MARCH 14 2020 LISTENER 13
A N T H O N YEL
LI
SO
Nsilenced!” martyr bomb and backbenching himself.
Either way, his shtick can’t continue.
VOTE CLEARASIL
But Ardern also needs to reflect on what NZ First
may have done to save the Government from a
catastrophic electoral gaffe over the electric vehicle
(EV) feebate scheme. At first glance, it looked as
though the party’s sheer bloody-mindedness had
spiked the Greens’ cherished policy. Lots of voters
will have been looking forward to EVs becom-
ing more affordable, in tandem with a punitive
new impost on gas guzzlers. But as National has
rejoiced in protesting, farmers and others reliant
on grunty utes would be seriously out of pocket as
no EV yet invented could be substituted; as would
lower-income folk who can afford only old used
petrol cars. And there’s the Treasury’s point that
the people most likely to buy EVs for the next few
years are those most likely to be able to afford them
anyway, subsidised or not. So wealthy townies
would tootle their leafy lanes in their Leafs at the
expense of farmers – already under the cosh on
many other policy fronts – and the poor.
This is would be to votes what Clearasil claims to
be to pimples.
NZ First’s answer was exemptions for farmers and
rural folk who can demonstrate they
need serious torque for their work or
properties. The Greens then insisted
on a strict limit to those exemptions,
understood to be of about 4000.
If there really are only 4000 New
Zealanders who regularly need to tow
stuff for their work, then our econ-
omy is on a secret, hurtling trajectory
towards de-agriculturalisation and we
really should be told.
NZ First has probably saved the
Greens from a slight on a continuum
with that of which Jones is guilty
against the Indian community. To say
only a very few thousand rural toilers
deserve to be protected against unfair
penalties would have been divisive
and confrontational.National will be so disappointed.
The mere impression that this might
be happening is paying it dividends
already, according to its polling.
The Greens, despite having
done an understandable amount
of brow-smiting about NZ First’s
intransigence, will need to give more
ground before the EV feebate can be
added to the Budget list. They’re still
smarting from the Government’s
prioritisation of roads in its
infrastructure spending plans and the
continuing indications that the $
billion Let’s Get Wellington Moving
programme is already redundant.
Remembering that 2019 was a
“mega mast” year for the bush tucker
on which rodents feed, the Greens are
only too well aware of the size of the
policy dead rats they’re now having
to swallow. A failure on feebates,
however, would equate rodentially to
digesting a 50kg capybara. Surely the
feebate exemptions can be negotiated
down to a middling Central
American agouti? lThe Greens are only
too well aware of
the size of the policydead rats they’re now
having to swallow.