Agree with your sentiments Bradford, but I'm wondering if the NZ government isn't a little cautious with implementing expensive green policies given their recent experiences with apparently not thinking some changes through properly.  

One would be the decision to ban the use of pressure treated lumber without requiring stiffer building codes to ensure that the non-treated lumber didn't get wet and rot.  Which it consequently did with alarming regularity and at a huge cost to the NZ housing stock.

Another would be the seizing of investment forests as carbon sinks without appropriate compensation to the investors (ironically, investment forests were a previous government's initiative, i.e. the government of the day was asking you do it!),  I've not seen any clear data on the impact that it's had but it surely doesn't serve as a good poster for foreign investment.

You are entirely correct, Mr. Plumer. Helen Clark's government is engaging in counterproductive policy. Nari224: Very informative post - I had not know about these less than well thought out initiatives.

Brad, I think it has a lot to do with Clark's Labour Party polling behind the National Party, with elections coming up in the fall. Well, our fall, their next spring.

In the Lake Taupo region a month or two ago, I noticed that there was a lot of clear-cutting being done in advance of a new set of carbon counting rules. Certainly the advent of the new rules caused short-term incentives for all sorts of crazy behavior, and people I talked with were divided about whether the whole exercise was a result of not thinking things through, or whether once it all settled down it would work out OK. More support for the first position, though.