Evaluating Matua Shane Jones ‘Drill Baby Drill’ performance at Scrutiny Week
Resources Minister Shane Jones, sporting a Make NZ Great Again hat, arrived at a parliamentary scrutiny session on Thursday ready for a fight over the previous Government’s ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration permits.
“We are in the grip of a substantial set of dangerous challenges, and it is for those reasons we are proceeding to pass legislation to overturn the most destructive decision in the history of New Zealand’s industry,” Jones told a select committee in his opening remarks.
Throughout the hour-long hearing, Jones directly targeted former Energy Minister and Labour MP Megan Woods, whom he repeatedly called on to appear before an “altar of truth” and “apologise” for her involvement in the ban.
Of course, Jones himself had also been on the Beehive theatrette stage on that fateful day in 2018 when former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the ban, which she said was important to addressing climate change. It’s something he said he’d “atoned” for.
Woods, on the select committee Jones was facing, responded by saying the minister needed to enter “the chapel of you actually answering questions”.
On a burning planet thanks to fossil fuels, can Shane Jones be any more offensive?
Couple of things here.
1 – He’s been to Singapore and told the oil and gas pimps there that he will open all of NZ up for mining and gas exploration, not just the areas which have been designated for oil and gas exploration, which is a policy change he hasn’t even told NZers about yet!
2 – Shane Jones would desecrate our environment for a pathetic 2%
3 – His claim that we are importing Indonesian dirty coal because limp writes greenies keep wanting flower power has already been debunked…
Is NZ bringing in ‘Indonesian coal every month to keep the lights on’?
Burning less coal to make electricity helped New Zealand achieve its biggest official annual drop in planet-heating gases since records started in 1990.
The same week those figures came out, Resources Minister Shane Jones told Morning Report New Zealand should develop more of its own coal, rather than importing “dirty” coal from Indonesia.
Jones earlier told Parliament that opposition MPs turned a blind eye while New Zealand imported Indonesian coal “every month, to keep the lights on.”
While it’s true Genesis Energy – owner of the country’s only coal-fired station – burns coal to run its Huntly generators, it last year reported that its last shipment of coal had arrived in July 2022.
At that point, it had no plans to import more. It also has a local supply, near Huntly.
Although it’s a stretch to say Genesis imports coal monthly, the company recently warned its gas supply was falling faster than expected, which could mean more coal use.
4 – Let’s not forget Shane Jones has fast tracked mining proposals while also receiving donations from those mining companies so what he has to say on the issue is horrifically compromised.
Look.
If we are going to have an adult conversation about mining in NZ, let’s have an actual adult conversation, because all Shane Jones seems to be capable of is turning it into a culture war where he’s attacking woke frogs and lazy nephs on the couch.
Fitch Ratings analysts warned NZ last year that the next 10 years of economic growth was dangerously stunted.
This matters because it is ratings analysts like Fitch who warn the market if we are good for all the money we borrowed.
They base that on future projections of our economic cycle and their analysis is terrible.
Fitch have made clear to us that Dairy, Tourism and exports to China have waned and can not grow beyond the manner in which we have already grown them…
He told BusinessDesk that Fitch sees the drivers of growth in the decade before Covid as having “run their course”.
In other words dairy, tourism and China export growth – while continuing to be large and core components of New Zealand’s economy – can’t possibly continue on the same dramatic growth curve they did before.
…John Key’s, ‘All our cows in one Beijing paddock’ has not only been geopolitically dangerous, it’s also run its economic course.
So what now?
This Government seem to think mining, gas and oil exploration alongside weakening regulations for donors will unlock NZs next economic cycle but it can’t and won’t…
The idea that we’ll mine our way to prosperity is one of those. It may well be an industry worth promoting, but betting the house (or more specifically our clean green reputation) on it being transformational is just silly.
We mined the big accessible gold deposits in 19th and 20th centuries. The odds of finding valuable rare metals like lithium are very low. It would be great if we did but if that’s this Government’s strategy, they might as well buy Lotto tickets.
Striking oil is also a long shot and the time frames involved to find it and get it out of the ground take us well past 2030 – the date by which the International Energy Agency has forecast the world will face a “staggering” glut.
If Kiwis ever wanted to be a rich oil-producing nation (and a large percentage don’t) we’ve missed that boat.
…if we are to play to our advantages, we need to play to the one that will provide the most impact to all of us.
Cheap, 100% renewable electricity!
This needs to be our focus and if Sam Stubbs ideas can generate this outcome they are worth looking at…
When we look at what gave New Zealand a competitive advantage in the 20th, cheap electric power is near the top of the list.
The dairy industry was built on the ability to turn liquid milk into powder more efficiently than our competitors.
The next wave of global economic growth will involve electricity and lots of it.
Artificial intelligence is incredibly power-hungry. One Chat-GPT search uses 10 times the power of a Google search.
Throw electrical vehicles on top of that and it becomes obvious – only countries with access to a cheap, stable power supply will have a competitive advantage in the years ahead.
There has been plenty of talk about the potential for New Zealand to be a world leader in data centres. To do that we’ll need more and ideally cheaper power.
Collectively, data centres will consume about 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity at peak usage – roughly the amount required to power some 200,000 homes. The average demand in Auckland is about 1700MW. That has been forecast to rise to 500MW of consumption over the next five years based on current plans.
…solar panels on every public building.
Local wind turbine generation.
Windfarms.
Electric public transport.
More Hydro.
Tidal generation investment.
This needs to be our way forward. Not more Dairy and more cheap basic exports to China and Tourism.
Cheap sustainable electricity is our competitive edge, we need to urgently focus on that now!
Shane is in the pocket of Mining, he is gaining Fast Track Power for his donors, not for NZ.
We need better ideas than the ones currently being pushed.
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paaart maaari Matua Jones is a Kupapa not only to Maori but to all Aotearoans across the motu.
Shane Jones is acting like a true extractionist from the nineteenth century, he is just playing a silly game as he is well aware the mining companies know that NZ has limited quantities of fossil fuels to extract. This nonsense he spouts will get him lots of free tucker and other tidbits up to the next election though which is his main goal.
Shane will be gone at the next election and hopefully so will the rest of the losers in NZF party unless winstone manages to get over 5%. We can expect the next election will be awash with dirty tactics and blaming one another and all the CoC will be literally fighting for the same pool of voters. I look forward to seeing them all turn on one another.
The Greens will be painted as looney because they care about our environment and TP Maori as racist and radical because they care about Māori.
Shameless jones will be gone at the next election and hopefully so will the rest of the losers in NZF party unless winstone manages to get over 5%. We can expect the next election will be awash with dirty tactics and blaming one another and all the CoC will be literally fighting for the same pool of voters. I look forward to seeing them all turn on one another.
The Greens will be painted as looney because they care about our environment and TP Maori as racist and radical because they care about Māori.
Labour are very slow in accepting most of TPM policies such as pension at 55 for Maori and other racist policies and the Green budget was rejected by most sensible politicians for the main parties. The coalition may fight after the votes from the right but as long as stay Right then it is a win win.
Free tucker you reckon Phill he (Shane) is already bursting at the seams look at his fat puku.