David Farrar: Which eggs will make up the omelette?
The government’s proposed stocktake of conservation land with high mineral wealth is a classic example of the sorts of eggs that may have to be sacrificed if the government is serious about making an omelette that closes the income gap with Australia.
The amount of wealth estimated to lie under the soil is huge. The estimates range from $140 billion to $240 billion.
Individual mines can be highly profitable. In 2004 Labour’s Chris Carter approved (against the advice of his officials) the Pike River Mine in the Papamoa National Park. It is estimated to bring in export income of $170 million a year, and it takes up only 10 hectares of surface land, out of a total conservation estate of around a million hectares.
Some locals even claim that mine has increased the value of the local conservation estate. They say the access roads to the mine have led to an increase of tourists visiting the national park, as many are using the access road to get to parts of the park that were previously hard to visit.
Before the election the government talked of its ambition to close the income gap with Australia. The global recession will provide them with some latitude in their first term for not having started to close the gap, but voters will want to see some substance to match the rhetoric eventually.
Now there is no one big macro-economic idea that will increase our economic growth enough to match Australia’s, let alone beat them. Serious tax and welfare reform to reduce the tax churn will help significantly, but one has to undertake micro-reforms in numerous areas to build that growth.
So increased mining on the conservation estate will not by itself close the gap with Australia, but it is one of those many things we need to be doing to contribute towards higher economic growth.
But the politics of this are challenging. The one million words justifying a mine as taking up just 0.0001% of the conservation estate get slaughtered by the single photo of the proposed mine site that will be beamed to viewers of the TV news as the inevitable protesters move in.
And there will be protesters. Not for a day or two, but for years and years. Ask Solid Energy about Happy Valley. Any suggestion that exchanging .0001% of the conservation estate for $170 million a year of extra export earnings are met with the stance of Jeanette Fitzsimons that sacrificing any portion of the conservation estate is akin to being asked to kill one of your own children, as you have lots of other children.
What happens with the stocktake of conservation land with mineral wealth will be a good test of what the government values more – the eggs of good press, or the omelette of economic growth.
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Comments and questions18
Yes David i stopped looked and listened when the failed Labour Party hack spread his fear comments regarding Police Stations about to be closed down,Tv One aided and abetted by Tv three blew it up out of all proportion without a beg your pardon, ,it was all a myth, a fantasy it would never happen yet both TV channels seem to get away time after time misleading the viewing public ,seems to me they can fool all of the people all of the time.
National will live to regret this decision. Their own supporters do not wish to see their holiday playgrounds despoiled by industrialisation in places like the Coromandel. Bad mistake tp think this is an issue for just the Greens and Labour. A "grand coalition" across Party lines will emerge and the public back lash will surprise many.
Only 14 years ago The Bolger National Government caved in to a huge campaign of support to protect places like the conservation land on the Coromandel from mining, and history is about to repeat itself.
Pity Brownlee el al have such short memories
The antimining industry (yes they are an industry) seem to forget that we absolutley need to mine and farm.
They get over emotional in the debate and are happy to slag mining off and yet seem to forget that the car they drove to the protest was made from stuff mined from the ground.
The greeny lefties (mostly) seem to be the worlds biggest bunch of hypocrites and have no sense of humour.
We humans absolutely need to mine... But do we need to do it here?
Why not use the tourism money to buy what we need from other countries, and let them spoil their backyard, and when their deposits run out, we can look somewhere else.
Or are you suggesting we do what we do with oil? Allow them to export our high grade product, and import low grade petroleum from overseas?
Put a couple more oil rigs out in the ocean, of which there is an abundance of around NZ, but leave the land for future generations, there is not much of it left!
what tourism are you talking about mike as definitely on the decrease
I reckon get all of the greenies together and put them on stewart island. Cut off the power, internet, phones, take away the vehicles, regrass the roads, etc etc. They have no taxes and rule it as their own country and leave everyone else alone as why should they force their beliefs onto others
In my view the decision to start the process of opening the crown estate to mining is a classic example of over-reaching. Some small boundary adjustments to minor doc reserves are fine. In fact they happen now. The article points to one that happened under Labor so why start a big and very controversial program. Including National Parks in this goes way too far. It has never happened in the US and unless I am mistaken Australia that a National Park (or in the case of the US a designated wilderness area) has been opened to mineral development. This didn't even happen under George Bush. As the article points out there is little support for this in National's rank and file and and it is a very emotive issue that is easy to oppose. I would point out one other thing, the 140-240 Billion comes from a report that was talking about all natural resources not just minerals. Most of this refers to the value of agricultural production and the value of the conservation land as natural areas. I am sure that David Farrar knows this. The fact that he continues misquoting this study to bolster his point makes the the accuracy od the rest of the article.
Chris, there is mining in National Parks in Australia. Unranium Mining has taken place in Kakadu for many years without any signinficant problems.
When will we get our heads around the fact that it is our myopic focus on economic growth that is bringing the planet and its natural resources to its knees. Economic growth is a highly flawed measure of success - particularly considering the rapidly increasing population around the world. On other, more comprehensive and I would argue appropriate measures, (e.g. Quality of Life index), New Zealand is in the top quartile. This reflects the fact that, despite being relatively 'poor' in GDP terms, we are 'rich' on many other levels. Let's start looking at meaningful measure of progress.
If you want to invest in a business that provides employment and produces valuable goods and services, the tax and regulatory framework in Australia and Asia makes it more attractive to do so there rather than here. If we fixed that we wouldn't need to make money by digging up our National parks.
John Key has shown no sign at all that he understands this, so it's already clear we won't be closing the income gap with Australia as long as John Key is Prime Minister. The best this will do is temporarily reduce the rate at which the gap continues to increase.
Papamoa national park ? Must mean Paparoa.
The police station news was valid as they didnt deny that some stations may close. No List , doesnt mean no closures and Key didnt deny it when asked flat if any stations would be close, merely said they were opening stations ( built by Labour), dont expect any new buildings not all ready started
Another point where David is wrong , the Pike River Mine is NOT in the national park, but is in land adjacent to the park on DOC owned land
The ranger mine is not on a national park, in fact the area surrounding it has become a NP since mining in the area started in 1953. The park was not created till 1978
I would point out that the proposed survey is of "Doc Land" and not the National Parks which are somewhat different. National Parks make up only a part of the total Doc Estate which consists largely of marginal land of dubious value, often accumulated in land swaps.
It isn't "DOC" land they just manage it for us and future generations. There is "low grade" conservation land but national parks aren't amongst them. For goodness sake stop and think about the long-term consequences. There is a lot more money long-term to be made in creating tourism experiences in landscapes that are unique to NZ. Digging up things any idiot can do! Selling off assets any idiot can do. Actually building something sustainable now that takes intelligence.
So basically the policy is that we'll no longer have a blanket ban. But each decision will need to be approved one by one. So, in fact, we aren't rolling in the bulldozers tomorrow. We're just saying we'll look at it if someone wants to open a mine.
I very much doubt that any mines will be approved in genuinely high conservation value areas. Of course, I'm sure that some people are convinced that every acre of the DOC estate is high conservation value, but if we ignore those kneejerk reactionaries, I'm sure we can find a reasonable middle ground.
A sensible column, David, though the Thought Police won't like it. Balance is everything. Mining a very small percentage of our conservation land is a good idea - the government has moved too much of it out of production. And anyway, mining can be a tourist attraction!
Too much to expect our Green fanatics not to go berserk, though. We're not dealing with rational people. Why do governments* always cave in to these minority bullying groups, as with the infamous anti-smacking legislation,? They're* contemptible.
we do need on a case by case basis to look at this arena and develop where we can holisticaly.
However National have shown they need their hands holding and can't be trusted already by our democracy so unless we can be shown how this can be done safely I fear they will screw it up.
remember the Bradford Electricity reforms of the last National administrations?
Reforms i remember ,i will also not forget the Four to Five Billion dollarsLabour gouged from electricity users from 2001/ 2009 ,and called it a surplus, so little Mikenz be careful of glass houses.
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