National’s mining policy is ‘dig and hope’. That’s the only conclusion one can draw after Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith admitted National has no idea of the value of the minerals supposedly under the protected lands they want to dig up. Remember, this is National’s lynch-pin economic policy. They are we have dig up these protected lands for the sake of the economy but have no idea of what’s there.
Denis Tegg of Coromandel Watchdog writes that National is vastly over-estimating the mining potential of the Coromandel. It would take hundreds of mines and tens of millions of tonnes of toxic tailings to get the billions promised. The people of Waihi know that despite the wealth dug up from underneath them, their town is mired in poverty and permanently threatened by tailings leaking.
The flagship publication of the global free market The Economist has attacked John Key’s mining plan for undermining New Zealand’s 100% pure brand. It seems the Greens have a better understanding of market economics than John Key. Maybe Mr Key should’ve asked for advice after all on how his plan might hurt the Kiwi brand?
There’s a hell of a lot of mis-information and confusing numbers about the economic potential of mining around, and that suits Gerry Brownlee and National because it lets them exaggerate the case for opening up the National Parks. Remember, more mining is the government’s one big plan for the economy but they can’t even give a ballpark figure on how much they expect the country to gain.
Most of the world’s supply of the key rare earth metals comes from China. That’s a strategic problem for the US, which needs rare earths for high-tech military equipment. They don’t want to be dependent on the world’s other superpower, and potential adversary, for their military hardware. Is it a coincidence that the Nats are so keen to let foreigners mine for rare earths in our national parks?
National Party MP Nikki Kaye is hitting out at her own leader John Key’s plan to mine Great Barrier Island. She joins the growing list of conservative opponents against the plan, with Auckland Mayor John Banks also voicing his opposition. It shows just how toxic this mining plan is.
John Key’s mining plan released yesterday is true madness. It sacrifices New Zealand’s natural heritage to make a buck for a few multi-national mining companies. The full list of changes make it clear: Key is mounting an attack on our conservation areas on a scale that even George W Bush couldn’t stomach.
John Key’s discussion document is out and is proposing slice more than 7000ha out of our most precious conservation lands. Forest and Bird’s information was right. It includes: Coromandel, Paparoa National Park, Great Barrier Island. With Northland and Stewart Island on the wish-list too!
A building with built in wind turbines that can generate a portion of it’s own power needs as well as feeding into the main grid? Well there’s a new building called the ‘Razor’, in south London, which can do just that, and looks like something out of science fiction. View the photo display featured in the Guardian.
The Herald has a editorial lambasting John Key about claiming this week that they were ‘hysterical’ writing about the plans to mine the conservation lands, and that there were no such plans. Later in the week, the government launched a probe to find out who leaked cabinet documents about mining the conservation lands. The irony of the two actions appears to have escaped John Key who appears more clueless than ever.
In Kaikoura, John Key said commercial whaling “might be acceptable if it was acceptable to others”. You gotta love the leadership there. But you’ve also got to question what kind of two-faced game the Nats are playing because in the House, Murray McCully said precisely the opposite – that the Government opposes commercial whaling.
In this article, in which a Kaikoura Whale Watch spokesman states the bloody obvious (that if New Zealand turns pro-whaling his industry will […]
David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.
During Question Time yesterday, Metiria Turei exposed National’s plan to subsidise mineral exploration by foreign companies in the most important parts of our national parks.
John Key refused to confirm Turei’s information but couldn’t deny it. Clearly, the Nats had been planning to slip it through in the Budget unnoticed.
My mouth dropped yesterday when I read in the Dompost an editorial lamenting the “scientifically ignorant public, suspicious of the work many scientists do”. What shocked me was the chutzpah of the lament coming from a newspaper that fuels scientific illiteracy. Today, the Dompost has yet another anti-science, illiterate climate change denier column. Meanwhile, for all its talk, Key’s Government is cutting science jobs.
My Granddad grew up in Te Aroha near Tui Mine. The mining ruined a large swathe of the land and toxic tailings were left behind which polluted the river and turned a large patch of bush into a desert – it is a scar on the face of my Granddad’s mountain which looks over his grave. As I write this I can hear him reciting this poem:
Forest and Bird has obtained information that Prime Minister John Key is looking to mine Paparoa National Park [pictured right], Great Barrier Island, and areas surrounding the Thames township. The final details of the discussion doc will be decided at Cabinet today. Mr Key, you’re in for a fight on this one.
Solid Energy has been caught out commissioning future leaders to pen fantasy stories in school hours. The company is inviting high school students in key coal-mining areas to submit an essay on: “The role of coal in sustainable energy solutions for New Zealandâ€.
Good on Chris Carter. He’s the only politician on Left taking some leadership in opposing the National Government’s abandonment of New Zealand’s anti-whaling […]
John Armstrong has chucked John Key’s promise to end whaling down the memory hole and, instead, comes out swinging against those who don’t […]
You’ve really got to hand it to the Greens and Labour. They have completely defied expectations on the whaling issue. See the simple option that most political parties would go for would be to be seen to stand by their principles – loud and proud. But the Greens and Labour are too clever for that. Instead, they’ve cunningly said next to nothing!
This month there are a series of showings of The End of the Line around New Zealand. This acclaimed documentary looks at how overfishing is destroying fish populations and ultimately endangering the industries and cultures that depend on them. This is a problem we can solve relatively simply.
The Key Government has, without public consultation or mandate, thrown decades of political consensus in the trash. They are proposing the reintroduction commercial whaling. The Nats say this will reduce the number of whales killed but no-one is buying that. When did the commercialisation of a resource ever lead to a reduction in its use?
It turns out that there is a climate change industry after all.
It is the denier industry, bought and paid for by ExxonMobil…
A contact at the Ministry of Transport tells me that 15 year old drivers have been involved in only a handful of fatal crashes, 1 to 1.5% of the total, in recent years and they’re not all the 15 year old’s fault. But no, National’s solution is to prevent all 15 year olds from driving. Dumb. It’s a carpet-bombing approach to policy
In January, we were told that John Key had some secret plan to end whaling. Now, we learn that Key wants to let […]
Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee is refusing to rule out landscape-scarring mining on our most precious conservation land. This makes a liar of John Key who promised the government was considering “surgical mining”.
Over at Pundit Claire Browning points out that the National government is trying to get away with a huge con. They promised not to privatise state assets (in their first term), but now they are effectively privatising the biggest asset of them all…
Nothing like a good IT stoush, particularly of the David and Goliath variety. Greenpeace has blown the whistle on Facebook’s use of coal […]
Russel Norman has an ironic adjunct to the ‘storm in a wine glass’ (as one wit on RNZ called Phil Heatley’s resignation)…
According to a Guardian poll today, public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined with the proportion of adults who believe climate change is “definitely” a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori. Overall around nine out of 10 people questioned still appear to accept some degree of global warming.
A certain National Party pollster is having a cry over the story I ran yesterday on Murray McCully’s shares in Widespread Portfolios.
The story got widespread media coverage because it raised legitimate questions that needed to be answered.
Linley Boniface: “To suggest that the world’s last few remaining areas of wilderness have no intrinsic worth, and should be judged only in terms of their ability to generate business opportunities, is a notion that is both repellent and outdated.â€
The Government is driving ahead with its plans to open up our National Parks and other protected environments to mining. The Standard can now reveal that Murray McCully has shares in a company that stands to benefit directly from National’s mining policy.
No chance some gang f#ckwits would be deterred by longer sentences.
What happened to that plan of Key’s to end whaling?
How do we get a high wage economy when National opposes each and every wage rise?
