That seems to be the Liz Truss-like (government income’s down: let’s cut taxes) philosophy underlying several policies of the new government.
One example of this is Finance Minister Nicola Willis telling beneficiaries that indexing benefits to inflation, rather than to wages, will mean bigger increases for them through to 2025, but also claiming it will provide savings to help fund tax cuts (while not providing for the predicted rise in unemployment, and therefore numbers receiving a benefit). Civis was competent in maths at school up to School Certificate level, but struggled when calculus appeared on the syllabus in the Sixth and Upper Sixth classes, unable to grasp its underlying principle — did it involve odd things happening as numbers approach zero, or something like that? Is Ms Willis perhaps able to work magic beyond Civis’s understanding, to reconcile these apparently mutually contradictory goals, through using calculus? That seems unlikely, especially as her claims about how much income would be generated by schemes like allowing foreigners to buy expensive houses and pay tax on the transactions, to fund her tax cuts for the better-off, suggested she can’t manage simple arithmetic.
An interesting sideshow to the government’s destructive policies regarding "global boiling" has been Green MP Chloe Swarbrick’s apology in Parliament, a week after describing the Prime Minister’s claim, during Question Time, that the government was "not weakening our actions on climate change, we’re just going about it a different way", as a "demonstrable lie".
Accusing a member of the House of Representatives, during debate in the House, of lying is forbidden under Standing Orders of the House. David McGee pointed out in his authoritative Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand (Civis’ copy is a rather battered 1985 edition) that "if such an accusation were correct the [accused] member would have committed a contempt and a member who believes that another member has lied to the house should raise this as a matter of privilege".
He goes on to say "that a member must not accuse another of lying does not mean that the correctness of that other’s statement may not be questioned".
Ms Swarbrick, in her personal explanation to Parliament, said "I made comments intended to challenge the content of the prime minister’s answer to oral question number one, I can understand how this statement could be interpreted to be a personal reflection against the prime minister ... and to that effect I apologise to this House".
The careful wording of her apology suggests that, since being asked to apologise, she may have consulted McGee (probably the October 2023 5th edition, online). It’s clear that while she has apologised for accusing the prime minister of lying, she hasn’t resiled from the underlying reason for that accusation — that it’s incorrect (as the latest Climate Commission report makes clear) to claim that the government policies won’t weaken New Zealand’s actions on climate change.
The government’s plans, including those noted above, will inevitably increase New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. If it really has a scientifically credible "different way" to reduce them (none of its suggestions stand up to scrutiny), why hasn’t it explained it? The answer’s obvious.
