Cell towers back on Green Party’s hitlist
The Green Party jumped back on the anti-cellphone tower bandwagon again this week, reducing the complex issue to crowd-friendly soundbites.
Arguments over the deployment of cellphone masts around the country have raged for years, with companies and government organizations all struggling to find a solution that would keep everybody happy.
This did not prevent Green Party MP Sue Kedgley from scoring political points over the towers in parliament this week.
She complained it was “incredibly unfair” that telecommunications companies could put up transmitters and antennae on power poles next to people’s homes without having to inform them or consult with them.
Health minister Tony Ryall conceded that the public did not have a right to be consulted on cellphone towers being put up in their communities while assuring Ms Kedgeley of the safety of the tower.
This did not stop Ms Kedgeley from calling for a review of the national environmental standard so that telcos would be required to consult with local residents before constructing cellphone masts next to people’s homes and schools.
The campaign against cell sites is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser - it’s not hard to connect with voters concerned about their health and the fact that their skylines could be tainted with the sight of towers, as long as the work already going into public consultation and issues such as co-location are ignored.
2degrees has been the most active tower builder over the past 18 months as it established its network in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown, and is now in raising the money to take that network nationwide.
2degrees spokeswoman Bryony Hilless said the telco considered it good practise to carry out consultation with those affected by the erection of towers and some cases did require a formal consultation process under the Resource Management Act.
Consultation can hold up some projects for months and an absolute requirement to consult anybody in the region who could be affected in any way would only delay more towers, when escalating demand and increasing competition see the need for more sites grow.
Standing up in Parliament and scoring political points is easy enough, especially when nobody want a tower in their back garden, but it won’t solve the ongoing problem.
Back to home
Back to top
Print
Latest
NBR SERVICES
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Sign up for NBR subscriber content or email alerts
Comments and questions4
You know, like your gramma used to listen to during the blitz?
There is no risk at all from using a cellphone other than being killed by angry theatre-goers or walking into a lamppost. The radio is just that - a radio - and this idea that celltowers are frying our brains is clearly the work of people who don't understand the Inverse Square Law or anything at all about propogation of radio waves.
If you're more than five metres away from a tower you won't know it's there. If you're too far away from a tower your cellphone will work HARDER to pick up the signal. More towers mean less power output right next to your brain, which is probably a good thing.
Unless you're in the Green Party of course, in which case carry on burying your head in the sand. That'll protect you from the evil "radiation".
Oh for heavens sake!
Why don't these people drop off the face of the earth, so little common sense comes out of that party they are just a waste of space.
Roll on the day we get rid of MMP, and with it some of the hanger-ons that seem to be attracted to this wacko lot.
In case they haven't heard there's no such thing as Utopia, buy yourselves an island and go and live your 'simple' lives away from the rest of the sane citizens of this beautiful country, and don't forget, you'll have to swim to get there, no phones, no communication, no planes, they are all 'bad' for the atmosphere.
I assume you all hitch each week to get to parliament, not fly.
yeah right!!
Probably Maori carving as it is unkind to trees!
There are 100s and 100s of scientific papers on the biological effects that radiation in the RF spectrum can cause. A Cell Phone Tower can transmit up to 50 km over flat terrain, it does not need to be 20 meters from our homes. Our lounge currently receives the amount of Microwave radiation which is equivalent to standing 1-2 meters from a Microwave oven at full power. Many adults and children will now be receiving dosages that can be 5-10 times this and have no idea why they have developed buzzing in the ears.
The buzzing in the ears is well known effect called the Microwave Auditory effect. A 2003 Motorola metastudy of 65 papers all concluded this effect at Microwave levels that people who live close to towers are now receiving.
Other countries like Taiwan and France are removing Cell Phone Towers in front of homes and schools. In fact Taiwan removed over 1500 of them from 2007-2008. Yet clean green NZ is going like the clappers to needlessly expose large numbers of the population to Microwave radiation.
After 17 years in the Information Technology sector it is a sad state when we let technology inhibit and not enhance our lives.