Chloe Swarbrick on Nat's new list 'Untethered friom reality'

[harm_less]

Australia's economy is so good because of all the mining, we need to do the same, more of our mines need to be state owned rather than giving international corporations the profits while we get a drop in the bucket back.
Perhaps all the kiwis involved in mining jobs in Australia might just return to NZ?

A good part of Australia looks like it's already been strip mined so no big deal if it's dug up and turned over again. Our pristine and in many cases biologically unique landscape is a whole different situation and Kiwis value its present condition far too highly for our government to flick it off to the highest bidder to plunder a few finite mineral resources. And on top of it our government is now proposing to allow oil extraction companies to skip responsibility for reinstating offshore rig structures once they've taken the profitable portion of the reservoir's contents, while NZ tax payers are in the process of being saddled with a cost of close to half a billion dollars to clean up the Tui oilfield infrastructure after Tamarind bailed out of their responsibilities in this regard.

New Zealand's regulations regarding oilfield development, environmental responsibilities and risk management are woefully naive and the situation on the Tui field should be a valuable lesson in this regard. We are geographically isolated so initial exploration and development of an offshore oil field is logistically far more complex and expensive than for the likes of the Gulf of Mexico or North Sea where vessels and other infrastructure are more readily available, particularly at short notice such as in the case of an uncontrolled flow (blowout) or similar such as occurred with the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The oil exploration companies know this and so either avoid exposure to developments in our area, or those that do work here know the risks of dealing with a major disaster are mitigated by the fact that our government is virtually powerless when it comes to forcing them to deal with a potential distaster if it does happen. They can and will just 'walk away' from their responsibilities in such a case. The empty rhetoric from our toothless politicians would count for naught.

Those with the sell it at all costs mentality such as the proposals being preached by Shane Jones belong in the past along with the felling of Kauri forests and culling whales. Just another example of those from the NZ First part of our current government proving that they're living in the past despite most NZers having developed their environmental attitudes well beyond that slash and burn mentality.