This week's shenanigans have shown us how disjointed the grand coalition is, and how senior members of the Government have very serious issues with credibility and competence.
Where to begin...
Rugby World Cup hosting rights debacle
One word: shambles.
A swag of Government ministers have come out of this smelling bad. And it may not be over.
If the IRB rejects the bid (which seems a strong possibility), the shit-fight will be on again.
People who enjoy car crashes may have more to drool over yet.
ACC changes
Nick Smith lost the plot yesterday when he said he would throw himself under a train because his family would benefit under ACC's current policy. He was referring to the compensation paid to families of those who commit suicide.
The remark was callous, and it reflects a man under pressure. I don't wish to revisit some of Smith's past issues, but he is under intense scrunity and appears to be cracking.
And then there are the ACC changes themselves. It is difficult to see the justification for increasing registration fees for motorcyclists by such a vast amount. It could be argued that because motorcyclists have more accidents they should pay more (the counterargument of course being that it's because cars keep hitting them, which is not always motorcyclists' fault, but I'd rather not go there), but the huge increases in registration fees are unreasonable and have to be seen as punitive. Clearly, someone in a motorbike has pissed the ACC minister off.
But now it turns out the Nats don't even have the numbers to proceed with changes to the law. It's hard to believe they announced something without talking about it to their support partners. My pick is they'll go cap in hand to the Maori Party yet again. That will only incite the National core. Wait for more cries of "Neville Key".
If Nick Smith really wants to throw himself under something moving, I'm sure a number of motorcyclists would be more than happy to volunteer their services.
ETS
The finance and expenditure select committee has been hearing submissions on legislation to amend the emissions trading scheme.
About half of the over 300 submitters to the select committee indicated they wanted to be heard.
But the process is being rushed madly through the select committee, and some submitters only found out yesterday they were going to be asked to speak that very day.
Remember this?
The legislative process has been rushed and inadequate given this Bill’s complexity and significance. The public has not had adequate time to examine and submit on the Bill, and it is evitable that serious mistakes* will be made that will adversely affect New Zealanders.That was National's minority report on Labour's ETS.
And Nick Smith in 2008 said:
The legislative process of the current Bill before Parliament on the ETS has been rushed and inadequate given its complexity and significance. The public has not had adequate time to examine and submit on the Bill, and it is evitable that serious mistakes will be made that will adversely affect New Zealanders. This process has not been conducive to getting such an important Bill right nor in getting the cross-party support needed to ensure the stability and longevity of New Zealand’s ETS.Are these people incompetent, stupid, or just dishonest? Do they expect to get away with the same shit they openly criticised Labour for?
* It is also [in]evitable serious mistakes will be made when you don't bother to spell-check your own key documents. WTF?
National and Smith seem determined to show us 'How not to design an ETS'. Did you see that Colin James described it as 'the ETS you have when you are not having an ETS', because of the 'capless' intensity-based free allocation of units. Now the PCE has commented in a similar vein. A quick look at the Nat's bill shows verbose and complex sections to set out the gifting of credits to business. The bill and the CCRA 2002 could be half the size if units had to be auctioned.
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