revenue. A household was taxed according to the number of windows in the house. It was called daylight robbery but it was honest in that it was a tax for revenue and it was based on the number of windows you had. Mr Key’s carbon tax on agricultural emissions is not honest because it sets out to tax an activity for something it does not do.
If you visit Manchester you will see houses built in that era with fake windows. They were designed to balance the outward appearance of the house and to minimise the tax liability. This tax was an honest tax and they called it daylight robbery. There is nothing honest about John Key’s tax; I wonder what we should call that.