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Andrew Dickens: Does anyone mind that Year of Delivery has failed?

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Thu, 24 Oct 2019, 12:40PM
Farmers will offered a carrot and a stick in the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme announcement. Photo / File

Andrew Dickens: Does anyone mind that Year of Delivery has failed?

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Thu, 24 Oct 2019, 12:40PM

Dear me.

This Year of Delivery is just getting worse.  Here we are 10 months down and nothing is coming through the letter box

Today the Government dumped plans to bring farming into the Emissions Trading Scheme.  Reminding you that agriculture has been exempt since the scheme started in 2008. Now the government has opted for a sector-led plan to address agricultural emissions. This is what farmers had been asking for all along.

I think this is sensible because a penalty scheme does nothing to encourage buy in and long term reductions.  The ETS has always been an artificial scheme to me that does nothing except irritate and squash the economy.

This is all round awkward because the Government has always said climate change is our nuclear free moment and because the Emission Trading Scheme has always been part of it’s arsenal.

As late as July they were trumpeting a break through in calculating emissions at a farm level and they were proposing a 5 per cent tax on emissions.

But today all that is gone and the government will instead work with the farmers on reducing the emissions instead of penalising them. Which is what the farmers were saying all along

So we’re right back where we started after an awful lot of argy bargy and concern and insecurity that was damaging. Farmers have decided the government was against them.  Dairy farm sales have tanked.  All for no reason

And this happens all the time.

It’s like the Capital Gains Tax furore. The proposed tax scared investors.  People sold rental properties.  Housing stock decreased as the fear spread and people tried to realise a gain before they got taxed and then at the end of it all nothing happened.

We have a government with a load of principles who when push comes to shove doesn’t have the gumption to go through with them. Leaving many people saying thank heavens and then asking what was that all about?

Talk is cheap and this government has talked very cheaply.  We’ll build 100,000 houses.  We’ll build light rail by 2021.

But governments should not be spouting cheap talk.  You’re not in opposition now.  If you say you favour a 5 per cent tax on emissions then we believe you’re going to do it. If you say you favour labour law reform then we think you’re going to do it.  If you say you want to lower immigration then we think you will.  The we start making plans to cope.

But these things have not happened.  We’ve worried unnecessarily and we’ve talked our prospects down. But worse for the government is that no-one believes you anymore.

The Year of Delivery has failed and I don’t think anybody minds.

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