Roosting chorus: Emergency suggested

Labour & Greens vote for declaration of climate emergency and plan for Government to be carbon neutral by 2025, but seven days ago the Police decided to buy 2,000 petrol cars over next 7 years

Dec 02, 2020

TLDR: The Government voted this afternoon for a motion in Parliament declaring a climate emergency and announcing a plan to make the Government carbon neutral by 2025.

But the plan did not include any extra funding to encourage procurers to go electric and came seven days after the Police announced it had decided to replace its Holden Commodores and double-cab utes with 2,000 petrol-powered Skodas over the next six to seven years. The announcement today talks about ‘optimising’ fleets and ‘requiring agencies to buy electric vehicles ‘unless their operational requirements or other circumstances require.’

The Police decision represents 16% of the Government’s fleet of 16,000 vehicles, which included just 146 electric vehicles as recently as last month. The Labour-NZ First coalition pledged in 2017 to have an emissions-free fleet by 2025, but quietly dropped the ambition late last year after NZ First blocked a feebate scheme and procurers followed their ‘value-for-money’ procurement guidelines.

“While incredibly promising, electric and hybrid technology are not yet a viable option for our patrol vehicles,” said Commissioner Andy Coster, citing a lack of power efficiency and poor total cost of ownership.

National and ACT described the motion as grandstanding with little substance.

Elsewhere, New Zealand’s terms of trade dropped the most in 11 years as the currency rose because money policy was not loose enough. China’s main English language propaganda arm accused New Zealand of ‘bleating like Aussie sheep.’

The Government introduced its new top tax rate bill under urgency this evening, but disclosed it had rejected IRD’s advice in a Regulatory Impact Statement that they should have put up the tax trust rate to 39c too.

Meanwhile, Housing Minister Megan Woods acknowledged in Parliamentary Question Time the Government was spending $155,000 a day on renting or owning motels to house homeless people, quadruple the amount being spent three years ago. She refused to answer questions about whether the Government was actively trying to buy more motels, as reported by Newsroom late last month.

Coming up

Today - 7.30pm NZ Time - Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr gives the Sir Leslie Melville Lecture via Zoom at The Australian National University in Canberra.

Tomorrow - Dec 3 Maiden speeches
4pm Simon Court (Act list)
4.15 pm Camilla Belich (Labour list)
4.30pm Rawiri Waititi (Māori Party, Waiariki)
4.45pm Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Māori Party list)

Tues, Dec 8 - Maiden speeches
4pm Chris Baillie (Act list)
4.15pm Nicole McKee (Act list)
4.30pm Ricardo Menendez-March (Green Party list)
4.45pm Teanau Tuiono (Green Party list)
5pm Tracey McLellan (Labour, Port Hills)
5.15pm Anna Lorck (Labour, Tukituki)
5.30pm Ayesha Verrall (Labour list)