New Zealand Celsias

National's absolute rejection of the Pure Advantage report on NZ's position in the green economy raises some further serious questions.

Why don't National look to the Greens. As a tactic of splitting a potential centre left government it is pure gold.

And as  National looks down the path of an election as close as the very next one , who will they have?

Clearly the entrenched National/Labour divide is so well entrenched that they wont look at Labour, even though they are closer on many things than many other parties.

NZ First is clearly hated by National. The lengths they went to at the last election to try to keep them out of Parliament were rather extreme. The weird policy on superannuation looks as though it has to have its origins in that place and the use of Epsom was just awful .

Act looks doomed to nothing at the next election and nobody could reasonably hope for the resurrection of Peter Donne’s party beyond his electorate seat. The Conservatives look like they will capitalise on the moral conservative voters but still need to cross a threshold….and their 1960s moral policies will  sit very uneasily with a largely liberal  National Party . So that’s tricky.

So, short of another party, which is always possible, National needs the Greens .

It was surprising that they didn’t offer a possibility of some agreements and working together.

While it may have been a relief to the Greens, it was unwise of the National Party for a host of reasons.

1)      They need them

2)      Working with them gives them at least one option whenever the next election comes

3)      Conceivably a liberal National Party and green policies are actually quite compatible

Lets see where they could work together –

Our Top 5 Picks.

1)      Still plenty of very poorly insulated houses that make neither economic sense nor health sense

2)      Renewable energy – the economics of Huntly don’t stack up and help with renewable energy or even light handed regulation makes very good economic sense.

3)      Electric vehicles introduction and encouragement.Given our annual oil imports( $7.7 billion ) encouraging electric transport makes very real economic sense for NZ. We don’t need the infrastructure that Project Better Place touts, and our grid can cope with many electric vehicles before it needs any additional capacity. Our night time energy is almost all renewable and this makes good sense.

4)      Social changes around protection of children

5)      Social changes, such as gay marriage wouldn’t shock most in the National Party either

And where would they be furthest apart?

1) Off shore oil drilling 

2) Fracking 

3) Coal mining 

4) Tax increases for high income earners 

So its these extractive industries , heavily subsidised by us all through Government subsidies are at the heart of the difference. Why is the Government so wedded to them ?

The risks are very high, and the returns to New Zealand are relatively low in relation to the value of the resources.