You want my vote. Well here is what you have to do. In fact, if you promised any one of the following I would probably vote for you. Promise two or more and I am yours for ever (if you followed through). I realize that if you are in a coalition all you can do is submit the bill for passing but even that would be enough to keep me voting for you. You have shown "good faith" If you have an absolute majority, thought, you must submit it and pass it.
Campaign Contributions
They are the core problem of all 'western' democracies and campaign contributions are why they aren't (democracies). Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune. Why are you surprised that politicians do the bidding of vested interests. It is the only way they can be assured of enough money to run their next election campaign. You know,,,, If you only passed this item, all the following items would fall into place almost automatically.
Encourage the Uptake of Electric Vehicles
Simply remove all taxes associated with the purchase and running of an electric vehicle. This includes any and all stamp taxes, import taxes, purchase taxes Fringe Benefit Taxes and so forth....... and all road taxes associated with the running of an electric car. If you can't bear to not make some government revenue from the electric fleet then wave all road taxes for the first 20 years of the operation of the car.
Remove all subsidies on fossil fuel
I mean everything right down to amortization. Let the fossil fuel Industries stand on their own economic merits. And note that renewable energy doesn't need any government subsidies. It can stand on its own, economically, thank you very much. Leave the exchequer alone.
Institute Tax and Dividend
Put a very small tax on fossil fuel when it comes out of the ground in your country or across your boarder from some other country. Every cent of the money collected is sent, at virtually zero cost, by electronic transfer in equal portion to every registered tax payer. (no sending cheques. No one uses them now and they cost money to make, to send and to process). This is the system called Tax and Dividend and was proposed by Jim Hansen. For once put money into the hands of the people instead of into the hands of the rich.
People low on the economic scale will use every cent just to feed their family, people in the middle will save up to put solar panels on the roof, people high on the hog will have a meal at an expensive restaurant. Win win win all around.
Oh! and by the by, the small tax rate on fossil fuel increases by a legislated amount each year. Any idea what investors in fossil fuel are going to do.
Cap and trade is a scam designed to make the rich even richer. Economies are not powered by making the rich, richer. They are powered by putting money into the hands of people that will use the money to buy goods and services.
Bottled water
To stop bottling our water and selling it overseas is just plain crazy. Water bottling is a license to print money and is three orders of magnitude more profitable per quantity of water than other uses. For instance it takes less than 1.5l of water to produce a liter of bottled water. It takes over 1000l of water to produce a liter of milk. Other agricultural products are in the same ball park; some using less water, most using more.
It is equally crazy to put this lucrative business into the hands of Coca Cola, Cloud water or any other outside concern. The reason we do this, probably has something to do with our much vaunted trade agreements with other countries. This would be a good test case to examine and find out why our trade agreements are shafting us.
Trade agreements might actually fall into the same category as agricultural subsidies (which New Zealand canceled some decades ago). We might find that we would actually be better off without them. We produce great products. If you want to buy them and we can agree on a price,, great. If not the rest of the world will come knocking at our door. Read chapter 2 of Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything. She describes how trade agreements get in the way, would you believe, of solving Climate Change.
Fisheries
Outlaw fishing in our EEZ (Economic Exclusion Zone) by foreign fishing boats and make sure that the local fishing companies are not rorting the system.
People working on the fishing boats must be permanent residents or citizens of our country.
Then make at least a third of our EEZ a no fishing zone.
Outlaw drift nets, bottom trawls and insist that the long line methods that are used are designed to protect our birds. The methods have already been developed.
Ensure that all fish are landed and processed in our country. Sell value added products overseas, not raw whole fish.
Make sure that every part of the fish is used. After filleting, for instance, the remaining flesh can be centrifuged off the carcasses, mixed with soya to make fish balls and marketed with a package of powdered sauce ingredients. making a really nutritious, inexpensive, tasty food.
The remaining part of the carcasses can be dried and ground to make a great fertilizer.
Lastly, give permits to fishing boats for a given tonnage of fish. Ensure that no fish are thrown back into the sea.
Flood policy
Put in place a rational flood policy. Floods come from the land and from the sea.
Here is a suggestion.
*Recognize that if an area is flooded, nature is telling you something in the clearest terms. Namely, that if this area has been flooded once, it will be flooded again. Unless you have some bomb proof system of stopping future floods, then heed the message. And contain your hubris. Do a little research to see if the solution you have in mind has worked elsewhere.
* Have a small cadre of government employees that are insurance experts and who's job is to hold the feet of the insurance companies to the fire and ensure that they give the effected people the full benefit of their policies.
*Add government compensation as necessary and make it generous. ONCE.
*The owners of the property are welcome to stay there if they want but they have received all the compensation that they will ever get. On the LIM, mark the property as uninsurable. With the money they have received, the owners can move to higher ground or can stay. The decision is theirs. But when the next flood comes, they are on their own.
*Demolish any houses that have been abandoned and turn the area into a park or wilderness area. Anything except property with flood prone assets on it.
Banking
Start to shift government business to Kiwi banks. Allowing Ausi banks to take approximately a billion dollars out of our economy every 6 months is simple stupid. Let me tell you a little apocryphal story.
Twin brothers marry twin girls. One of the girls is a little princess. She wants everything and she wants it now so her husband buys their kitchen equipment, furniture and every convenience.....on time.
The other girl says to her husband, no, we will sit on apple boxes and eat off our knees until we have money to buy our first big ticket item and we will continue this way, month by month, only buying what we have money for.
Now flash forward 5 years. The little princess and her husband have everything in the house they need but are paying off a big part of their salary in interest.
The other couple have just as much, and it is a little newer than the other couple but the main point is that they own it all. From then on all their money is theirs to do with what they want. Best of all they are not vulnerable to a down turn in the economy or some other disaster. Which couple do we want New Zealand to emulate. Unfortunately we have already behaved like little princesses.
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