Mike's Minute: Why didn't the Government drop the carbon auctions?

I'm not surprised. But because I'm not surprised, I am disappointed. 

Papers released publicly for the first time reveal the Government considered axing their mad carbon auctions. 

But, and here comes the disappointment, they didn’t. 

They considered dropping them because every time they mucked with the ETS, the confidence in a market they were trying to create was cratered. 

This is not just them, but the previous Government also, who were wedded to the idea that an invented market could work, despite the fact it didn’t. 

Multiple Governments have tinkered and fiddled. They have set prices and reset prices, but each and every auction has basically been a failure. 

Just quickly, if you don’t follow this stuff, there are four auctions a year. You buy credits, if you're a polluter, to offset your environmental damage. 

The trouble is no one turns up; there are no bids and the really bad thing about that is there is no revenue. 

If this actually worked there could be $2 billion worth of income. 

I can't remember how many times I've asked Governments about this, from Robertson to Watts. They all said the same thing, all defended it, and yet the irrefutable proof was, and is, they simply don’t work. 

Credits can be bought and sold in a variety of ways. You can plant trees, you can trade other people credits, but when you are literally dealing with an idea that is invented out of thin air and you have no faith in anyway, why on Earth would you turn up and pay the Government money? 

Obviously, the answer is you wouldn’t, and you didn’t. 

Hence the Government got to the inevitable bit where someone other than me asked "do you reckon this thing is worth sticking with?" 

Under Labour I was not surprised they didn’t kill them because that’s what ideology does to you. It blinds you to logic and common sense. 

But the current lot you would have hoped knew better. Well, as the papers show, they almost did and yet couldn't quite get there. 

So at the next auction, which by the way is September 8th, have a look and see what happens and call me if the answer is anything other than... nothing.   

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