TL;DR: The Government professes to take emissions reductions seriously, but has repeatedly made policy decisions in recent months that allow our biggest emitters to carry on receiving subsidies and consents to emit millions more tonnes of planet-warming gases for decades to come.
I asked Chris Hipkins and Megan Woods about the Government’s climate record in recent months at a news conference in Auckland yesterday. The audio of the questions and answers are in the podcast above in full for both paying and free subscribers.
The full details of the exchanges and the background to the Government’s actions are below the paywall fold for paying subscribers.
Saying one thing and doing another
The Government, which still says it is treating emissions reduction as a climate emergency and a nuclear-free moment, has, however, defended its decision to allow NZ Steel to extend the consent on its Glenbrook steel mill until 2046 without the Auckland Council having to consider climate change in the consent process.
Environment Minister David Parker decided in October last year not to ‘call in’ the Glenbrook consent for the Environmental Protection Agency to assess it. A 2004 law passed under the previous National Government banned councils from considering climate change when making consent decisions. Labour repealed that law in 2020, but it did not formally kick in until November 2022, after a one-year delay quietly announced just before Christmas 2021. The delay meant NZ Steel, which is owned by Australia’s Bluescope, was able to shunt the consent through for another 25 years under the old law ignoring climate change, just days before its expiry, as Eloise Gibson reported for Stuff this week.
NZ Steel is Aotearoa’s 11th-biggest emitter and is already granted 90% of its carbon credits for free because it is deemed to be competing with other steelmakers globally, who also don’t have to buy carbon credits. Parker’s decision to allow the consent through for another 25 years without considering the climate came despite urgent pleas from officials worried about the message that sent:
“Calling the discharge consent in shows that the Government takes its climate change commitments seriously.” Official advice to David Parker in October last year via Stuff
I asked PM Chris Hipkins and Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods about this latest decision yesterday at an announcement about an emissions-reduction grant for the Chelsea sugar refinery in Auckland, along with questions about:
last month’s failure of an Emissions Trading Scheme auction that opened up a potential Budget hole of $2 billion because of tweaks to the scheme made by the Government in December against the advice of the Climate Commission;
the refusal of Government-owned gentailers to build renewable electricity plants that are already consented and could generate over 2 Gigawatts of power annually, equivalent to 25% of existing renewable supply; and,
whether the Government should reduce demand for Chelsea’s emissions by introducing a sugar tax.
In essence, they answered:
Labour doesn’t want to de-industrialise the economy and thinks it can still catch up with the emissions reducing trajectory recommended by the Climate Commission with yet-to-be announced policies;
the Government thinks it can get the ETS back on track and deal with the fiscal hole and emissions reduction shortfall with yet-to-be announced policies;
it is hopeful new electricity market entrants will build new generation, essentially giving up on forcing the gentailers to use their existing consents, other than potentially to shorten the consents to make them ‘use it or lose it’; and,
Hipkins isn’t interested in a sugar tax to reduce demand.
Paying subscribers can hear more detail in the answers to the questions in the podcast above.
Scoops and news breaking this morning
Escape valve opening - 501 deportations from Australia have slowed dramatically in recent months, indicating Australian PM Anthony Albanese is set to announce a more open approach to residency rights for the 700,000 New Zealanders living there when he meets PM Chris Hipkins in Brisbane over the weekend. NZ Herald-$$$ (Michael Neilson)
The latest figures show since 2015, 1326 of the (nearly 3,000) people deported from Australia had since been convicted of 11,301 offences, including over 1900 violent offences. NZ Herald-$$$ (Michael Neilson)
Wayne Brown goes AWOL - Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has gone at short notice on a ‘self-funded’ trip to Sydney to ‘investigate light rail there.’ It meant he didn’t attend a key Transport and Infrastructure Committee meeting, the chair of which did not know where he had gone. Brown’s office also initially said he was travelling with Auckland Light Rail City Rail Link CEO Tommy Parker, but CRL later said that was not true. Stuff (Todd Niall)
Brown’s absence emerged early in the day when Stuff sought, through his media team, a brief, written comment or chance to speak with the mayor during the Transport and Infrastructure Committee meeting.
But the mayor was not at the meeting. Committee chairman John Watson listed Brown’s apology, but without the sometimes added line “on council business.”
When Stuff asked Watson during the lunch break what grounds had been offered by the mayor for his no-show at a major committee meeting, Watson thought it could be council-related, but wasn’t sure. Stuff (Todd Niall)
D-Day looms for climate-hit properties - Auckland Council plans to release the first details of proposed new building rules for clifftops and coastal and flood-prone areas in August. NZ Herald-$$$ (Bernard Orsman)
Auckland-wide planning manager Phill Reid said the work to identify where new homes could be built safely would be delivered in stages, with some initial recommendations expected by August.
He said these would be around new rules being drawn up in coastal areas prone to flooding and slips using updated evidence. For example, instead of planning for a one-metre rise in sea levels over the next 100 years, it is being suggested the new rules would apply to a 1.5m sea-level rise. NZ Herald-$$$ (Bernard Orsman)
Just briefly
TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps Pushing Suicide to Vulnerable Kids. Bloomberg1 (Olivia Carville)
Milestones
For the Forest and Bird(s) - The Environment Court yesterday overturned a decision to allow the development of a new coalmine at Te Kuha, behind Westport, after court action by Forest and Bird. RNZ
People moves
National’s King Country electorate committee re-selected MP Barbara Kuriger for the safe seat yesterday, despite her recent demotion by leader Christopher Luxon after revelations she used her status as an MP to pressure MPI officials over a family dispute. RNZ
Quotes of the day
Contrition in short supply
“These attacks have been careless, orchestrated, out of context and demonstrably inaccurate. Comprehension of satire has been traded for woke stupidity. My kids said I'd be cancelled. They were right.” National’s Taieri candidate Stephen Jack in a statement to RNZ after he resigned as a candidate on Wednesday in the wake of the discovery he had retweeted an ugly, sexist joke.
Framing a debate without all the options
“What this Budget proposal is really about … is creating a sense of panic to persuade people that policies … like spending cuts & asset sales … are a necessity.” Better Budget for Auckland campaigner India Logan-Riley in an Op-Ed for NZ Herald-$$$
Quick: What’s another phrase for ‘the rocket blew up?’
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.” Space X tweet this morning.
Charts of the day
ECB board member cites profit growth behind EU inflation
Substacks of the day
My diary for this week ahead
Today - The RBNZ is scheduled to publish its half-yearly Credit Conditions Survey data for March at 3pm.
This weekend through to ANZAC Day on Tuesday April 24. Hipkins is scheduled to visit Brisbane for meetings with Australian PM Anthony Albanese, including the expected announcement of looser settings for New Zealanders living in Australia, as flagged last year after then-PM Jacinda Ardern’s first meeting with Albanese. He then travels on to London and Europe for King Charles III’s coronation on May 6.
Next week and beyond
Wednesday April 26 - IRD and Treasury to release papers on wealth and tax, with Revenue Minister David Parker due to give a speech around midday in Wellington.
Wednesday May 3 - RBNZ half-yearly Financial Stability Report in Wellington.
Thursday May 18 - Budget 2023 in the Beehive and Parliament.
Wednesday May 24 - RBNZ Monetary Policy Statement in Wellington.
July 11/12 - PM Chris Hipkins to attend NATO summit in Vilnius.
Saturday October 18 - General Election
The Craic
NZ Art Parallels
Ka kite ano
Bernard
A gift link from me as a Bloomberg subscriber to you. I have 5 of these to give away each month. This is the second.
Govt defends NZ Steel's 25-year extension