Press Release 13.11.11 Dr Peter Cleave, Mana, Rangitikei

Press Release 13.11.11Draft Press Release 13.11.11
Drifting into two kinds of debt and more.
Dr Peter Cleave, Mana, Rangitikei said today that there were two major kinds of debt for constituents in the Rangitikei electorate to beware of. The first of these is the ETS. Unsuspecting taxpayers will foot the bill while corporates slide out of their commitments. At this stage we will overshoot our commitment to Kyoto. Who will pay?
Dr Cleave set out the broad strokes of the present ETS position for Aotearoa-New Zealand;
• NZ is expected to overshoot its Kyoto target by 18%
• The ETS pays for less than 20% of the resulting liability
• The Government is borrowing forest credits to cover the gap and when this is properly accounted for, NZ is today 49 megatonnes in deficit – a multibillion dollar liability, the scale of which depends on future carbon prices.
‘As if this is not bad enough there is a catch,’ said Dr Cleave. He then set out the way this forty nine megatonne deficit could drift into escalating debt depending on carbon prices. This total position of a 49 megatonne deficit is worth:
• $1 billion at the $20.33/tonne carbon price used in the Budget;
• $2.45 billion at the $50/tonne figure the government uses for modeling after 2012 (when the credits seem much more likely to be purchased); and
• $5 billion if carbon prices rise to $100/tonne.
‘We cannot afford to sit with our heads in the sand denying the science of global warming and calling the ETS ‘a big con’ as Ian McKelvie is doing,’ said Dr Cleave. ‘And just as the Occupy protesters are telling us about the way financial markets have been corrupted we need to be wary of the same thing happening with the carbon market. It would be tragic if corporates manipulated this so that poor and working folk bore the burden of ETS overshoots.’
The second kind of debt is illustrated in a recent letter to the Manawatu Standard by Peter Wheeler (12.11.11). This involves Manfeild;
‘Manawatu District Mayor and National candidate for Rangitikei does it again, firstly he bails out the Manfeild Park Trust using rate payers money by buying back land gifted to the trust. Beat that for stupidity. Then he plans to sell off large chunks of district council land to the PNCC to get his council out of hock. And now he thinks that the National Parties policy on the Emissions Trading Scheme is a load of rubbish. What next, a subsidy to dairy farmers to continue polluting our rivers and land. He is already being subsidised for doing just that [polluting our rivers].
Even after this erratic and irrational behaviour the Manawatu Standard’s Grant Miller attempts to paint McKelvie as some sort of hero. We all know the National Party could nominate any farm animal as its candidate for Rangitikei and still win the seat but these days I'm sure even dairy farmers are looking for forward
looking leaders who accept that climate change is a fact and that farming or continuing to pollute our rivers needs serious consideration.
Finally and using the now infamous words of his [McKelvie's] party leader Key,
"Just show us the money" Ian. You couldn't do it for Manfeild; you couldn't do it for your council, so we must presume that you can't do it for the ETS.’

‘I support what Peter Wheeler is saying in his letter,’ said Dr Cleave. ‘We cannot afford to drift into debt this way.’
‘There is more,’ said Dr Cleave ‘There is a culture of aimless drift in the Manawatu at the municipal and the parliamentary representative levels. A major case has drifted in and out of court recently between Horizons and the Palmerston North City Council with one accusing the other of non- compliance regarding pollution. Aside from lawyers’ fees there is mention of a $600,000 fine. I have called for the Auditor General to look at this wastage of ratepayers and taxpayers money,’ said Dr Cleave. ’These things should not be getting to court, there should be proper systems whereby one council monitors another without wasting money on lawyers and fines.’
Dr Cleave noted that many locals are upset.
‘The unconscious drifting into debt of Ian McKelvie has been well described albeit in an unflattering way by Peter Wheeler in his letter above,’ said Dr Cleave. ‘What happened at Manfeild seems to have been more of the same; a strange kind of lofty denial that there is a debt and then an ongoing drift into further debt. Put that together with the drift and stagnation that we have with the Manawatu River and its pollution and I say the people of the Rangitikei deserve a lot better.’
One final thing; Dr Cleave said,'Peter Wheeler makes a good critique of the local Fairfax media who have set a standard in reporting minutiae and leaving out the main story that would set John Cleese off on one of his silly walks. As council and court proceedings are covered point by dreary point the progressive pollution of the Manawatu river by cities, towns, farmers and others has gone on noticed by some and almost willfully ignored by others. Who has been part of the problem and who has been part of the solution?'