Minister Brownlee’s irritation and impatience with the Christchurch Council creates the impression (deliberate or otherwise) that the Council is not competent, and that further Government intervention may be required.

While the City Council has come in for some deserved criticism its achievements post ‘quake are significant. It has delivered a forward looking plan for the central city in record time and it continues to competently provide a wide range of services  that people expect from their councils from libraries to wastewater (albeit at a scale reduced by the quakes).

The pressure being applied to Christchurch City Council relates to the Government’s concerns over how the council will meet the $1 billion share for the cost of rebuilding imposed on it by the Government.

One way of raising this revenue – and a way no doubt favoured by many in the current Government – is for the council to sell off assets.

Brownlee has openly stated that the Council must have a better plan than “putting up rates or borrowing a lot more money.”

While the Government denies it is pressuring the council to sell assets – “discussions” between Treasury and CERA officials and senior Council management suggest otherwise.  Then there’s the fear that Government could “do an ECan” and replace elected City councillors with Government appointed commissioners free to begin a process of asset sales.

Red Bus Ltd, Lyttelton Port Company, Orion and Christchurch airport are all assets owned by Canterbury citizens through their council. In the interests of Christchurch’s long term recovery, these strategic and revenue generating assets must not be sold.

The best prospect for Christchurch’s recovery must be to allow council to continue to prepare and consult the public on its draft annual plan and budget.  The Government should be looking at other ways of raising revenue.

An earthquake levy, of the type proposed by the Green Party, would raise $1 billion each year to contribute significantly to the earthquake bill.  An earthquake levy would assist central Government with the task of funding earthquake recovery.

Instead of looking at ways that all New Zealanders can help with the Christchurch rebuild the Government is pushing Christchurch residents – many who have just lost their homes – into a further financial crisis.

• The big winners are Steven Joyce and Hekia Parata, moving up 10 and 13 places respectively in the Cabinet ranking. Parata replaces Anne Tolley as Minister of Education.

• Paula Bennett’s reward for losing the Waitakere electorate is a promotion of 7 places. She keeps her role as Minister of Beneficiary Bashing.

• Tolley drops 5 places in the ranking and is given Police and Corrections as a reward for her sterling efforts in Education.

• We have a new Colossus of Roads, with Gerry Brownlee taking over from Joyce as Minister of Transport.

• Phil Heatley takes over from Brownlee as Minister for Drilling and Digging.

• Environment Minister Nick Smith drops 4 places and Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson languishes at a lowly No. 17 in the rankings. I guess that reflects the importance with which National views those portfolios.

• Judith Collins gets the job of handing ACC claimants over to be crushed by private insurers.

Update: Jan Logie has just pointed out that another feature is Women’s Affairs being allocated to a Minister outside Cabinet. Again a reflection of the importance with which National views that portfolio. Disability Issues is outside Cabinet too.

Gerry Brownlee has appointed former High Court Judge Sir John Hansen, former National Party Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley, National Party appointee to the Meridian Energy Board Anake Goodall, and National Party appointee to the National Party’s Productivity Commission Murray Sherwin to review National Party Minister Gerry Brownlee’s Canterbury recovery decisions.

And even if they do find something a wee bit shonky in a few of Gerry Brownlee’s decisions, Gerry Brownlee can choose to ignore them and do what Gerry Brownlee was going to do all along anyway.

Confidence inspiring, huh!

There’s too much power vested in too few people for too long.

We very cautiously supported the first recovery Bill last year while flagging serious constitutional concerns.

But the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill (CER)  in front of Parliament now is bigger and broader and longer-lasting.  As a result, our concerns are greater.

So we plan to oppose at first reading but will then work to revise the bill.  With changes, we might be able to support it into law.

A new entity is a good idea and it requires greater powers than is normal to respond to the crisis, but the CER bill does not contain enough democratic oversight or enough checks on the use of the extensive powers given to Canterbury Earthqauke Recovery Authority/Gerry Brownlee.

Here are a few ways in which the Bill can be improved:

The role of the community forum could be strengthened, and some additional steps taken to ensure that it is a representative body.

The power of the Council is also very limited under this bill and can be strengthened.

There needs to be geographical and subject limitations on orders in council i.e. covering only the greater Christchurch region and only legislation that is relevant to the rebuild.

The CER bill would also benefit from some criteria for when and why the CE/Minster can exercise their extensive powers.

And we’d like to see the ability to repeal CER Bill early written in to the law.

It remains to be seen how much headway we can make with the Government.

If you have other specific suggestions on how to improve the legislation, submit them here as a comment.  We’ll see what we can do in the hustle and bustle that will accompany the passage of the law here in the next few days.

As climate change intensifies around the world and not least here in New Zealand, our national responsibility to respond proportionate to our size and liability increases commensurately.

The UN has prescribed a national emission reduction target of 25% to 40% off 1990 levels by 2020 for the rich (‘developed’) countries.  Few have responded adequately. New Zealand, displaying the foresight of the Dodo, has committed to 10% to 20%, conditional. While that is shameful, let us explore the implications of how (not) to get there.

A 15% cut off 1990 levels means that we would emit some 52 million tonnes GHG in 2020.  (down from our current level of 75 m. t.).  The Government, somewhat disingenuously, claims that reducing our agricultural emissions (which account for about half of the national total) is almost impossible.  They say it’s a big ask to shave 15% off within ten years.

Here, to the rescue, comes Solid Energy.  This SOE, owned by you as taxpayer, plans to engage in open cast mining in Southland over the next ten years to develop three plants using lignite – the lowest grade of (dirty brown) coal on the planet.

In select committee  hearings this week, in answer to my question, Solid Energy estimated that these three projects alone would emit 10 to 20 million tonnes (mid-point = 15 m.t.) of gross GHG emissions each year. This means 15 m.t. on top of the 75 m. t. we emit today – an increase of 25%, as opposed to a decrease of 15% on 1990 levels.

Solid Energy says, of course, that some of this will be exported (mainly to China) and so will not appear on our national carbon account.  This is pure legerdemain, since NZ coal pollutes the planet’s environment wherever it is burnt, which ruins both the NZ and Chinese climate together.  While we escape accounting liability we never escape moral-political responsibility for NZ coal.

With breath-taking confidence, Solid Energy claims that, despite this, it continually makes a net positive contribution to the NZ environment; and that its lignite projects themselves will be carbon-neutral.

The only two mechanisms by which this extraordinary goal could be achieved are through carbon forest sequestration and / or carbon capture and storage (CCS).

There is, in fact, no known technology by which CCS is proving to be viable as yet – and unlikely before 2030.  One underground storage site in Saskatchewan Canada, has recently been reported as catastrophic, as the CO2 seeps to the surface, destroying the terrain and killing biodiversity.

Mercifully, the Minister (Gerry Brownlee) had no notion of where the CCS site might be located in Southland.  That, you understand, is an operational matter for Solid Energy.

That leaves sequestration.  Solid Energy remains coy about the figures.  So let me explore the matter.  To compensate for 15 m.t. of annual gross emissions, New Zealand will need about 500,000 ha. of new forest – almost 1/50^th of our landmass. But we already need those forests to sequester existing emissions.

Can our climate change saviour, Solid Energy, please give us the figures of how it will compensate for 15 m.t. of gross emissions?

Here’s John Key:

“On the labour law side it’s looking more optimistic”.

He said some of the advice was that it would require a law change to give Warner Brothers the clarity they wanted around labour laws.

 And here’s Gerry Brownlee: 

“Warner Bros did not put any requirements on us to do anything. The New Zealand Government has recognised that there were employment issues that needed to be sorted out, and we are going to move to clarify those.”

 They can’t both be right!  So who is?

 2.   How does this legislation clarify the law as to who are contractors and who are employees in the film industry? 

The provision of the law passed states [the definition of employee]: 

 “(d) excludes, in relation to a film production, any of the following persons:

“(i) a person engaged in film production work as an actor, voice-over  actor, stand-in, body double, stunt performer, extra, singer, musician, dancer, or entertainer:

“(ii) a person engaged in film production work in any other capacity.”

(2) Section 6 is amended by inserting the following subsection after subsection (1):

“(1A) However, subsection (1)(d) does not apply if the person is a party to, or covered by, a written employment agreement that provides that the person is an employee.”

Now what happens when the “contract” has a clause that says the worker is an independent contractor, but the other clauses in it provide  for conditions of work that that define the working conditions of the “contractor” to actually be those of an “employee”, and the purpoted contract actually an employment agreement?

How I see it, is that this creates a legal cause to go to the Employment Court to resolve the issue over whether a person engaged to work on a film production is, in law, a “contractor” or an “employee”. 

So much for this Bill “clarifying” the law – it seems to me to make the law  more confusing and more subject to litigation. 

…Minister of Economic Development Gerry Brownlee indicated the Government may be prepared to clarify employment laws to try to keep the production in New Zealand. 

He told Morning Report the Government would consider the issues raised in a Supreme Court case. 

“In other words, can we determine the difference between an employee and a contractor in a way that makes clear that the sort of industrial action that has been threatened by the union can’t be carried through.” 

Mr Brownlee said New Zealand actors need to distance themselves from the Australian-based Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which is linked to New Zealand Actors’ Equity. 

Let’s play that again, Gerry: 

“…actors need to distance themselves from the Australian-based Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which is linked to New Zealand Actors’ Equity” 

If an employer or an employer’s representative made a statement like this, it would be in serious breach of prohibition of duress under the Employment Relations Act. But Gerry can say it anyway – unless he’s acting as the “employer’s representative”, which maybe he is. It sure sounds like it. Perhaps we need an Official Information Act request about his communications to and from Warner Bros to determine that. 

The law as to who is an employee and who is a contractor is very clear. It has been addressed and determined by the final arbiter of New Zealand law - the Supreme Court. 

Gerry Brownlee is cynically manipulating this industrial dispute to attempt to further undermine the rights of employees, and if Gordon Campbell is correct (I couldn’t find another reference), Brownlee is even threatening to use the anti-democratic Major Events Management Act to do so without reference to Parliament. 

Mainstream working New Zealanders have a lot to fear from this Government, which is increasingly attempting to dump the impact of its failure to revive our economy on ordinary working New Zealanders who just want a fair go. Let’s all hang together, and not let bad employers and their Government “representatives” pick us off – one, by one.

Also, Rob Lowe of the Employers and Manufacturers Association now wants the CTU to guarantee there would be no union action during Rugby World Cup.

Mr Lowe would be better focused on making sure his members treat workers fairly and pay decent wages and sort out health and safety problems in the workplace.

To listen to some of the players involved in the Hobbit dispute over the last day you would think the actors’ union representatives had committed treason.

Actually, they were just trying to get a film company to talk about standardising conditions for actors. It wasn’t easy to get to the table, even with support from actor colleagues around the world, who put off signing up to the movie.

Eventually Actors Equity, with the support of the CTU, did make progress with the NZ industry body SPADA resulting in an MOU on how to work out standard terms and conditions for actors on productions like the Hobbit.

This eased the way for union assurances on a smooth Hobbit production, and an end to the international ban on actor recruitment.

Let’s be positive and hope that all the parties (Warners, Peter Jackson and the union) can move ahead and make a great movie.

I was pondering a post on Environment Minister Nick Smith’s proposed National Environment Standard on forestry.   Then I discovered Robert Guyton and James Henderson at The Standard had already said it all:

“The proposed NES for Forestry could more aptly be called the ‘let the farmers do what they want’ standard. Not only does it enable just about anything to do with harvesting plantation forest, it also makes any earthworks or quarrying within the rural environment a permitted activity (not subject to the resource consent process), except when it is in an area prone to erosion. This would mean all farmers can use the NES to bypass earthworks controls aimed at protecting landscapes and water quality, regardless of whether or not the earthworks or quarrying is for forestry purposes.”

James Henderson, writing for The Standard sounds the clarion for all councils and those people who value a truly clean, green environment and points the finger straight at Nick Smith. Most interesting is his description of the sneaky manner in which this NES was presented – ‘in between councils’ during the change-over period we are in now.

“Nick Smith knew that this wouldn’t go down well with Councils who regulate forestry activities with the aim of protecting water quality, biodiversity, and landscape values. So guess what, the consultation period for the new NES is during the local government elections recess period, i.e. the NES was proposed after Councils could formally consider it, and submissions close in mid October, before any new Councils have had their first meeting of the new triennium.”

Rotten.

I think it is rotten too, Robert and James.  Democracy requires better than Nick Smith releasing a document that will abrogate the rights of local authorities to make decisions on issues that are their core business at a time when the local authorities are lame ducks due to the local elections, and with the deadline for submissions being before the newly elected local authorities can even be properly constituted and meet, let alone consult with their constituents.

As Robert said, Rotten!!!

The International Energy Agency (IEA), the US Department of Energy, and Lloyd’s of London are all warning of an imminent oil supply crunch and price spike. Russel is concerned that all these institutions have made it very clear the world is facing an oil price shock in a few short years and this will have a very significant impact on the world economy.

Says he, “No matter how many new oil wells are drilled, New Zealand’s economy will be hit hard by the coming price shocks. It’s time to face the future rather than stick our heads in the sand in the hope that this problem will all go away”.

Colmar Brunton research commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has shown that 72% of New Zealanders think the Government should prepare now for future oil price rises by investing in alternative fuels and public transport.

It seems Kiwis understand that this is an opportunity to achieve economic resilience in the face of a changing energy landscape. Those countries that adapt by transitioning to a low carbon economy are the ones that will prosper.

Yet National and ACT, supposedly the parties of sound economic management, are so tied to their 20th century approach that they can’t even hear what the rest of the world is saying when it comes to oil. Adding insult to injury, Gerry Brownlee intends to gut the NZ Energy Strategy, a sad response to the changing world energy picture, lacking any kind of a plan to deal with this risk to our energy security.

At least the public see through it. So a reminder to please ensure John and Gerry get the message by making a submission on the draft Energy Strategy by 5pm this Thursday, 2 September.  See our submission guide for help.

The two major criticisms that can be leveled at the new documents are the focus on developing all our coal and oil resources as fast as possible and selling them to the highest (read overseas) bidder, and the complete lack of any specificity on how any of the policies that are mentioned will be achieved. Except for the “drill baby, drill” policy, there isn’t anything new at all in either document, just a re-branding of some of the same targets Labour had in the existing strategies, minus any programmes to achieve them.

The Energy Strategy and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy cover some complex policy territory, but fortunately there is a Green Party submission guide ready and waiting to help you have your say. It’s a bit long and detailed, but if you treat it like a pick & mix of good ideas to choose from, you can create your very own custom menu of goodies to feed Minister Brownlee’s imagination. If you don’t agree with something in the guide, delete it and add your own!

I asked what phased milestones the Minister had to achieve his stated goal of reaching 90% electricity generation from renewable sources by 2025.  His reply was that his Government did not ‘determine the investment decisions’ needed to increase the availability of renewably-generated activity.  Rather it sets the ‘regulatory and policy environment’ in which investments are made (such as the amended RMA and ETS).  Phased milestones would be possible ‘only if we lived in a command-and-control-style economy’.   “We do not,” he observed.

Mr Brownlee is correct.  We do not live in a command-and control economy.  We never have, although a National Prime Minister came closest three decades back, igniting the neo-liberal revolution of the ‘80s that dominates this Government’s thinking even today.

But we do live in a country that is part of an unsustainable global economy, whose most obvious symptom is dangerous climate change from excessive carbon emissions.  Switching to renewable energy sources and developing a low-carbon economy within a short time-period is a condition of enduring economic welfare, both for New Zealand and the world.

It is generally recognised that this switch must be completed within two decades at the latest.  New Zealand’s goal of 90% renewable electricity is one part of that transformation.  Identification of phased milestones is a legitimate part of attaining that goal.  It does not reflect Kremlin thinking.  It reflects an agreed aspiration, through consensus, to ensure that a final goal is more likely to be attained, with public and private sectors working together.

Most people and most governments and organizations do it.  The household budget contains milestones to pay off the mortgage.  The National Party will have a fund-raising plan, most probably with targets, for the 2011 election.  The Government has a phased milestone, signed by the National Cabinet in 1997 in the Kyoto Protocol to achieve the goal, signed by the National Government at Rio in 1992, of stabilising the global climate at a level that is not dangerous to the planet’s life-support systems.  The UN has phased milestones, under the well-known Millennium Development Goals, to halve global poverty, improve educational attainment, and increase maternal health and longevity.

We all have milestones, Mr Brownlee.  It is not a betrayal of the private sector as the driver of the national economy to lay down mid-point milestones to measure how well we are moving towards a stated target.

In fact, you have them yourself, or at least your Government has access to them, notwithstanding your momentary lapse in acknowledging this.  The NZ Electricity Commission’s draft Statement of Opportunities, released in July, is intended to “provide interested parties with independent information to consider in assessing the potential for grid management efficiencies and, in particular, investment in upgrades and transmission alternatives.”  The SOO, says the Chairman, is not a plan for the future development of the grid or of generation.  Rather it is a set of scenarios as to how the generation and transmission of electricity may develop, given a range of reasonable assumptions.

The scenarios show a trend for each year for all energy sources between 2010 and 2040.  Each renewable source – geothermal, hydro, wind, tidal, solar – is expected to increase.  The Government, and the public, will have this available to assess the effectiveness of the Energy Strategy over the next decade.

The policies of the previous Government, through the thermal power station moratorium and its ETS, were broadly on target for the market to deliver a 90% renewable by 2027.  The Green Party’s ‘Getting There’ document of August 2009 showed how we could achieve 90% by 2025.  This Government’s repeal of the moratorium and weakening of the ETS has left that in tatters.  Without a clear signal through government leadership, the market will not deliver on time.

Mr Brownlee’s Strategy speaks of “fostering the deployment of new renewable sources such as marine and solar sources of energy”.  How the Government plans to foster marine energy is left unclear.

If all you do is state an aspirational goal, leave it to the Commission to postulate scenarios based on assumptions, and leave unclear how you are going to foster new renewables, you will simply not attain the target.  Yet attaining the target is an imperative for our children’s generation.  And yours is the ministerial responsibility.

Here are a few personal thoughts on how to facilitate the attainment of the 90% target.  Assume a population growth rate of 0.8% per annum, and electricity generation growth of 2% p.a.  Based on these assumptions, the table below sets out a possible ‘phase in’ of renewable electricity sources and ‘phase-out’ of fossil-fuel- based sources.

* Some aging hydro stations decommissioned.

** Solar water heating has a negligible effect on national base-load.

This is not a command plan.  It is a heuristic tool.  It shows the magnitude of the challenge of switching to a low-carbon economy when energy consumption is growing exponentially.  The reality will not be precisely like this.  But unless we all – householders, voters, farms, companies, local authorities, government – have some idea of the phase-in / phase-out trend we need as a nation, we shall never get there.

And the only way to get there, in light of the above, is a robust carbon price signal for the market economy to react.  There, the Government is failing us as well.  But that is for another time.

The Budget was, of course, introduced by Finance Minister, Bill English on 20 May.  The debate has spluttered along, on and off to reflect the changing weekly priorities of the Government in Parliament.  The final stage is this week. 

I took the opportunity to critique the Government’s policy devotion to economic growth.  I recalled the Speech-from-the-Throne of December 2008, the Budget Statement of May 2010, and the covering comment in the Energy Strategy released last week.  “The driving goal – overarching goal – of the new Government will be to grow the NZ economy in order to deliver greater prosperity, security and opportunities to all NZers.  It will be going for growth because it believes in the power of economic growth to deliver higher incomes, better living conditions and, ultimately, a stronger society for NZers.”  QED.

I ventured to claim that the excessive focus on economic growth was, at best, contestable.  With a global population that has grown from 2 billion to 7 b. in 50 years, and a steady increase in material consumption per capita, the global economy has become unsustainable.  The ecological overshoot of some 30% today makes it clear that permanent global economic growth is ‘uneconomic’.  A distinction needs to be drawn now, between the Global North (including Australia and NZ) and the Global South (including our Pacific island neighbours).  The challenge now to the ‘over-developed’ North was to maintain prosperity without growth.  The challenge to the developing South was to continue to grow materially, on a sustainable basis.

The key concept to link this, I said, was ‘sustainable development’, accepted by the international community since 1992.  We needed to have regard to sustainable development in every country on the planet.

The Minister ’s reaction?  “Left-wing rubbish!”

I thanked Mr Brownlee for his stunning insight into the human condition and our 21^st century global challenges. 

It is sad that this is the level of debate we are required to endure in the present Parliament.  The question of the carrying capacity of Earth was addressed at the Rio Earth Summit of ’92 (which I attended).  Policy-makers acknowledged the limited knowledge available pertaining to the biosphere and the Earth’s ecological limits.  Since ‘92 there has been a veritable upsurge of research in these areas, which is increasingly informing policy-making.  This includes the relationship between neo-classical economics and ecological economics – arguably the most critical debate underway of all time.

All this has nothing to do with the obsolescent left-right political spectrum, spawned in 18^th century revolutionary France and dying a lingering death in our post-modern world.  Minister Brownlee remains caught in the headlights, and the headlights are fading fast.  He needs to blink a few times, and read a bit more.

Although I had no time in the House to warm to the theme, it is worth pointing out to Mr. Brownlee, and indeed to other National colleagues who stare in bewilderment when Green statements are advanced in the House, that the left-right spectrum cannot inform 21^st century politics.  Trying to understand Green politics, and how to separate us from Labour, is impossible through the sole use of the left-right analysis.  It is like peering at a Dali painting, with the clock spread across the canvas in mono-dimensional manner. 

Only when we have a vertical axis, a sustainability axis, will we all – party strategists, media, voting public – begin to understand 21^st century politics and where the Greens are coming from, and where we are heading.

Meanwhile, we shall patiently explain things to Gerry Brownlee, as gently as we can.

Today the Green Party is preparing to celebrate with hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who stood up against the mining of Schedule Four conservation land. The Government has acknowledged the more than 44,000 signatures on a Green Party petition, the 40,000 people who made submissions and the 40,000 people marched in the streets to say “No Mining on Schedule 4”.

We’d like to acknowledge all the fantastic volunteers who worked so hard for this victory. We also want to pay tribute to the coalition of groups we have worked with in the “2 Precious 2 Mine” coalition and all the citizens who told the Government they could not mine National Parks and other sacred places.

The mining industry will still try to find a way to access coal and gold, but they have been sent a strong message from the population. The core values of Tangata Whenua and communities have been expressed. The Government has realised they cannot afford to ignore us on this issue.

All New Zealanders value the natural environment of our country because it is part of our identity. The phrase “future generations” is not empty for us. Our children’s children are entitled to a healthy relationship with the natural world that will support them if we protect it.

Speaking personally, one of the highlights of the campaign was traveling by bus with the Coromandel people to join the Auckland march and seeing the huge range of people filling the whole of Queen Street and speaking with a single voice. As a veteran of the Coromandel campaign in the 80s, it is hugely rewarding to see that people power across the nation can save many of our sacred places.

There are parties being organised around the country tonight. But wherever you are raise your glass to the mountains, the rivers and forests. If they flourish we flourish. And raise your glass to the people who participated in this campaign. It was all worth it!

If you’re in Wellington come on down the the Back Bencher tonight. More details here.

So what do we have here?

The stuff that did not work back then is the same stuff that hasn’t worked now. Same busted blow-out preventer, same ineffective booms, same underwater plumes, same toxic dispersant, same failed containment dome, same junk shot, same top kill. It’s all the same technology!

The Ixtoc oil spill in 1979 was in 200 feet of water, while Deepwater Horizon is in 5,000 feet of water. The only thing the oil companies have got better at in 30 years is drilling in deeper water with the same inadequate technology.

When Gerry Brownlee reassures us that only modern, proven oil drilling technology will be used here in New Zealand, exactly what is he referring to?

Hat Tip: www.interest.co.nz

Surely for the National Party, setting a standard and letting the market decide how to achieve it is the simplest, lowest cost way to encourage a biofuel market, but Gerry doesn’t live in the same universe as the rest of his colleagues.

This is now abundantly clear, given his mis-handling of the mining debate, his ill-timed oil drilling permit and his meaningless and expensive re-shuffle of the electricity market.

The Minister is now changing the criteria for the biofuel subsidy because of the poor response.

How he got $36 million out of his Cabinet colleagues for a subsidy while every other Minister was being forced to cut back is a mystery. Fortunately, there has been very little take up of this ill-conceived plan, and Cabinet could spend it on something useful, like restoring cuts to DoC’s funding.

Just how ill-conceived the plan is needs little explanation. The Minister is standing there with $36 million in lollies and no one is interested.

Meanwhile, having repealed sustainability standards along with the biofuel obligation in 2008, on Morning Report the Minister was hiding behind a lack of sustainability standards as his excuse for killing the obligation!

The Government should cut its losses with the subsidy and support Kennedy’s member’s bill to restore the biofuel sustainability standards. The Minister’s performance, while bad for the country, is just what the opposition needs going into the next election cycle.

“So I guess my prescription is to say that a partially listed model where you have access to the capital that you need, similar to the Air New Zealand model which I think is a good model, is a really important path for a company like Solid Energy.”

Mr Palmer thought there would be little political risk for the Government in its second term, were it to win one, in going down that track with a company such as Solid Energy.

“This can be, with the right sort of management and the right sort of capital, one of New Zealand’s most important companies. It should be,” he said.

Yes, that quote is from the Sydney Morning Herald.  I can just imagine the executives at the foreign-owned mining giants like BHP Billiton drooling all over their shoes at the prospect.

Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee was quick to see the political risk, and slap down tread lightly on Palmer:

But Brownlee said any sale of state-owned assets would occur only if the Government was elected on that mandate.

”The government has made it very clear we not selling any assets until we go to New Zealand and say that’s our plan.”

What a hopeless response from Gerry!

Solid Energy is hard enough to control as a State Owned Enterprise.  It is already wanting to start coal seam fires in the Waikato to convert coal into gas, with consequent pollution of both the air and the water table.  It is also wanting to mine the dirtiest coal of them all, lignite, on a far greater scale in Southland.

Let Solid Energy loose on the sharemarket, especially given National’s proposed relaxation of Resource Management Act constraints, and who knows how much environmental damage Solid Energy will do.

We need a clearer response to the Solid Energy privatisation proposals, Gerry.  Yes, or no?

And we want it now!

That’s the low down from a series of economic reports commissioned by Forest & Bird as part of their submission into the mining of Schedule 4 consultation.

It seems that the true economic benefit of digging up the minerals in Schedule 4 is only $100 million, which comes to only $36 per voter. The potential tourism losses of up to $6.1 billion, in exchange for $100 million in economic benefit, kill any notion that this is a good idea.

Metiria has had her say, and NoRightTurn has also waded into the debacle.

Given how determined Gerry Brownlee is to see some economic development, it’s a shame we have to add digging up our National Parks to the list of Government growth strategies with a negative cost benefit.

How about we research how to acheive prosperity without growth?

Do you need any economics savvy to write policy for this Government?

A number of tangata whenua who had received rather late invitations to the hui were well prepared to challenge the Minister and were supportive of the protest organised by Coromandel Watchdog. The Green Party was there to support other residents who travelled from Whitianga, Tairua and Coromandel to express their views directly to the Minister even though we only saw him for about ten seconds.

However we were very heartened by the comments from kuia and kaumätua who had brought their mokopuna to tell the Minister what they thought of mining. The children from the kura kaupapa at Harataunga (Kennedys Bay) had visited the Waihi Gold Mine this week and they told me they had many questions for the Minister about why he would even consider allowing this activity in their area.

We heard later that Hauraki iwi spokespeople had unanimously rejected mining at the hui. There was apparently no iwi support in the meeting and people also raised new issues such as the matter of aerial mining surveys flying over land without  the blessing of Hauraki iwi.

In the mean time people are writing submissions and organising meetings and preparing for a sustained effort to defend Schedule 4 and the conservation land which surrounds their homes. The rain is still falling on the steep unstable valleys where the gold companies want to make their fortunes but fortunately there are strong and united communities up here and we are not afraid to get wet.

Warning: this video contains adult(ish) humour and may cause injury due to excessive laughter!