I have excluded very small booths like Arthurs Pass (we won with 19 votes) and Okiwi (10 was enough for first place).  In fact I’ve excluded any booth where under 100 votes were cast.  That meant omitting Pawarenga, where we tied for first with National and Labour with 3 votes, and Te Rerenga in Hauraki-Waikato, where we tied for first with everyone, despite getting no votes at all.

The record for the highest ever number of Green votes at a booth was set this election: 619 at Aro Valley in Wellington Central.  This beats the 586 we got at the same booth in 2002.

Well done to the Green Party candidates, campaign managers, and volunteers who organised around the areas that voted at those polling booths. I’m hoping there will be many more polling places where the Greens poll tops, come 2014.

Update: I have been reminded by Jack McDonald, the amazing 18 year old candidate for Te Tai Hauauru, who managed to more than triple the Green  Party vote in that electorate, that I omitted two booths in the Mana electorate where the Greens polled best.  Thanks, Jack.  Have updated table above accordingly.

And thanks to Jeremy Hall from Mt Roskill electorate (who was Campaign Manager for our new MP Julie Anne Genter) for doing the initial number crunching.

We received 10.62% of the vote, which means that we can bring at least 13 Green MPs into Parliament.

So a big welcome to Eugenie Sage, Jan Logie, Steffan Browning, Denise Roche, Holly Walker, and Julie Anne Genter.

There is also a possibility, depending on the special vote, that we could have one more Green MP join us—Mojo Mathers—we’ll let you know as soon as the overseas votes have been counted.

Importantly, we couldn’t have done it without you!

This election result means more voices in our Parliament calling for stronger environmental protections, a fairer society, and a clean green economy that works for everyone.

10.62% is the highest proportion of the vote we’ve received since Green MPs first entered Parliament in 1996. We’re proud of this result and you should be too.

Our success is due to the tireless effort of thousands of supporters like yourself. Thank you for every event you attended, petition you signed, or email you forwarded from us to a friend.

And, finally, thanks more than anything for Party Voting Green.

Over the next three years we will continue working as hard as we can to be a strong voice in Parliament for our environment, our children, and our future.

But for now it is time for us all to have a lovely Christmas break and enjoy a well-deserved holiday – we’ve all earned it!

This is why we at the Green Party take social media seriously. It’s an opportunity for us to make ourselves available to you and show that we’re real people caring about our country. This isn’t just about being hip; it’s about being good public representatives.

We’re not alone in thinking we do a pretty good job. This morning on TV ONE’s Breakfast, Matty McLean did a story about the Greens having the most Klout — social media impact. I’m proud to say I was ranked in top place, ahead of John Key and Phil Goff. Despite being a smaller party than National or Labour, we have three politicians in the top ten — Kevin Hague (tied for 4th) and Russel Norman (9).

But our high rankings don’t mean we’re doing everything right. Parliament can be a bit of an Ivory Tower at times, so to help us engage even better with the community, I’d love to hear from you about what you think we could do better. And it’d be good to also know what you think we are doing right.

If you’re not yet friends with us on Facebook or following us on Twitter, you’ll find links to all our MPs’ pages and accounts here. And here you’ll find our official Green Party Facebook page, which btw, has the most fans per capita for a political party in OECD English speaking countries.

But it’s not just about FB and Twitter. We’ve also launched various successful online campaigns including Hey Kiwi and Aroha NZ. To connect with people that usually wouldn’t realise MPs are interested in hearing from them, I’ve also done a few AMAs (ask me anything chat forums) on Reddit and Game Planet.

What matters more than what we do online, is that you get out and vote tomorrow. And, of course, Party Vote Green!

So, to clarify, there are two separate systems:

1. There is ‘The Green Machine‘ which lists ‘missions’ people can choose to do. People earn stars for doing those missions. There are no missions saying “comment on this particular topic on Reddit, Frogblog, stuff.co.nz etc”. There is a mission “become an online activist” which is basically asking people to sign up to system #2 (below).

Typical missions are “Green sticker your letterbox”, “Donate a tweet per day”, “Deliver leaflets”, etc. All the available missions can be viewed at the Green Machine site which is open to the public.

2. The second system is the ‘online activist’ alerts. It reads a few dozen RSS feeds, looking for key words. The list of key words is here.

The email alert contains the subject of the blog post/news article/whatever and the body of the blog post/article/etc and a link to the item. What they do with that information is entirely up to the recipient. There is no ‘this post is about such and such so here is a pre-written thing to paste in” in the email notification.

There isn’t anything different between the alerts and  sending an email or posting a link on your Facebook with a note saying “Hey you might be interested in this.”

There are no stars earned by responding by posting comments on blogs. The link in the notification email goes straight to the blog post. The Green Party has no way of tracking who or how people respond to the notification.

The stars that people earn by doing missions are essentially meaningless. They do not confer any special status in the real world and are just for fun.

We have made serious efforts to promote the Green Machine to our members and the public – there is a big button in the top right of every page on greens.org.nz which says ‘GREEN MACHINE’. This is not some big secret that has suddenly come to light. We are totally out in the open about this.

Comments posted by ‘online activists’ are their own and there is not an expectation that they will use multiple accounts to appear to be more than one person.

The intention was to encourage debate and give people access to a tool that helped them keep on top of what people were saying about things they were interesting. We think that it is crucial to democracy that people are informed and that debates — such as this one —happen in public.

What I found was a rather more interesting (and also more demanding!) event, the brainchild of an enterprising group of AUT students who donated their time and skills to organising the morning as part of their communications degrees.

Posing as a ‘star’ for the morning, alongside Blair Strang, a real star,  I was invited to compete to see what distance I could clock up on an exercycle in blocks of three minutes.  I don’t find an MP’s lifestyle to be especially conducive to maintaining fitness, but  managed to produce at least some reasonable results, although Blair did manage to take the lead (by a modest margin ) in our final ‘contest‘.

The point of all the silliness and panting was to raise awareness of what Habitat does in the community, and of their plan to host a sponsored ‘Bike and Build’ cycle ride from  Auckland to Wellington next year, with proceeds to go toward completing a building project in Wellington.

So if you are keen to ride all or part of the way between our two largest North Island cities, for a good cause, keep an eye on the Habitat website for details.  You have plenty of time to get fit for it if you start soon!

The technique is used to extract ‘unconventional’ oil and gas – that’s industry speak for sources of hydrocarbons that until recently were deemed too expensive or difficult to extract, but as the reality of peak oil kicks in the boundaries are being pushed further out.

The technique has been implicated in serious contamination of water supplies, and a correlation has been drawn between fracking and swarms of earthquakes in at least three American states.  It has been banned in France, is under investigation in other European states, and some parts of the US.

Fracking has happened in Taranaki, and has been proposed for other parts of the country, including the East Coast and Canterbury. The industry in New Zealand is staunchly defending the practice, with John Bay, the Chair of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association (PEPANZ), insisting that problems elsewhere were caused by ‘cowboys’, whom our government would not allow to operate here.

Given the present government’s enthusiasm for extraction of oil and gas, and their willingness to downplay the risks,  I’m less inclined to rely on them!  The fracking that has occurred in Taranaki was done without resource consents .   The Taranaki Regional Council only last month decided that perhaps there had better be a consenting process in future.

The Greens believe in evidence based policy.  Much of the evidence we are seeing indicates that fracking is  dirty, dangerous, and completely at odds with an intelligent 21st century economic or energy strategy. We want a halt to the practice until we see clear evidence that fracking really is safe, poses no threat to human health; our land, water or level of seismic activity; and that any benefits really could outweigh the costs.

I”m launching a petition that asks Parliament to initiate an independent investigation through the Office of  the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and for an immediate moratorium on the practice until or unless the PCE can give fracking  a clean bill of health. I hope you will sign it, and encourage others to do the same.

So download the petition [PDF] here and get people signing it!

The good news for Gareth is that he has now had surgery to straighten his nose, and it is on the mend. The bad news is that he has to wear a rather annoying and unsightly nose splint to set his nose in the correct position.

Always one to look for opportunity in the face of adversity, Gareth has decided to turn his nose splint into an election advertisement.

Labour Party campaigners could do well to note the presence of the obligatory promoter statement.

The Green Party does not have a deal with the Labour candidate, Charles Chauvel, nor does it intend to ask its supporters to vote for him in an attempt to defeat Peter Dunne in the Ōhariu seat.

This rumour has come about because Dunne is using it to mask his own desperate dependence on the National Party for his political survival, after steadily losing support in the electorate.

Voters can decide for themselves how to use their two ticks strategically, they don’t need to be instructed.

In Ōhariu, just like in every other electorate, we are only campaigning for Kiwis’ party vote.

I’m not telling people who to vote for as their electorate MP in Ōhariu but I am upfront with them – I like Charles and I think Dunne is done: he’s out-dated and voters are tiring of his brand of bland ‘any way the wind blows’ politics. This is evidenced by his falling popularity in the electorate over the last three elections, as well as his dismal party vote throughout the country.

Our position is very different from National’s deals in Epsom and Ōhariu where they are telling their supporters to vote for the Act and United Future Party’s candidates.

Firstly, we aren’t contesting electorate seats anywhere, only campaigning for party votes.

Secondly, if we received 46% party votes, like the National Party received in Ōhariu in 2008 or 62% of the party votes, like the National Party received in Epsom in 2008 – we may well campaign for electorate votes in those seats. We didn’t, so we’re not.

Clearly it’s a very different situation we are in. National’s decision to support other parties candidates in seats where they have the largest share of votes, and would normally contest and likely win, is all about putting these two parties on life-support, for their own ends.

That’s not a worldview that I could ever sign up for, but nor is it one that gives cause for offence in an open democracy.

Unfortunately for them, Act supporters are at risk of being tarred with the racist brush, probably unfairly for the most part, given the latest outpouring of anti-Māori bile from their ‘leader’ Donald Thomas Brash.

A few months ago the best political theatre in town was the high farce of a former National party leader taking over the leadership of a party of which he was not a member, offering the MAD (mutually assured destruction) option of ‘make me your leader or I will call upon my rich mates to fund an alternative right wing party’.

Donald spoke of the renaissance of the right, a leap up the polls to 15% or more, of a new coalition that would put steel in the spine of the NACT coalition, etc, etc, etc….

In the real world of course Act continues to bounce along the bottom of the margin of error in the polls.  It has a much less assured grip on its security blanket electorate as some ambitious National party aspirants vie for the Epsom candidacy, and are unlikely to want to give Banks, that other former-Nat, the easy ride that Richard Worth allowed Rodney Hide in 2008.

Desperate times, so Donald reaches into his bag of dirty tricks and pulls out the race card, the same trick that worked (a bit) for him in 2004.  Māori, apparently, are a privileged lot who live off the fat of the land and enjoy enormous rights and privileges not available to non-Māori, and Donald doesn’t think it’s ‘fair’.

What seems to elude Donald Thomas is the reality of Māori featuring at the wrong end of all the statistics about health, education, employment, life expectancy, incarceration, housing, income – but then when did he ever let the facts get in the way of a politically expedient tall story?

For their own sake, you would think that a posse of Act-ites would lock their leader in a room with a couple of  Treaty educators, copies of some good social histories of New Zealand, a set of social and economic statistics, and maybe a copy of the new Wai 262 report.  Maybe if he worked his way through that lot he might get a clearer picture of reality – or could it be that he knows the truth already, but is willing to deny it and assert the opposite purely in the forlorn hope of political gain?

The Green Party’s AGM in Auckland has had it all over the long weekend.

Political positioning was confirmed yesterday and summed up by Metiria thus:

We’re more likely to support Labour on confidence and supply, and think it is highly unlikely that we could support a National Government on confidence and supply, but it is on the table … It’s more likely we could work project-by-project with National like we do now on home insulation, tourism infrastructure and toxic site management

The Greens position has at least two features:  it’s constructive and it’s honest ie. willing to talk with either of the big Parties, realistic that support for a National-led Government is improbable.

Russel Norman led off with a speech outlining five steps for a cleaner, greener economy. It featured a call to give Kiwibank the Government’s master banking contract.

The Green Party is serious about fixing our banking system so that we are no longer mortgage slaves to the Aussie banks….Our Government’s banking should be done by our New Zealand bank.

Moving the Government’s accounts to Kiwibank would require a careful transition over several years, he noted. And the short term step would be to tender the Government’s master banking contract and to break up the current Westpac monopoly.

As well as announcing the Party’s political position, Metiria talked about how the Greens would tackle poverty in NZ.  In addition to steps like raising the minimum wage and giving more Kiwis access to the Training Incentive Allowance, she noted perversity in the way the In Work Tax Credit operates:.

Imagine Jane, with a husband who has a job, Jane works 20 hours a week at a primary school in Westmere. She qualifies for the $60 per week In Work Tax Credit. Sarah, a single mum, works 20 hours a week at a school in Grey Lynn, but she is also on the DBP. Sarah is disqualified from receiving the In Work Tax Credit because she gets a benefit. It leaves her and her kids struggling with $60 a week less.

The easiest way to correct this inequity was to extend the same tax support to all children whether their parents were in or out of work, she said.

The conference, spread over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend (happy birthday to all queens out there), also saw a bunch of candidate training and branch development sessions.  Everything from how to use social media more effectively to accounting practices for hard working local treasurers.

Aussie Greens leader Senator Bob Brown offered some inspiration as guest speaker on Monday, sending delegates home with a burst of enthusiasm.

So, six months out from the election, the Party has a talented crop of candidates, a clear sense of urgency, ambition and direction….bring on November.

The retirement of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Sue Bradford and the pending retirement of Sue Kedgley has made room for the very capable Cantabrian Eugenie Sage, the wonderful Wellingtonian Jan Logie and the accomplished Aucklander Denise Roche.

Of course, the inimitable Keith Locke has also announced his retirement at this election and the highest ranked new male face is the tireless environmental champion Steffan Browning.

Thus, the 2011 list completes the move to a second generation of Green MPs and as Metiria Turei noted:

It’s been a calm and organised evolution … (the Party is) driven by big ideas which endure rather than just big personalities which can come and go.

Eugenie Sage is a former regional councillor, while Jan Logie represented the Greens well in the recent Mana by-election. Denise Roche is another experienced local body politician while Steffan Browning has worked for many years promoting the organics sector and a GE-free NZ.

The list also includes a rising crop of younger candidates, led by recent Young Greens co-convenor and Lower Hutt candidate Holly Walker, Mt Roskill candidate Julie Genter, and Aaryn Barlow who will stand in Nelson.

The Green Party has ranked 30 candidates for the general election and has an additional 14 candidates currently confirmed to contest the party vote in November with more to come soon.

There’s more candidate information here
 
1 Metiria Turei

2 Russel Norman

3 Kevin Hague

4 Catherine Delahunty

5 Kennedy Graham

6 Eugenie Sage

7 Gareth Hughes

8 David Clendon

9 Jan Logie

10 Steffan Browning

11 Denise Roche

12 Holly Walker

13 Julie Anne Genter

14 Mojo Mathers

15 James Shaw

16 David Hay

17 Richard Leckinger

18 Aaryn Barlow

19 Jeanette Elley

20 Sea Rotmann

21 Michael Gilchrist

22 Dora Langsbury

23 David Kennedy

24 Tane Woodley

25 Joseph Burston

26 Mikaere Curtis

27 Shane Gallagher

28 Saffron Toms

29 Steve Tollestrup

30 Jack McDonald 

The Initial List was formed by the votes of branch delegates and the candidates themselves, following the Green Party conference in Auckland in early February. At the conference Green candidates presented themselves to delegates who then went back to their branches to discuss potential list placings. The idea of the initial list is that it provides non-binding advice to members when they cast their votes, as members all over the country generally don’t have personal knowledge of all the candidates.

Once members of the Green Party cast their ballots, the party list can only be subject to minor adjustments in order to meet certain balancing criteria for gender, Maori, South island and youth representation. Last election there were no minor adjustments of this nature.

The voting and revision will take a couple of months.  A final list for the 2011 election will likely be ready in late May or early June.

This list ranking process is an internal one for the Green Party but inevitably, with a democratic process like this involving thousands of people, the info about the initial list will inevitably spread. So in order to make sure the info that spreads is the right info, here’s the initial list that’s going to Green Party members right now:

1 Turei, Metiria
2 Norman, Russel
3 Hague, Kevin
4 Delahunty, Catherine
5 Graham, Kennedy
6 Hughes, Gareth
7 Sage, Eugenie
8 Logie, Jan
9 Clendon, David
10 Walker, Holly
11 Roche, Denise
12 Genter, Julie Anne
13 Mathers, Mojo
14 Shaw, James
15 Leckinger, Richard
16 Browning, Steffan
17 Summerhays, Karen
18 Hay, David
19 Langsbury, Dora
20 Elley, Jeanette
21 Barlow, Aaryn
22 Gilchrist, Michael
23 McDonald, Jack
24 Kennedy, David
25 Woodley, Tane
26 Gallagher, Shane
27 Rotmann, Sea
28 Curtis, Mikaere
29 Burston, Joseph
30 Tollestrup, Steve
31 Goldsmith, Rachael
32 Kruize, Alex
33 Toms, Saffron
34 Dorner, Zachary
35 Monteith, Darryl
36 Watson, Pieter

A draft remit is making its way out to branches for feedback and potential revision. Ultimately, the remit will go to the Party’s June AGM for a vote where it may be confirmed, rejected or amended.

The draft remit – prepared by a volunteer committee and shaped by a round of meetings with members across the country — looks at options to advance a green agenda after the election.

Essentially, it says that if the Greens were to give confidence and supply to a government we’d need genuine progress on key Green policies and this is obviously more likely with Labour than National (– even though we have reservations about some Labour policy as well).

The draft remit expresses a preference for supporting a Labour-led Government and says of National:

“it is extremely unlikely that we could support a National-led government on confidence and supply.”

The proposal also says the Greens could work with a National-led government through a Memorandum of Understanding as it does currently.

The full text is included below.

It is worth stressing that there is no decision yet. It’s a collective decision that’ll be finalised in June after every member has had a chance to have a say.

In the meantime, discuss among yourselves…

The full text of the draft remit:

“That this AGM:

Pre-election political positioning

1.         Agrees that the Greens will campaign on the basis of the following political positioning in 2011:

(i)    The Greens are an independent party which, in order to urgently advance green policy goals, will attempt to work constructively with, and challenge, whichever party leads the government after the 2011 election;

(ii)   To support any government, we would need significant progress on key Green environmental, economic and social policies such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing poverty and inequality, cleaning up waterways and retaining public assets for future generations;

(iii)  Based on current Labour Party policy positions, the Greens have a preference to consider supporting a Labour-led government in the right circumstances, ahead of a National-led government;

(iv) The Greens could work with a National-led government to progress particular Green policies as we have over the last three years; but based on current National Party policy positions it is extremely unlikely that we could support a National-led government on confidence and supply.

Post-election process

2.         Agrees that the following process will apply to post-election negotiations by the Green Party after a general election:

(i)    a Negotiating Team, jointly chosen by the Parliamentary Caucus and the National Executive, may enter into post-election negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement on policies and processes that will advance the Green agenda;

(ii)   in addition to the negotiating team there will be a Negotiating Consultation Group consisting of five members nominated by Caucus and five members nominated by National Executive. The Negotiation Consultation Group does not directly participate in the negotiations but is to receive daily briefings from the Negotiating Team during the course of the negotiations;

(iii)  all decisions concerning the negotiations (including what agreement, if any, would potentially be taken to a Special General Meeting (SGM)) are taken by the combined Negotiating Team and Negotiation Consultation Group;

(iv) any agreement with one or more political parties that includes confidence and supply votes will be referred to an SGM, unless in the opinion of the National Executive an SGM is not warranted;

(v)  the National Executive will start the process of forming the Negotiating Team and Negotiating Consultation group following the AGM in election year and will tentatively schedule an SGM once the election date is known.”

For the first time in Germany the Greens will lead a coalition government with the traditional left party, the Social Democrats, taking the minor party role.

The road to political success for the Greens has been a long one. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt dismissed the Greens saying, “They’re just environmental idiots who will have disappeared again soon,” and similar things have been said about us here in Aotearoa.

It isn’t surprising people around the world are rejecting this analysis and changing their vote to Green in big numbers. We currently face the triple threats of inter-connected environmental, economic and social problems of a scale unseen in human history. Climate change, peak oil, the global financial crisis, and massive social inequality all stem from the traditional political orthodoxy and the traditional political parties have no new ideas on how to fix these problems. As Einstein said, “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Green parties across the globe offer new thinking to address these problems we all face. Whereas ten years ago we may have been seen as fringe and the thought of voting for us a luxury, our issues are now at the centre of the political debate and our alternatives form serious policy options.

German voters have turned their traditional political structure on its head by voting Green in big numbers due to the failure of the traditional left and right parties to deal with the issues their country is facing. New Zealand voters face similar dilemmas. At our election in November we too can vote for real change by giving smart Green ideas the big tick at the ballot box.

It is apparently pure coincidence that the NZTA announced the postponement of the public consultation process on 2nd November, the same day that Kapiti residents protested against the expressway outside the campaign launch of National Party Mana candidate Hekia Parata.

The change of date protects Parata from Melissa Lee-like gaffes and the frustration of locals who don’t want a motorway that has more costs than benefits and that cuts through a community.   

(Lee, to jog your memory, was the National candidate in last year’s Mt Albert by-election who imploded at a public meeting on the controversial Waterview motorway extension.)

The Greens Mana candidate Jan Logie points out that residents should be able to vote in the by-election with full information about the government’s plans for their community.

She also notes that the Greens alternative is to build the two-lane local Western Link Road, improve State Highway One, and transform the rail network into a fast, modern, reliable mass transit system.

The Transport Minister Stephen Joyce told Parliament today – with a straight face – that the Transport Authority reached the decision to delay independently.

Does anyone know how to contact the Tui billboard writers?

Fortunately it was a bunch of Green supporters turning the tables on the Government, in a stunt marking the launch of our petition opposing plans to steal our most precious conservation lands for mining.

So I hopped on down in time to hear Metiria give a poignant speech that touched on the origins of New Zealand’s first National Park, Tongariro, which was gifted to the Crown by Tuwharetoa in 1887 to forever protect the sacred mountains from development. It was a timely reminder of the hard work, faith and trust that has gone into protecting special and unique places around the country over many generations.

This week is Conservation Week, with the theme ‘Get Involved: Who knows?’ . This is a time for celebrating what is beautiful and precious about our natural heritage, but the conservation movement and all those people who cherish our conservation estate for recreation, education, relaxation and renewal are now plunged into defending it all over again from a Government hell-bent on sacrificing our common heritage for short-term profit. So yeah, get involved, sign our petition!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the prospectors turned up little of interest, just a few old dinosaur fossils.

There’ll be more mass cycle rides organised by the 350.org crew in the lead up to Copenhagen, but in the meantime you can join in.

Mountain bike Olympian Kashi Leuchs today urged cyclists to join 350 movement by placing a green 350 number plate on their bikes. He launched 350 Riders “to unite cyclists, give them a voice on climate change and encourage them to spread the message of 350.”

Green number plate stickers will be available free from specific cafés and at all R&R sport stores nationwide and can be made into a number plate by recycling an ice cream container to use as a backing board.

Alternatively, inspiring artists are encouraged to make their own 350-themed number plates. Riders are asked to take a photo and upload them to the website, www.350riders.org, which will be put together to form a giant collage to be presented to the government on October 24.

 She had to explain that a suggestion to shoot the media was not hers - it was someone else answering email on her behalf (really, your honour, I wasn’t there).

Fortunately, a lamington stole the spotlight, but here’s the kicker:

 The end of the debate didn’t end Ms Lee’s problems. She left the venue to find her car clamped in the carpark.

 Her campaign might be looking for a couple more clamps before the wheels come off entirely.

Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman’s guided tour along the Creek opened his eyes to its fragile ecosystem. Wendy John of Friends of Oakley pointed out the attractions, and the challenges inherent in protecting the creek environment. It’s a subject Wendy has much expertise in. She’s been organising planting days, and clean ups around the creek for many years. Wendy works with Gladstone School pupils, volunteers from the community, various clubs and organisations – and even mental health patients – on creek restoration projects.

Wendy helps organise volunteers to monitor baseline populations of rodents, hedgehogs, lizards, birds and weta. She says little weta ‘motels’ have been installed to give them a habitat to live in.

This whole issue is very dear to my heart too. For me, the entire Creek ecosystem is a haven for my amphibious sistren and brethren and our friends, the native eels. So I feel grateful for the caring mammals who are trying to breathe new life into the area. But, the controversial Waterview Connection SH20 project would inevitably impact on the precious treasure of the waterfall and the creek in general. Increased fumes and road run off can only be bad for the sensitive ecosystem of Oakley Creek and its surrounding wetlands.