John Key: Aussie miners’ stooge

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, March 22nd, 2012 - 14 comments
Categories: john key, Mining - Tags:

It was good to see Green MPs, Forest and Bird and various other conservation groups challenging our fearless leader as he shilled for Bathurst Mining last night.

Bathurst is an Australian mining company whose operations are entirely in New Zealand.  That is, they exist purely to take our natural resources and make Australian profit out of them.

They’ve already got resource consent to destroy a unique ecosystem and some of our biodiversity in the Denniston Plateau.  That decision has been appealed by environmental groups, but in the meantime John Key has taken the opportunity to “officiate” at the opening of Bathurst’s Wellington lobbying office, and put pressure on DoC to grant concessions on our plateau.

As F&B advocate Nicola Toki put it:

“The prime minister turning up in an official capacity and endorsing the Bathurst office is a not-so-subtle way of influencing where the Department of Conservation should go.”

Quite why John Key is so desperate to enrich Australians at the loss of New Zealand’s environment I’m not sure, but while that Nats scoff at saving snails, the UN sees that the biodiversity crisis is even worse than climate change.

“We need a sea-change in human thinking and attitudes towards nature: not as something to be vanquished, conquered, but rather something to be cherished and lived within,” says economist Pavan Sukhdev.

Someone please tell the Nats.

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Biodiversity side-note: John Key is refusing to meet his constituents about the potential loss of Maui’s dolphin. Apparently he wants to spend the rare time he is in his electorate talking about “pressing local issues”. What could be more pressing than extinction, and – when the main population of dolphins is off South Kiapara in his constituency – what could be more local, I’m not sure.

14 comments on “John Key: Aussie miners’ stooge ”

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  1. Clashman 1
    22 March 2012 at 3:09 pm

    Cant sell the dolphins so why would he be interested

  2. muzza 2
    22 March 2012 at 3:15 pm

    Was there not a post on the boards about a conflict of interest with the Bank of America being a shareholder of Bauthurst Mining?

    • marsman 2.1
      22 March 2012 at 4:24 pm

      This is from Penny Bright in ‘Smith to go’ post.

      Is this not a major ‘conflict of interest’ if Prime Minister John Key stands to personally profit from opencast coal mining on conservation land, because of his personal shareholding in the Bank of America, which, in turn is a significant shareholder in Bathurst Resources Ltd?

      Whose interests are being served by NZ Prime Minister John Key?

      His own?

      As of 24 February 2012, the Bank of America was a substantial holder of shares in Bathurst Resources Ltd:

      “Class of Securities (4) – Ordinary

      Present Notice “Person’s Votes 72,302,308 Voting Power (5) 10.44%
      http://www.bathurstresources.com/files/files/1079_20120229_Change_in_substantial_holding.pdf

      NZ Prime Minister John Key is a shareholder in the Bank Of America.

      http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/28FF3CC9-5985-4721-B335-776C5EAE81DF/195667/register2011_1.pdf

      • muzza 2.1.1
        22 March 2012 at 4:49 pm

        The substantial holdings pdf link, appear to indicate that Bank of America, and Merril Lynch both have interests.

        So we have a PM who admits he has BoA shares which he states were converted following the deal done to acquire ML, in which the PM was a major player inside ML Bank.

        The PM is now fronting for a company which is being given consents for exploration/mining which is owned by the company he used to work for, and a company he has shares in..

        Logically this would indicate that the PM stands to benefit from this arrangement?

        Have I got that much right?

        • marsman 2.1.1.1
          22 March 2012 at 5:52 pm

          I think you have it very right. Conflict of interest? Do you think Duncan Garner might grill John Key on that? Be even better if Winstone Peters brought it up in the House and/or in the media.

          • muzza 2.1.1.1.1
            23 March 2012 at 9:44 am

            If this does not deserve some investigation, then I suggest we live in nothing less than a Banana Republic!

            Garner will ask no such thing, none of them will!

  3. Draco T Bastard 3
    22 March 2012 at 3:32 pm

    Someone please tell the Nats.

    You can tell the NACTs anything but if it goes against their belief of their god given right to plunder, exploit and destroy then they won’t believe you.

  4. Tc 4
    22 March 2012 at 3:44 pm

    Those Nat party funds don’t fill themselves you know, busy busy government.

  5. SpaceMonkey 5
    22 March 2012 at 4:37 pm

    “Quite why John Key is so desperate to enrich Australians at the loss of New Zealand’s environment I’m not sure”

    I would suggest one looks at who owns Bathurst… and I suspect it will be a hedge fund relating to one or more of John Key’s Wall St masters.

    • felix 5.1
      22 March 2012 at 4:43 pm

      Yep, Bank of America apparently. Which Key just happens to hold shares in.

      • SpaceMonkey 5.1.1
        22 March 2012 at 5:00 pm

        Yeah… just after I posted I saw that mentioned above. And I see also Merrill Lynch, which is actually John Key’s former employer and now a wholly owned subsidiary of BoA (which is why he has shares in BoA). This stinks.

        BoA is insolvant and close to collapse anyway. They, like most of the banks on Wall St, are hiding behind wads of derivatives on and off their books. This is not going to help them. It will simply corale more resources for the uber-rich for when the SHTF. Same deal with the power companies.

        Anyone who understands what’s really going down on a global scale knows that the uber-rich are making a grab for land, resources and energy, and precious metals. When this fiat currency scam that’s been running since 1971 finally crashes it’s going to be these tangible assets that make the difference between the haves and have nots.

        We should try to stop this at every step. Keep our resources for NZ… not the uber-rich fronted by the high-financiers.

        • marsman 5.1.1.1
          22 March 2012 at 6:01 pm

          Where do Ashcroft and Myers fit into all this. What parts do they play and HOW MUCH will they make out of the NAct scam? HOW MUCH will John Key make out of his NAct scam?

  6. Dr Terry 6
    22 March 2012 at 5:11 pm

    John Key’s personal interests will always come first. The difference now is that he is shedding those “charming” disguises which served, in his first term, to take in ever so many people (who will not be well pleased with the way things are shaping).

    • starlight 6.1
      24 March 2012 at 11:54 am

      I agree with you,i found out about this rort the other day as well,what is concerning
      is that key and english are happy destroying our economy,destroying jobs,selling us
      off to their mates,now all of those has increased with speed,so is he getting all his
      ducks in a row before he gets found out,duck shooting is comming and we need
      to bring this to public attention and soon.
      Key’s big con was tricking nz’ers into believing he has their best interests at heart.