TL;DR: Just when you thought the climate policy bonfire couldn’t get any worse, we find it has in the bowels of a parliamentary law tweak to the Emissions Trading Scheme. Kirsty Johnston reports for Stuff this morning that the tweak lobbied for by major polluters looks set to give them even more free credits, the exact opposite of the objective of the original law.
Elsewhere, PM Chris Hipkins confirmed overnight he will travel this weekend and next week to Australia, the UK and Europe for meetings that may confirm an EU trade deal, closer links to NATO and an easier pathway for New Zealand workers to flee to Australia and stay there with full Australian-style rights to healthcare and education.
Also:
Just when we should be increasing public transport usage, Auckland Transport announced 150 job losses after Auckland Council cut its budget and its new CEO is out asking for $25 million in emergency funding to bring patronage back up to barely 80% of pre-covid levels, from 60% now; and,
Grocery prices drove almost all the food price inflation in March and almost half of all the 12.1% inflation in the year to March.
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