by frog
While the media have been awed by the novelty of besuited brainstorming at the Job Summit on Friday, there seems to be a lack of comprehension as to what some of the ideas might actually mean. To be fair, the Government is also going away to consider the ideas – they’re not constructed in carbon-intensive concrete yet.
The maddest idea has to be the “rule-making freeze” – proposing to stop all rule and regulation making or extension (unless specifically approved by the minister), and reduce all enforcement activity to focus on minimum acceptable standards (rather than ‘nice to haves’) and the overall immediate interest for New Zealand.
Barry Weeber from the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand (ECO) responded that such a moratorium would trade human and environmental health for short term economic gain, and that the environmental initiatives flowing from water and air quality regulation are exactly the sort of job-creating projects we need – like home insulation and clean heating.
On the proposal to spend $60 million in promoting tourists he said “it will be undermined by any moves to downgrade environmental protection.” He said “we want tourists to come here but the Job Summit is saying they shouldn’t drink the water or breathe the air”.
He ended: “New Zealand should be investing in greening the economy to provide jobs and to improve environment.”
I couldn’t agree more!
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Mon, March 2nd, 2009
Tags: ECO, environment, insulation, job summit, standards
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