The Government and the secretive Iwi Leadership Group are looking at an option where no-one owns the foreshore and seabed. It’s often forgotten that the Ngati Apa case, which sparked the foreshore and seabed, contraversy was about big business. Ngati Apa wanted to have title over the seabed so it could undertake aquaculture, bypassing a ‘bidding war’ for aquaculture licences from local authorities. A ‘no-one owns it’ solution won’t satisfy Ngati Apa, effectively it’s no change from now. Just a symbolic repeal of the Act with the same effect.
It’s funny how Key still seems to think it’s important to be ‘ambitious’ in pursuing a goal (catching Australia by 2025) that no-one thinks we can achieve and yet says we shouldn’t be too ambitious in pursuing a target (reducing emissions by 40%) that the experts say it is critical that we do achieve. The real rub, though, is that it doesn’t matter. Whether Key is an ambitious on catching Australia or unambitious on tackling climate change the outcome is the same – he will do nothing.
We need to be smart about our natural wealth. We only have our pristine wilderness and our mineral deposits once, when they’re gone they’re gone. So why the rush to get rid of both? If we decide to ever extract those minerals it shouldn’t necessarily be now, the stuff is only getting more valuable sitting in the ground and mining techiques are improving. Mining isn’t some economic panacea – most of the profits go offshore. We exported $2.8 billion worth of oil last year and took just 30% of that in government revenue. Compare that to Norway, where a state-owned company does most of the drilling and the profits go into a national wealth fund. Mining/drlling by foreign companies puts little money into the local economy – it is a multi-billion industry yet it employs only 6,000 Kiwis (who, to be fair, are well-paid because they are fully-unionised).
This was Gerry Brownlee in the House yesterday: “New Zealand produces in excess of 21 million barrels of oil a day”. Really? That’s a quarter of the world’s oil supply. That’s twice Saudi Arabia’s production. What an idiot.
Close Up bumped John Key for Robin Brooke. Not a good look for Sainsbury or Key.
Granny Herald: It’s not a ‘debate’ when you’re the only one participating. How about using all those column inches on a real issue?