To Nick Smith from Ian Wishart 11 May 2010

Nick, I’ve listened with increasing interest to your disingenuous 
attempts to disown your comments from 2005 when you said this:

 “The madness of the Government’s new carbon tax is that New Zealanders 
will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the 
costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand 
business for negligible environmental gain.

 “Labour Ministers may take pride in being toasted at International 
Climate conferences for being so bold and brave, but there is no 
justification for New Zealand going out in the cold by itself on this 
issue.

 “New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions made up only 0.4% of the 
global total and on a per capita basis our emissions are half those of 
countries like Australia and the United States. We are the only 
Southern Hemisphere country with binding legal obligations under Kyoto 
and giants like China and India have got off scot free.”

 You told Newstalk ZB’s Larry Williams that you made those comments in 
regard to a “carbon tax” and therefore that they don’t apply to the ETS.

 Not so fast.

 Your argument against the carbon tax, expressed above, was not because 
it was a tax rather than an ETS. Instead, your first mentioned reason 
for scorning it “is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the 
world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine 
the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible 
environmental gain.”

 Indeed, the rest of your argument hinges almost entirely on the NZ 
acting alone issue, and negligible gain.

 Act has already exposed your legerdemain in trying to equate NZ’s ETS 
with the much weaker European scheme, as some sort of misguided 
justification.

 I don’t care whether you call your July 1 scheme an ETS, a carbon tax 
or one of Alison Holst’s crockpots...the arguments you made against 
the carbon tax in 2005 are equally valid against the ETS for exactly 
the same reasons.

 Let the public record show your hypocrisy.

 Regards

 Ian Wishart

 Author, international climate bestseller, “Air Con”