RNZ is reporting that the Auckland Regional Council will formally oppose mining on Great Barrier Island, calling it  “irresponsible for the Government to undo its promise to look after the protected land for future generations.”

Good on them.

Unfortunately we haven’t seen the same strong position from the Thames-Coromandel District Council who last week decided to take a neutral position on the Government’s proposals, with only two councilors voting against the decision. Coromandel watchdog are right to be confused by the decision (and more than a little outraged) when a previous report by the council labeled four of the areas the government proposes mining of ‘international significance.’

If the council won’t speak up, I guess that leaves it up to everyone else.

This afternoon I had a go at introducing my first member’s bill.  It’s pretty straight forward. 

At the moment the Minister of Conservation can remove land from Schedule 4 (which protects 13% of the most pristine parts of the country from mining) by pretty much making the decision and then Gazetting it. My bill removes that power, and instead requires approval from the House of Representatives before any land can be removed from Schedule 4.  Basically, it makes all of us accountable for the decision to mine, or not to mine.

It has another important consequence. It takes the power out of the hands of the Minister of Conservation, and for good reason. The Minister has utterly failed to act as an advocate for the Conservation estate thus far. I don’t think the fate of the Coromandel, Great Barrier Island and Paparoa National Park should lie with her and her alone- let alone Gerry Brownlee as has been proposed.

A couple of people have asked me about the bill in comparison to Metiria Turei’s bill, which was drawn last week.  Metiria’s bill removes the ability to take land out of schedule 4 -full stop.  I hope it passes.  If however the Government votes it down,  I would like to hear them explain why then at the very least, all Member’s of Parliament should not have a right to vote on changes to schedule 4, why each of us should not be held to account on decisions that will have a significant impact on local communities, our environment, and our reputation. 

If they want to mine our parks, we should put it to the vote.

The Law Comissions report on alcohol reform is out, and it’s big.

I will leave it to others to raise some of the more general issues within the report. I want to touch on just one for now- the purchasing age- not the drinking age because we of course don’t have one, but the age you can purchase alcohol in this country.

I’ve never been keen on suggestions that alcohol issues were anything other than something we should all collectively take responsibilty for. The debate on raising or lowering the purchase age has in my mind acted as a distraction to the much broader problem we have (and we do have a problem).  If our issues were centered around 18 and 19 year olds, those who would directly be affected by such a change, then maybe this would be the golden ticket. But I don’t believe this is the case.

The issue we’re facing extends beyond this cohort, and in very simple terms, I don’t believe this is the measure that will have the greatest impact.

I want a debate to be had on this, but not to be distracted by it, or for the young to be the scapegoat for an issue we all need to take responsibilty for.

But what do you think?

Easy to have missed the latest move on mining by the Government. Late last month Gerry Brownlee appears to have issued a statement via Crown Minerals to close off areas of land for mineral permits for the next 9 months.  The reason? The Crown Minerals website claims it’s because of the discussion document on mining schedule 4 land. This can’t be the real reason- no one under the current law can apply for a permit to mine this land- making it redundant to issue a notice of land closure.

That leaves the other reason listed on the site, the $4million survey to see which other areas of land should be open up to mining and

“for the purposes of considering those areas of land for allocation of permits by competitive tender.”

You can see the full list of areas that have been closed to permits (for now) here. It includes areas the Government previously claimed it was not looking at. It also includes all of Great Barrier Island, not just the area included in the Government’s discussion document.

TVNZ covered part of this story this evening, and when the Government was asked why for instance Mt Aspiring was now included, the response was something along the lines of “no one thought it was worth drawing a new line on the map.”

I think it’s a bit hard to ask the public to respond to the Government’s plans on mining when there’s so much confusion as to what exactly their real intentions are, and what’s in and what’s not.

Time for more than just some lines on a map- time for  a whole lot more transparency.

Friend of mine in Africa saw the debate we’re having in New Zealand over mining (and more recently over cyanide) and flicked me this article from the FT.

As well as the impact of mining, it seems royalty regimes are a source of debate in places like Ghana where mining companies pay 3% of their revenue to the Government (according to the World Bank, royalty rates range across Africa from 0-12%)

For the sake of comparison, our regime says that for mines where the annual net sales revenue is greater than $1 million the royalty payable is the higher of either 1% of the net sales revenues or a 5% accounting profits royalty. That led to a total take of about $6.5 million for the NZ Government last year.

Interesting info to consider.

Yesterday the Community Board out on Great Barrier Island hosted a public meeting on mining, the largest in decades.

Most of the meeting was dedicated to letting the locals have their say- but the Community Board also brought in a representative of the mining industry to answer a few questions. I’m not sure anyone necessarily came away better informed – except perhaps about cyanide.

People who raised concerns about the use of cyanide to extract gold and silver from ore were told that “it’s the most easily handled poison” and although it could still kill people, at least its “biodegradable.” I’m not really sure the best way to defend mining on Great Barrier is to try and defend the role of cyanide.

Sure a discussion about process and the reality of mining is important, but what really sits at the core of the debate is one really simple question. Do you think there parts of New Zealand that are too precious to mine?  After 90 minutes or so of listening to a mining rep talk about process and potential wealth, I decided to ask him that question. The answer I got? “Yes, but I just don’t know if this is one of them.”

The boos seemed to suggest the residents of Great Barrier disagree. And so do I.

Imagine a few people will be keeping an eye on the election campaign over in the UK. Labour has just released its new billboard campaign, which was designed via a competition open to the public (ironically run by Saatchi and Saatchi). The winner was a 24 year old Labour supporter who depicted David Cameron as Gene Hunt from Ashes to Ashes, a show set in the 80s.

Thoughts?

Yesterday the Children’s commissioner came out against the Government’s third bill on the super city, claiming there was still no indication of how it would represent the interests of children and young people.

Young people make up a huge 40% of the population in the super city, but as far as I can tell there has been very little chat about this group from within Government since the Royal Commission mentioned them way back when.

So what would we propose? Well, during round two of the super city bills we put forward an amendment that would establish a youth council, much like that used by Auckland City at present, but with a regional element added on to make sure that young people have a place in the new super city structure. This was voted down, with Government members claiming the issue of youth representation would be dealt with in this current round of legislation. That hasn’t happened.

But lets be honest. A youth council (or a Chief Advisor on Young People as proposed by the Children’s Commissioner) is just one small part of a much bigger issue. At all levels of local governance young people don’t have much of a place. The number of under 35s elected to councils is in single digits, and voter turnout for this group (as far as I have managed to establish) is unmeasured but presumably low.  Responsibility for that sits in two places I think, sure it’s up to young people to take an interest, but equally they’re more likely to be interested when local government is responsive and when decisions  have a positive impact on them and the places they live.

Whatever way you look at it, the super city as it currently stands has a whopping big gap in terms of young people, and I think it’s all the poorer for it.

Today the Herald printed an article headed ‘NZ Youth losing out in health, education, jobs.’ The article is based on the NZ institute’s latest report, which found that New Zealand has:

-The second-highest proportion of the unemployed who are aged 15 to 19

-The highest teen suicide rate

-One of the highest school dropout rates

The Institue Director, Dr Rick Boven, makes special mention of New Zealand’s high levels of inequality as a contributing factor. He also talks about the lack of transition into different forms of education and the need to match training and education with areas where we have workforce shortages.

Couple of things struck me from this report and the article itself.  Alternative forms of education are necessary and important. Why then are there threats that our alternative education programmes might be cut?

If matching education to the areas where we have a skills shortages is so crucial, why did the Government dump the skills strategy?

And if the health of young people is an issue, surely it would be wise for a Government to properly fund our youth health one stop shops, who provide help with general health needs, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health issues. Currently up to three of these services have faced closure this year alone, despite a Government commissioned report that they are providing a useful and necessary service for young people, who might otherwise not be catered for.

So the headline really does says it all. The Government’s response on some of these issues probably does too.

Last week Kate Wilkinson apparently launched a book titled Threatened Plants of New Zealand, which highlights a dramatic decline in New Zealand’s native plants. Set against the Government’s latest mining proposals, and the fact that DOC has highlighted the impact these proposals will have on biodiversity, I had to wonder whether the irony was lost on the Minister.

But it also got me thinking. What are we doing to DOC in all of this?

To date our system around mining has worked pretty well because there have been clearly defined roles for each Minister. I used to work for the Associate Minister of Energy. I watched the mining application process in action and saw first hand the role of the Minister whose job is to champion the crown mineral estate , and that of the Minister of Conservation, who on behalf of all New Zealanders made the ultimate and final call on whether an applicant should have access crown land (outside of schedule 4 that is.)  Until now that is.

Buried within the discussion document is a proposal that the Minister of Energy play a role in determining if access rights should be granted, making it a joint decision making process. The advocacy roles between Ministers has been blurred, confused and compromised. And in a wrangle between Brownlee and Wilkinson, Crown Minerals vs DOC,  you can pick now which way decisions are going to go, especially if Wilkinson’s current advocacy is anything to go by.

I still don’t understand what it is about our current system that the Government considers to be broken.  Don’t get me wrong I don’t support a blanket ban on all mining in New Zealand. But I do believe their are places we just shouldn’t touch. We had a way to protect those places with Schedule 4, and for the rest, we had a robust decision making system.  That has now received a double blow.