Triage

Not enough hours in the day.

The government is consulting on a pile of ways of making the country a worse place.

A container deposit scheme that would have us all hauling empty bottles to machines in supermarket parking lots to get $0.20 deposits back, rather than having them collected in our regular recycling, backed by a report claiming that Kiwis would get $912 million in intangible benefits from willingness to pay for that more trash is recycled. I put a lot of value on not having to haul trash around in the car, but the report doesn't care much about that. I'll wind up just paying the couple hundred bucks a year in forgone deposits. On the plus side, while I currently would never litter, the new scheme would mean that starting littering would provide some kid an opportunity to earn $0.20 per bottle. Maybe I should start. I'm a charitable guy. 

A reimagining of the entire research funding system that seems more concerned about addressing ethnic and cultural concerns than about science. It looks like it was written in a rush. It's going to wind up breaking things. It's hard to know where even to start on this one.  

Breaking the Road User Charging system by trying to make it also deal with climate change, when transport emissions are already in the ETS and covered by carbon charges in fuel.

The Commerce Commission is entertaining suggestions from the media companies that they should be able to collectively bargain with Google about their inclusion in search results. Submissions closed in December; I don't think I had time to hit that one except in a column. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage seems to love the idea, but seem to be ignoring the report they'd commissioned that concluded there was no strong case for following Australian approaches. 

Will be sure to stock up on drink before the stupid container scheme comes in. Expect I'll need more of it.