From the transcript of yesterday’s Q & A debate on the Emissions Trading Scheme, a Green Party politician (Russel Norman) lectures a National Cabinet Minister (Nick Smith) on basic market principles:
Dr Norman: The problem is this, right – if you keep delaying [the ETS], everyone’s going to lose confidence that they’re finally going to face a price, right? And what they’re going to say is, ‘Instead of investing in technology to reduce our emissions, we’re going to invest in lobbying the government to keep our subsidies, because that’s much more effective and gets a better return.’
The video of the debate is here, notable also for the rare spectacle of Paul Holmes having researched the topic under discussion and speaking about it knowledgeably.
Meanwhile, the Greens have launched their election campaign billboards. They’re very clever:
They undermine the emphasis the traditional parties place on promising wealth and prosperity by redefining the language. But the Greens always have great advertising, and it never seems to work that well for them. Or maybe it does, and without it they’d fall under the 5% threshold. One of the many things I don’t know about politics is the efficacy of the various components of political campaigns. So far this year we’ve learned that policy doesn’t count for that much. Does visual messaging?
“Dr Norman: The problem is this, right – if you keep delaying [the ETS], everyone’s going to lose confidence that they’re finally going to face a price, right? And what they’re going to say is, ‘Instead of investing in technology to reduce our emissions, we’re going to invest in lobbying the government to keep our subsidies, because that’s much more effective and gets a better return.’”
Spot on.
Comment by Matt Nolan — September 19, 2011 @ 9:14 am
This government is not serious about the ETS. It has watered the ETS down, refused to include any of it’s key backers in the scheme, done nothing to actually achieve any targets and contradiction of the supposed goals of the ETS this government seeks economic nirvana in the search for and extraction of – you guessed it – fossil fuels.
But then again, if NZ were to strike a trillion barrel oil field, what chance of anyone than the about 1% of the population who are hard-core Greens saying anything other than “WEEE-HAAAA! Tax cuts and new hospitals for all!”
So 99% of us, if it came down to it, don’t really support the ETS if doing so means having to still buy Jap imports instead of brand new SUVs.
Comment by Sanctuary — September 19, 2011 @ 9:30 am
Norman is absolutely right about the what the consequences would be if the govt did keep delaying the ETS. But neither National or Labour are planning to keep delaying. What is happening is that some sectors have been given a specific time before they feel the full effects.
Comment by NeilM — September 19, 2011 @ 9:33 am
Matt Nolan +1.
Dr Norman is becoming a formiddable opponent as he speaks with knowledge and practical common sense on many economic issues. It is becoming untenable for opposition parties and the media to dismiss him as a “loony green who doesn’t understand how business works”. Probably not going to stop most of them though….
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 9:34 am
“Spot on.”
.. or not. My recollection is that National said it wouldn’t implement those parts of an ETS that put us in front of the pack and gave us an economic disadvantage.. “fast followers” was the phrase I recall.
And the boy in the photo might be saying “Look what daddy bought with his Parliamentary accommodation allowance”. Bucolic scenes might play well with the rich but must look a bit sick in the mean streets.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 9:49 am
As usual JC, what you “recall” is as nonsense, handwaving and vague slogans parroted by National Party hacks.
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 9:51 am
One of the reasons for the Green’s consistent polling might be the consistency of their message – everyone has a pretty good idea of what Green policy would be on any given issue, and there’s plenty of stuff for most people to disagree with. Their leaders come and go and usually seem sensible but bland, not dangerous but you wouldn’t really want them running the country.
Labour and National on the other hand regularly change their policy based on market research, so you can never be sure what they’ll support or oppose in each electoral cycle. This means partisan supporters can cherry-pick particular policies at particular times to help convince themselves that they’ve made the right choice. Also in Clark and Key they’ve had leaders that appear both trustworthy and competent to the 30%-odd of swing voters that can make them PM. (And Brash and Goff have been seen as incompetent enough to not elect).
So you might be right about the billboards keeping the Greens above 5%, but they’ll never break 10% with predictable, sensible, boring leaders – they need an equivalent to Winston or Nick Clegg. And if they keep announcing consistent, controversial evidence- and ideology-based policy rather than listening to their focus groups, people will continue to find many reasons not to vote for them.
Comment by gazzaj — September 19, 2011 @ 9:54 am
My recollection is that National said it wouldn’t implement those parts of an ETS that put us in front of the pack and gave us an economic disadvantage…
A better way of phrasing it might be “National said it wouldn’t implement an ETS that actually discouraged CO2 emissions.” The phrase might have been “fast followers,” but unless “fast followers” means “come up with something that lets us tell other govts we’ve implemented an ETS but doesn’t inconvenience our core voters,” I think it was the wrong phrase.
Comment by Psycho Milt — September 19, 2011 @ 9:58 am
Milt, according to the HoS farmers have cut their emissions by about 1.3% every year for the past 20 years.. why not simply accept that the objectives of emission control are being met.. and at a very fast pace at that?
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 10:17 am
Probably because you’re talking out of your arse, JC
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 10:20 am
Visual messaging certainly helped the Nats second-to-last time around…I’m not sure these Greens ads connect with those not already in the choir.
Surely the Greens biggest weakness electorally is that their get-out-the-vote-on-the-day strategy is based on hope.
Comment by sally — September 19, 2011 @ 10:21 am
why not simply accept that the objectives of emission control are being met..
Because what National has put in place isn’t an emissions scheme, but a scam to have taxpayers fork out to make Key look good in front of other countries’ PMs. It’s not a project I really want to contribute to.
Comment by Psycho Milt — September 19, 2011 @ 10:22 am
“.. or not. My recollection is that National said it wouldn’t implement those parts of an ETS that put us in front of the pack and gave us an economic disadvantage.. “fast followers” was the phrase I recall.”
As a nation we are liable for the emissions no matter what – by not including polluting sectors the rest of society is implicitly subsidising them. And Dr Norman is completely right that by doing this we mute the appropriate price signal and end up with investment in the wrong sectors – which in turn increases our liability and the tax bill that needs to be faced by everyone else in society.
If the government isn’t going to pay this liability, and so wants to keep agriculture out of the ETS, then they should be making that point – but as long as we are paying for our emissions excluding sectors for a significant amount of time just doesn’t make any sense.
Comment by Matt Nolan — September 19, 2011 @ 10:24 am
“One of the many things I don’t know about politics is the efficacy of the various components of political campaigns.”
One of the many things we don’t know about politics is the efficacy of political advertising, full stop … because campaigns are one-shot events without base-line comparators, we have to rely on (i) people’s subjective accounts of what matters to them (i.e. people filling out surveys about whether they pay attention to advertising, which is a notoriously bad way of discovering what “really” is going on); (ii) rough-as-guts correlations (“after embarking on their ad strategy, the party’s vote went up 5%, showing how effective it was!); (iii) “expert” dissection of advertising strategies (in which various credentialed persons confidently assert that ad strategy A led to outcome B, based on their own ex post facto assessment of whether they think the strategy is good or not).
None of these are a particularly good basis for knowledge.
Comment by Andrew Geddis — September 19, 2011 @ 10:24 am
It’s worth looking at Gillard’s proposed carbon and Norman’s response to it which was:
New Zealand Green Party Co-leader Russel Norman said the Australian move to a real price on carbon would demonstrate the weakness of National’s Emissions Trading Scheme: “Our Government will face a decision after the Australians move. And that’s whether we get polluters to pay or whether we continue to make the taxpayer cover their bill for pollution.
Australia’s scheme:
Under the new scheme set to begin on 1 July 2012, the government plans to include any company that produces at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
However, agriculture, forestry and land will be excluded from the levy. Motorists are also to be exempt, except for heavy lorries.
Steelmakers, coal mines and electricity generators will receive compensation to ensure they stay in business. Other tax cuts are planned for consumers.
That’s what Norman thinks is so much better than ours.
Comment by NeilM — September 19, 2011 @ 10:25 am
@JC #9 “…according to the HoS farmers have cut their emissions by about 1.3% every year for the past 20 years”.
That is categorically wrong. Absolute emissions (as well as water pollution) from farming have increased massively over the last 20 years. Emissions per unit of milk output have fallen, which is expectable with massively increased intensity. Cost of production per unit has also fallen dramatically. All of these facts together show exactly why farmers should, and can afford to pay for their dramatically increased emissions, and not have the rest of us subsidise them and pay for it out of our PAYE (which, apparently, farmers can get around paying).
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 10:33 am
The Green positioning is that of a middle-class lifestyle brand, not convinced that it is as effective in politics as it is at selling products like a Macbook or Audi A3.
Comment by Anthony — September 19, 2011 @ 11:08 am
“As a nation we are liable for the emissions no matter what – by not including polluting sectors the rest of society is implicitly subsidising them.”
But then, virtually no other country takes this draconian view of agricultural emissions.. these are excluded.. probably because a tax on food must inevitably be passed back to the population.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 11:21 am
I like how you completely ignore owning up to admitting that the statistic you cited earlier was complete nonsense in favour of giving us some more Kiwiblog-inspired drivel there, JC.
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 11:29 am
“probably because a tax on food must innevitably be passed back to the popultion”.
First, 90% of our daity produce is sold off-shore.
Second, it is more efficient to impose a tax at its source than somewhere else/ that is a very basic principle of economics.
Other countries don’t do this because they also are held to ransom by powerful lobby groups. New Zealand likes to think that we aren’t because of the removal of subsidies in the 80s. Its funny that the people that argued for removing subsidies are now arguing for subsidies in agriculture, by arguing we should not include agriculture in the ETS. The clear implication is that those vested interests benefited by removing tariffs and subsidies in the 80s, but don’t benefit from including agriculture in the ETS.
Typical rent seeking.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 11:30 am
whilst a little boy smiles some honky family swoops and steals all the fish
Comment by shorts — September 19, 2011 @ 11:38 am
> some honky family swoops and steals all the fish
Let’s just hope the little Maori boy doesn’t fall over and drown while the honky family swoops and steal all the fish. A young boy’s death is tragic but even more so if the boy happens to be Maori.
Comment by Ross — September 19, 2011 @ 11:50 am
as usual only the greens are actually thinking about policy, National and Labour are too busy rearranging the Titanic’s deckchairs.
Comment by alex — September 19, 2011 @ 11:50 am
JC said: “probably because a tax on food must innevitably be passed back to the popultion”.
It;s actually the other way round. If you tax the food producers, the cost is incurred by the consumers, 90% of whom are overseas (or by the banks, if it lowers the return and therefore halts the inexorable rise in rural land prices which is driving higher farm mortgages).
If you do what the current government is doing and pay the Kyoto Protocol charges on agriculture through general taxation, then you are passing the cost on to the New Zealand population.
Comment by Kahikatea — September 19, 2011 @ 11:53 am
Ross I fear for the boy too, for we all know our rivers are polluted and fish stocks low – if the family is hungry what chance for the lad?
or will he turn the tables on the fisher people
Comment by shorts — September 19, 2011 @ 11:56 am
“First, 90% of our daity produce is sold off-shore.”
NZ is an outlier for having so much dairy export, in many other countries the majority or all of the tax would land on the home population. Nevertheless, the 10% of dairy produce sold here is likely, over time, to be sold with the tax *plus* the cost of the tax that can’t be offset in export sales.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 12:03 pm
“pay the Kyoto Protocol charges on agriculture through general taxation”
I’m unsure why this point doesn’t get a LOT more airtime. We have a liability under Kyoto. National’s policies mean taxpayers are paying for it, rather than the people directly contributing to it (who in turn create even more of a bill for all us taxpayers cause meh, they ain’t paying for it).
Seems like a pretty powerful line to me…
Comment by garethw — September 19, 2011 @ 12:05 pm
@23,
The price of export milk is determined by the market, so some years the overseas customers will pay for the tax and in other years by the farmer.
Likewise, the price of land is determined by the market.. which has eased greatly since 2008 and farmers are now putting their investment money into intensifying production. However the basic reason for rising land prices has not been addressed.. we’d need a CGT or (better still) a land tax to address that.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 12:13 pm
JC # 27 said: “NZ is an outlier for having so much dairy export, in many other countries the majority or all of the tax would land on the home population. Nevertheless, the 10% of dairy produce sold here is likely, over time, to be sold with the tax *plus* the cost of the tax that can’t be offset in export sales.”
What economic principles mean that this should happen? It is constantly argued that New Zealand milk producers are price takers on the world market. They accept the world price when selling internationally and they charge the world price when selling domestically. The New Zealand ETS would not have an impact on the world price. Therefore the domestic price would be unaffected. Therefore any cost pass-through of the ETS to farmers would be paid by farmers, which is what we want, because taxing at point of cost is the most efficient course.
The only alternative is to pay it out of general taxation, which is not only inefficient, it is unjust because it taxes New Zealand salary earners for the emissions of milk produced in New Zealand and sold overseas (ie 90% of it) when it is the farmers that benefit from the revenue from this. Further, many people in New Zealand do not drink milk – I know a handful. It is not right for them to involuntarily be forced to pay a tax on something that they neither produce nor consume.
JC, I am fast losing patience with your ideological assertions.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
It is Gareth, but I remember when National originally changed the ETS to its current form we had winners like JC here screaming about how it was much better because it meant that struggling families would be paying two cents less a litre for petrol or whatever the fuck it was.
Never mind that said struggling families will be using their petrol saving a hundred times over to pay for the pollution of farmers and foreign owned steel/aluminium smelters. For example, in an excellent demonstration of how great free markets and neo-liberalism are, we subsidise the Rio Tinto aluminium smelter in tiwai point to the tune of $225,000 per job. That takes real genius.
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 12:19 pm
“We have a liability under Kyoto.”
But not for agriculture.. thats something only *we* dreamed up. As for Kyoto, it finishes in 2012 with no indication that anything like it will take its place.. it makes no sense to lock the country into a deal till we know what it will be.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 12:21 pm
But not for agriculture.. thats something only *we* dreamed up
What the? Kyoto-liable emmissions certainly include agriculture so what exactly are you talking about here?
Comment by garethw — September 19, 2011 @ 12:27 pm
@JC # 31:
Don’t be silly. Other countries (including Australia, US, EU) liability under Kyoto includes their agricultural emissions. There is no ‘special’ New Zealand clause that says New Zealand’s overall liability includes ag but other countries don’t have this.
Other countries though, don’t have ag as such a big proportion of their emisisons profile as we do. So when they pay their ag emissions out of general taxation, it doesn’t hurt everyone else as much as it does when we do it here.
JC, it really looks like you are just making things up. I suggest that you educate yourself about some of these issues JC – speaking from a position of knowledge is so much better than what you are doing.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 12:27 pm
“The New Zealand ETS would not have an impact on the world price. Therefore the domestic price would be unaffected. Therefore any cost pass-through of the ETS to farmers would be paid by farmers, which is what we want, because taxing at point of cost is the most efficient course.”
OK, lets test that..
If the Govt imposes some sort of ETS on petrol stations, they won’t pass it on?
The recent GST increase.. that wasn’t passed on?
The Govt puts an ETS on farmers.. and they won’t pass it on to the domestic market?
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 12:45 pm
Oh heck JC, why do I bother…
The difference is the source of the tax. If the government puts a tax on the END PRICE of milk sold domestically (including any that may be imported), or on the END PRICE all goods and services provided in New Zealand (GST) that will impact on the end price paid by New Zealanders.
Taxing the PRODUCTION of EMISSIONS will increase New Zealand farmers costs to the extent that they emit. But international supply and demand are unaffected because NZ milk is only a small proportion of world production (it may have a very small impact – enough to ignore). Supply and demand in the international market, and the ultimate price, will be unaffected.
I’m gonna leave JC alone now because I am getting annoyed. Someone else feel free to step in.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 12:55 pm
Don’t bother dude. A typical JC conversation goes something like this:
JC: “The sky isn’t actually blue”
Everybody: “What…”
Jc: “In other news 1+1 doesn’t actually =2″
Everybody”…”
this generally repeats until the end of recorded time/whenever enough people give up
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 1:01 pm
“Don’t be silly. Other countries (including Australia, US, EU) liability under Kyoto includes their agricultural emissions. There is no ‘special’ New Zealand clause that says New Zealand’s overall liability includes ag but other countries don’t have this.”
We are talking about the direct taxation of NZ farmers for their animals emissions, and as best I know we are the only country proposing to do that.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 1:14 pm
@ hobbes
If you are going to bring the cost of jobs at RT into this, you might want to recall when it was built and who did the deals. That was hardly a time of neo liberal excess in NZ.
Comment by insider — September 19, 2011 @ 1:16 pm
We are talking about the direct taxation of NZ farmers for their animals emissions, and as best I know we are the only country proposing to do that.
Right, but that kinda underlines my point by missing it – those animal emissions have to be paid for under Kyoto. Current ETS scheme makes Mr/Mrs Taxpayer pay for them on behalf of the farmer who therefore has no incentive to reduce those emissions and drives up the bill for Mr/Mrs Taxpayer.
We can discuss feasibility of emission reduction in agriculture etc, but doesn’t change the fact that I’m paying for them.
Comment by garethw — September 19, 2011 @ 1:19 pm
My assessment of the electoral fortunes of the Greens is that people who understand how important these long-term, civilisation-changing issues REALLY are….vote for them…and the other 92% vote for people who, like them, don’t understand….or don’t care.
The pattern seems to be that in 20 years we’ll see that the Greens were right…again and the people who laughed at them will still be running things because the people who didn’t have a clue 20 years ago still haven’t got one.
Comment by Steve Withers — September 19, 2011 @ 1:19 pm
It should be relatively straightforward to quantify the costs to the taxpayer of the watered-down ETS – has anyone done that? (Anticipated reduction in CO2-equivalents if the ETS was all encompassing x expected 2012 cost of units)
Comment by garethw — September 19, 2011 @ 1:21 pm
Yep gareth, there’s a good report here: http://www.sustainabilitynz.org/docs/ETSBillToAFutureGenerationNov09.pdf
Key points – from ’08-’12 households/small businesses responsible for 30% of total emissions pay 90% of the total cost
agriculture, responsible for 49% of emissions will pay 3% of the total cost
large emitters responsible for 15% will pay 1% of total
subsidies for farmers until 2012 is >$1 billion
all this for a 0.7% reduction in emissions, which is meaningless anyway due to things like lignite mining which are completely blowing out our emissions targets.
that’s not to mention the $200 billion or so of subsidies present in the scheme until 2090. Nothing like corporate welfare to brighten up your day eh
Comment by Hobbes — September 19, 2011 @ 1:39 pm
> The pattern seems to be that in 20 years we’ll see that the Greens were right…
I seem to recall hearing that 20 years ago…not to worry, as an eminent economist once said: we’re all dead in the long run.
Comment by Ross — September 19, 2011 @ 1:39 pm
“I’m gonna leave JC alone now because I am getting annoyed. Someone else feel free to step in.”
Good idea, you are confused.
For the record, NZ is the *biggest* exporter of milk product.. and 8th largest of both domestic and export product. Which means that because of demand NZ can certainly attempt to use its dominant position to increase export prices and hence domestic prices.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
JC:
Back from lunch to make one last point.
It IS true that NZ is the largest exporter of milk. Milk, being generally quite perishable, isn’t traded much internationally and for the most part countries meet their needs domestically.. Nevertheless, despite NZ being the biggest international supplier, NZ supplies only about 10% of traded world milk. That generally isn’t enough to be able to have much of an influence on world prices.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 2:07 pm
“Right, but that kinda underlines my point by missing it – those animal emissions have to be paid for under Kyoto. Current ETS scheme makes Mr/Mrs Taxpayer pay for them on behalf of the farmer who therefore has no incentive to reduce those emissions and drives up the bill for Mr/Mrs Taxpayer.
We can discuss feasibility of emission reduction in agriculture etc, but doesn’t change the fact that I’m paying for them.”
True, but that extra $11 billion in export milk product means you and Mr and Mrs Taxpayer pay less tax as well.. even if you are paying the ETS you almost certainly have a net gain.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
If the farmer paid the tax he would still make $11 billion of exports. The modelling in this area is quite clear – even with the tax in place, the most profit thing to do on that land is still to farm it.
So we don’t need to pay the farmers tax for them in order for the farmers (and as you imply, the country) to make all that money.
Comment by DT — September 19, 2011 @ 2:14 pm
“Back from lunch to make one last point.”
Pity.. I said “milk product” not milk, and we are certainly the worlds largest producer of product at 33% of the total world trade.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 2:18 pm
So some 90%+ of readers on this blog still believe in AGW, I am shocked.
Comment by Clunking Fist — September 19, 2011 @ 2:30 pm
Milk, being generally quite perishable, isn’t traded much internationally
Milk is traded around the world in massive quantities as milk POWDER.
It’s also what we drink in New Zealand.
NZ supplies only about 10% of traded world milk. That generally isn’t enough to be able to have much of an influence on world prices.
Absolute rubbish.
Oil prices can be moved about sharply when, say, a single OPEC country bucks the trend and raises production.
The recent quake and tsunami disrupted supply-chains for a small portion of the vehicle manufacturing industry, and retail prices in the US moved on it.
Flooding in the mining area of Queensland threw global commodity prices around.
Comment by Phil — September 19, 2011 @ 2:32 pm
“and we are certainly the worlds largest producer of product at 33% of the total world trade.”
Gee wrong again. We’re the biggest exporter, (I think). We’re barely in the top 10. Why do you feel compelled to make things up?
Comment by Guy Smiley — September 19, 2011 @ 2:41 pm
“Gee wrong again. We’re the biggest exporter, (I think).”
Which is what I already said. 8th in the world for total production and, because we had been discussing export I should have added 33% of the “export” market, for the anally inclined.
JC
Comment by JC — September 19, 2011 @ 2:49 pm
So some 90%+ of readers on this blog still believe in AGW, I am shocked.
Not necessarily – National’s approach to this remains crap regardless of whether AGW is occurring or not. If it is occurring, then National implementing a scheme that will bill taxpayers but do nothing to discourage emissions is obviously a bad plan. And if it isn’t occurring, then National implementing a scheme that will bill taxpayers to no purpose whatsoever is an even worse plan.
Comment by Psycho Milt — September 19, 2011 @ 2:55 pm
What makes the Greens think that billboards that are a carbon copy of last elections boards will get them a different result? (apologies to Einstein for the bad paraphrase). The Greens will pick up a couple of percent from Labour’s slumping vote, but that’s it. They just don’t get electioneering.
Those billboard ads for the Greens are good for internet and print ads, and may even work on TV, where people are focussed and have time to look, but they are a billboard fail. Most billboards are aimed at car traffic, which from NZTA figures is mostly driver only. Drivers don’t get more than a split-second to glance at a billboard. The Green boards have a cluttered background with white font that is hard to read *in a fraction of a second*. So the message is missed.
There is a reason Tui use snapshots of pretty women with the brewery in the backdrop for TV ads, but use a simple red/black backdrop for their billboards. The Greens are still flunking at advertising 101.
Comment by bob — September 19, 2011 @ 5:36 pm
The billboards. Thought has gone into them, and I’m happy to say that the Greens political messaging is better focused this year, towards those who don’t vote for them but could, rather than those who do, or those who don’t and are unlikely to. Whether it works – well, the general point remains. We’ll know in a few weeks.
Comment by George D — September 19, 2011 @ 5:43 pm
Clunking Fist wrote: “So some 90%+ of readers on this blog still believe in AGW, I am shocked.”
most probably still believe in evolution and gravity, too. shocking, isn’t it?
Comment by Kahikatea — September 19, 2011 @ 7:16 pm
A richer NZ? I guess they’ve got the demographics right what with the photo of the urban hipster T-shirt wearing, bone carving, straw hat adorned eco trendy killing trout (an introduced species) presumably with a fishing license for four kids and one adult.
Comment by little_stevie — September 19, 2011 @ 7:24 pm
Yes, a richer NZ. In the billboard above, this Maori kid is now so rich he has a team of Whitey out catching fish for him.
Comment by Psycho Milt — September 20, 2011 @ 7:21 am
btw, the kid isn’t even Maori.
he’s Pakeha/Pasifika
Comment by Kahikatea — September 20, 2011 @ 10:09 am
btw, the kid isn’t even Maori.
he’s Pakeha/Pasifika
I sympathise with the confusion. All white people look the same to me.
Comment by Phil — September 20, 2011 @ 11:55 am
He looks like he’s one of those hydrocephalitic dolls like Bratz – bad photoshop or evil superbrain?
Comment by insider — September 20, 2011 @ 12:06 pm