From Frogblog

I wish to quote a post from Frogblog in full:

A few Quotes from John Key - Pre Election
“National will have policies that reflect the fact that living on a diet of carbon will be increasingly bad – bad for the world and bad for our economy. We will have policy that encourages ‘climate friendly’ choices like windmills, hydro power and tree planting, and reduces the desire for ‘climate unfriendly’ behaviours, like burning coal”

“Any political party with an eye to New Zealand’s future success must pursue policies that protect and promote our environmental assets.”

“National will provide Kiwis with good signals about the cars that are the best for the environment. We will do this by ensuring our emission and noise standards for new vehicles keep up with international standards and practices and by introducing more sophisticated emissions and noise testing for existing vehicles. If Kiwis have a highly polluting or excessively noisy car, we think they should know about it and have an incentive to do something about it”

“National proudly shares many of your values: like you, we want to protect our unique native species. We want our children and grandchildren to be able to swim in our rivers and lakes. We believe in sound environmental science. We are committed to high environmental standards”

“Government policy decisions over the next few years will have consequences that keep reverberating not just for the next 10 or 20 years but for the next 50 and beyond. So it’s vital we get them right.”

and lastly:

“We should always measure a government’s environmental rhetoric against its environmental record”

Thanks to Forest and Bird for pulling these together.

So how are those nice words stacking up? Well, so far National has:

• Announced ETS Review to find out if climate change is real
• Repealed Biofuel Bill, including sustainability standard
• Scrapped “Love NZ” public place recycling
• Scrapped $1bn insulation fund
• Introduced the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Act, which, amongst other things, prohibits councils from making general rules about trimming or felling trees.
• Hiked the fee for commencing appeal or inquiry proceedings in the Environment Court from $55 to $500, so community groups can’t afford to file against environmentally damaging projects.
• Cut funding to Enviroschools
• Cut funding to the Department of Conservation, including natural heritage management
• Cut funding to the Ministry for the Environment
• Cut funding for fisheries sustainability, biosecurity
• Refused to stop the import of palm kernel, despite overwhelming evidence and public outcry
• Opposed (and killed) Marine Animals Bill
• Introduced terrible ETS Bill
• Budget for environmental education: cancelled.
• Renewable electricity preference: cancelled.
• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy: cancelled
• Fuel economy standards for cars entering New Zealand: cancelled
• Minimum energy performance standards for appliances: seriously delayed
• DoC’s budget: cut by $13.5m/year
• Plans to mine in National Parks

I’m seeing a wee disconnect here. Are you?