Gareth Hughes

This week’s CRACCUM article – mining and rugby

Published: May 10, 2010

by Gareth Hughes

Last weekend I marched with an estimated 50,000 other people up Queen St to help protect our treasured places from mining. As well as this strong environmental message, I also believe that at its core this march was an expression of concern on our economic vision.

Whilst many placards on display communicated the protest simply, for example: “I can’t believe I’m still having to march against this s**t” and “mine your face”, others got pretty creative, like “get your colonial dick out of my virgin lands”.

I’ve always been a big fan of a good march – but wow, this one was special. I’m too young to remember marching against the Springbok Tour, the Vietnam protests, or the anti-Rogernomics economic reforms of the 1980s. But this one will be remembered as one of the big events of our generation. While the estimated numbers of people marching vary, it’s clearly one of the largest, if not the largest, march in decades. I was marching at the front and it was amazing turning back and seeing Queen St filled from near Myers Park at the top, all the way back to Britomart.

We don’t have the same culture of protesting or striking as many overseas countries, like France, but when we do have them you have to sit up and take notice. I organised the biggest climate change march in New Zealand last year where 6000 people marched up Queen St and I was pretty stoked with the turnout but turnout at last weekend’s mining march was huge. It wasn’t your usual suspects either: It’s likely your granny, Mum, or boyfriend were all motivated to hit the streets for a few hours. Some of the people I met had never marched against anything before in their lives.

It touched a chord because this is where many Aucklanders experience nature: untouched and pure, but also because at its root it comes down to a choice on our economic vision for New Zealand. On one side, the miners and the ACT-led-John Key-led National Government’s strategy seems to be racing other countries to trash the environment faster for economic growth. On the other side, the Greens and progressive business leaders believe the road to prosperity lies in thinking smarter; focusing on innovation, and earning a premium on product credibility (environmentally friendly, GE Free, fair deal for workers) and our 100% Pure brand.

In less than 500 days the Rugby World Cup kicks off in New Zealand. It will be the biggest international event to ever come to New Zealand and this is where our brand will be put to the test. An estimated 60-85,000 visitors are expected to fly to New Zealand for the Cup and perhaps a billion people will watch it on TV. All eyes will be on New Zealand and many will want to find out more about New Zealand and us Kiwis. Since our major marketing slogan is 100% Pure, it’s not a ridiculous assumption to think that they’ll want to check it out.

Already the rest of the world is asking questions. Within the last year, The Economist picked up on the Schedule 4 mining issue in a critical piece, the New York Times highlighted our unsustainable Hoki fisheries, and The Guardian’s Fred Pearce described our greenwash (making out we’re greener than we actually are) as ”…the most shameless two fingers to the global community”.

Imagine what it is likely to look like – what will the Cup fans find? Travellers will arrive at Auckland International Airport keen to get into the city. They’ll find they can’t simply catch a train to town but instead they’ll have to pile into a bus or mini van and then experience Auckland’s notorious motorway. They’ll discover all of New Zealand’s transport systems are still heavily car-reliant, with hardly any public transport options in the towns and none at all in smaller centres. They’ll figure out our priorities by noticing all the road-works as new roads and motorways are being built in Auckland and Wellington, as well as the new Roads of National significance designations like the Puhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” that I wrote on last week. They’ll ask about the suburban trains, and find one tiny train line still serves the whole of Auckland and it still runs on dirty-old diesel power.

Visitors will arrive in New Zealand to find that on so many environmental issues the Government has dropped the ball. They’ll discover that the National parks are being mined, our rivers are unswimmable thanks to rampant dairy expansion, and that our greenhouse emissions are more than a quarter above our 1990 levels.

Whether visitors stay in a hotel, motel or rented holiday homes they’re likely to be confronted by cold, damp accommodation. They’ll find the hot water is still largely heated through antiquated immersion heater systems, that there’s no such thing as double-glazing in most of the country and the light bulbs will mostly be the old-fashioned wasteful incandescent ones that the Government phased-out the phase-out of.

The visitors will be stunned and feel cheated by the marketing slogans when they find their expectations of ‘Clean and Green New Zealand’ shattered. The Rugby World Cup could show up New Zealand as an international environmental embarrassment to an increasing environmentally conscious global public.

Mining our treasured places puts this debate into stark contrast. Do we want to ruin and pollute our most special conservation areas for some minerals – a 1% royalty at the detriment of our valuable clean and green brand – or do we take the message from the marchers that there is a better way to prosperity.

With less than 500 days until the Cup we’ve missed the chance to invest wisely in infrastructure like the CBD Rail Loop and Electric rail in time for kick-off but looking to the future we need to make sure the ball isn’t dropped on our clean green brand. Mining the National Parks could wreck the valuable brand that our tourism and export industries are dependant on. The flipside is also true – we could take the message from the march that Kiwis care about our environment and want to build our clean and green brand from marketing slogan to reality. The worst outcome would be waking up the day after the final with a mess to clean up and nothing to show for the party.

The Government has extended the submission period to Wednesday 26 May so have your say on government plans to mine in Schedule 4 national conservation lands.

Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Mon, May 10th, 2010   

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