Behind the mining debate is a more depressing story.
Mining our national parks is supposed to tap our rich resources, upgrade our economy, move us forward. It threatens to undermine our clean and green brand on which so many of our products rely.
Sadly, it’s more clutching at straws, trying to emulate Australia which we’re trying to catch. It’s ad hoc, quick fix, get rich quick. It’s short termism, shows a real lack of imagination, an absence of anything strategic, forward thinking or sustainable.
What we are not seeing is that Australia is not content to rely on its minerals. It’s investing in science – upping its investment by 25%. It’s giving breaks to innovative companies. Finland, Denmark, Singapore are all doing similarly.
NZ will not become prosperous overnight. It needs long term thinking, a commitment to capitalising on our brains and building innovation into our economy through our brightest companies. We need to be clean, green and clever.
It’s time for an economic strategy from the Key government, not a simple knee-jerk, bandwagon approach.
Agreed
Exactly, increasing producivity cannot just be cutting wages and getting people to work harder…
Similiarly increasing GDP cannot simply be about producing more primary products, we need to invest to value add…
Name the famous NZer who said, “We haven’t got the money, so we’ve got to think!.”
Roger Douglas:
“I’ve an idea, lets sell everything..!”
We live in the purest country in the world by brand and by nature. That is our identity. No nukes, no whaling and no mining. Baby Boomers who would sell our nation’s heritage to line their Tory Toyotas in their senescence beware.
Never going to happen as they wouldn’t know economic strategy if it bit them. They do know about strategy on how to get elected by lying though.
I’m not against mining per sé but I am against digging the resources and then selling them raw to another country. We’d be much better off developing the manufacturing that goes with the resources and then digging them up to be used in completed products. That’s where our economy is failing – it isn’t producing the high priced completed product but just the basic and cheap raw products. National’s “plan” is just more of the same and is completely worthless.
I love this plan to mine, this country was built on mining and if you people think that tourism (ie waiting on rich tourists, yes sir no sir) is the way to go to get us out of this hole then (to quote mitre 10) you’re dreaming
Mining will get us out of this hole, the land will recover (don’t believe me then go to denniston and check out whats happening there) an the govt will have more money to spend without borrowing
win-win situation
Oh phew, Mining industry group Straterra says mining is good for us. So it must be. Gosh I feel relieved.
Like I have said before, what a shame Labour didn’t take such a strong stance when in government.
Interesting too where people draw the line with mining: seems to me that we are all okay with mining as long as it is not in OUR country destroying OUR pristine landscape, or in Labour’s case, not destroying the pristine landscape protected under Schedule 4 (as apparently the rest of our landscape is not as precious).
We are all happy to use and wear the by-products of mining – gold, diamonds, coal, iron etc so long as it is not in our backyard.
You can’t have it both ways – you’re either for it or against it. Mining is mining.
As for innovative ideas beyond stripping our land bare – I’m all for it. Question is, has Labour got any?
Rebecca, you ask has labour got any ( ideas)?
Well they had the research funding /tax allowances which National axed.
Apparently being smart is not for them ( or you)
“Baby Boomers who would sell our nation’s heritage to line their Tory Toyotas in their senescence beware.” – Aw, what do people have against baby boomers?
I know plenty of baby boomers who are disgusted by the mining. And Shearer, who wrote this post, IS a baby boomer!
“Labour didn’t take such a strong stance when in government.”
Labour didn’t have to take a strong stance when they were in government because they didn’t have a bunch of tories ripping up the country.
words from vto The Standard,
“Interesting letter in the Press this morning from a chap who was involved in placing the Paparoa National Park boundaries not too long ago. He said they asked for and received substantial input from the mining industry (public and private) over those boundaries so the mining could be left out. The mining industry was listened to and catered for in those boundaries.
He now asks a perfectly good question – wtf going on now
then? (well, not quite in those words.)”
We know ‘wtf’ is going on now. The vultures have been circling for NActMU to get in and enlarge their feeding trough.
Leave Schedule 4 alone.
David – you are quite correct – we live in the 21st century – and its time those that are still living in the past (this country was built on mining, this country was built on whaling, this country was this that and everything else) are living and pining for the wrong century. What matters now is not what our past was (by all means learn from it but do not repeat those same mistakes) but what we do now and the impact it has on our future.
R and D – science and thinking outside the square – that is where our future lies. Its taken us a while to have the brand we have – middle earth, 100% pure (true or not) and anti nuke and anti whaling – grow that, and look to discover the technologies that have yet to be invented. Don’t be suckered into falling for a cheap and nasty quick buck. By all means be a capitalist – but temper it with the values, social justice and responsibility for the long term that creates a successful and happy society – not a selfish greedy one.
AND INVEST in education – instead of systematically destroying it.
It beggers belief that the nats and their supporters can not see the sense in being green, clean, sustainable and tech savvy. Show the world what is possible – stop trying to beat Australia at their game – create your own path, learn from the other countries successes and mistakes and be a beacon of success others want to emulate.
Someone over at the Standard, I forget which commentator now, said that it would be one thing if we took to mining to finance something of real, long term economic worth, and quite another if the reason is just to “get money.” At the moment we have the Nats inferring that beneficiaries are parasitic on the taxpayer. Is it not more parasitic to get your claws on something, whether water, land, power or minerals, often at a great cost to others, and wait for it to make you rich? With the former, only subsistence is asked, with the latter, status, wealth, and life-style are assumed. If you look at the sustained successful efforts made in this country, whether in Weta workshop, science or farming, it involves real engagement in some sort of real activity, not just casting an eye around for where the money is likely to be, and trying to get there first. One way of dealing with this is to work it so that money follows on the good economic idea, rather than hoping that the good idea will follow on the money.
Paul, you’ve expressed the case better than me. Exactly my thinking.
My comment was less about mining and more about the need for a longer term – possibly bipartisan – economic strategy for New Zealand. Central to that is science, innovation and clean, smart industries.
I’m against mining our schedule 4 areas, (not mining generally). The reason is not just because of the intrinsic conservation values of those areas but because it threatens our branding of clean, green – and I what I hope might evolve – clever New Zealand.
Sorry David, but ALL mining “threatens our branding of clean, green – and I what I hope might evolve – clever New Zealand”
If Labour was that focused on “science, innovation and clean, smart industries” then why did you approve 72 new mining licenses including the “intrusive” Pike River?
This lack of innovation and general foresight plus our smelly cows and high carbon footprint in terms of exporting goods overseas does not bode well for tourism in the long term.
The Tourism industry have also spoken out against this proposal… interesting stoush ahead between mining and tourism lobbies.
The welfare measures will reduce out welfare payout by 200m per year. Paula Bennett needs to have her feet held to the fire over this. Dontlet her use salary savings through staff cuts to bolster her figures down the line.
We’re borrowing 250m per week. Even IF mining goes ahead in these areas we are looking at YEARS before any benefits flow into the New Zealand economy. In the meantime we keep paying our interest… and dreaming of the beautiful uninhabited red desert of Australian mining.
It has been estimated that our mineral resources, even excluding coal and other hydrocarbon-based minerals, are estimated to be worth $194 billion. It was reported in the New Zealand Herald that we are borrowing $250 million per week due to the recent recession. Does clean green mining not seem to be an appropriate revenue to help New Zealand become strong financially once again?
The minerals the government are looking to extract at the moment are gold, silver, gemstones and rare earth minerals such terbium, erbium, which are used in technologies such as hybrid and electric cars, wind turbines and low-energy saving light bulbs. These are the items which are going to really help with the sustainability of this earth! If the only way they can run is by mining the minerals out of the ground, then it makes sense. Why sit around and think of all the reasons we shouldn’t mine, when there are far bigger issues such as gas emissions and energy consumptions which are going to cause the failure of our ecosystem far faster than a few un-noticeable holes in the ground.
One final reason why we should mine in our national parks is because New Zealand has the clean green image. Other countries look up to us, as leaders in conservation in the world. Who is better to display how to mine these resources but ourselves? If we follow the proposed model, then we will set a high standard for the rest of the world, because inevitably mining is going to happen, and believe here in New Zealand we should promote clean, green mining.