Hasty policy and long term effects

Governments of all shapes and colours are prone to following mainstream thinking blindly then applying one-sizefits-all solutions to whatever problem is annoying them at the time. The Covid response is a classic example.

Policy is given the once over by the health professionals then just when the policy is about to be implemented it is ‘‘considered’’ by a committee made up of a bunch of amateurs that we know as Cabinet. And we all know how the cow designed by a committee turned out.

We have to live with the idea that at least they are trying to do their best given that they are hamstrung by human rights, cultural and privacy issues.

Electric vehicles are apparently the favoured solution to vehicle emissions notwithstanding the various arguments about their ultimate lifetime carbon footprint. Just as with the much lauded ‘‘energy bulbs’’ that were meant to last longer and be cheaper to run (they didn’t) there does not appear to be any thought given to what happens when the device reaches end of life.

You are not supposed to dispose of fluorescent bulbs in landfill but where do they go?

Neither are you supposed to dispose of lithium-ion batteries there either, especially if they still contain a charge.

So have the powers that be actually set up, or even considered, a scheme to dispose of the electric vehicles and all their bits when they reach the end of their useful life. Sending them off to some third world country does not count.

If they haven’t, then I would suggest that we stop importing them until we know how to dispose of them. The old solution of kicking the can down the road has got us into enough trouble already. Geoff Orchard, Ohaupo unbalanced.

He spitefully executed a scorchedearth economic policy until his colleagues pried power from his hands.

The fourth Labour government had to reverse New Zealand’s long slide toward Third World status.

Shameless self-promotion: My biography of Sir Roger Douglas, based on primary and insider sources, will be finished in 2022.