Fast Track exploitation becomes hidden track to environmental degradation
In the fine print of this Government’s watered down Fast Track we find things are still terrible…
Greenpeace says changes to the Fast Track Bill announced today are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but show that the Government is feeling the heat and public pressure is working.
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman says, “Opposition to the Fast Track Bill has been deep and widespread and the changes announced today show the Government is feeling the heat, but the changes don’t go anywhere near far enough.
“The key part of the Fast Track Bill remains in place after these changes – projects will still be assessed on purely economic criteria which totally override environmental criteria.
“Public pressure has resulted in changes to move the decision making on individual projects from three ministers to the decision making panels. This is progress but, without changing the criteria for making decisions, this will not fundamentally fix this flawed bill.
“Furthermore, the breakdown of projects released today shows that the fast track approvals process could herald 19 new mining projects. That’s 19 mines without environmental conditions.
…19 mines that NZ First had already shopped around to get approved…
Gold and coal mines on draft list for fast-track consents
New Zealand First entered coalition negotiations after the election with a draft version of the fast-track bill and a list of projects, including at least four mines.
A draft version of what would become the Fast-Track Approvals Bill obtained by Forest & Bird included a list of redacted “national and regionally significant projects”. It would have been one of the first documents to land in Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop’s new inbox.
A one-stop-shop fast-track bill was part of New Zealand First’s coalition agreement. Bishop acknowledged the draft document was used as basis material for the final bill, and this material included a list of specific projects.
This is the first time the years-long history of the yet-unreleased project list has been acknowledged. The list predates the announcement of the fast-track, predates ministerial appointments and Bishop’s letters to potentially interested parties.
…they had already colluded to get their donor industry mates a sweetheart deal.
The truth is that this is still about desecrating the environment for a pittance so Political Parties can raise more donations from this who wish to exploit our environment…
Fast-track Approvals Bill Still Fundamentally Flawed, Despite Welcome Changes – Forest And Bird
“New Zealanders aren’t silly, and we can all see that the proposed Fast-track Approvals Bill as yet retains overriding of longstanding environmental laws, which means that the wildlife and wild places New Zealanders love, and expect to be protected, are still at risk.”
The opposition won’t commit to honouring future consents under the coalition government’s fast-track legislation, prompting accusations from Shane Jones that Chris Hipkins is being an “ideological snake in the grass”.
The political spat over future investment in the country comes at the same time the government and Labour are separately calling for bipartisan consensus on infrastructure and energy projects.
Jones, the Minister for Resources, told RNZ “we can’t have a modern nation if prospective political leaders carry on with this snake in the grass Venezuelan sort of diatribe”.
…Shane Jones can go fuck himself.
Where does this Government get off demanding infrastructure bipartisanship when they just spent the last 10 months burning everything the last Government had built?
- The Ferry deal!
- The Light Rail Deal!
- The Onslow Dam
- Killing the petrol tax that funds these projects!
This Government are using the Fast Track Powers to aid their Infrastructure donors to gain public money for their pet projects, not our collective economic well being.
The Planet is melting, mining and oil and gas are dead.
The Truth, as Greenpeace spell out, is that we don’t need gas!
Good News! New fossil gas NOT needed for energy security according to Govt report
Do we need more gas? No.
They’ve been lying to you about needing new fossil gas to “keep the lights on”. There is no shortage of gas.
In one of the most unreported good news stories of the year, the New Zealand Government Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) recently released their updated report on Electricity Demand and Generation Scenarios looking out to 2050.
And the report confirmed that there is no need for new fossil fuels to keep the lights on. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.
The report concludes that while there will be a need for some peak electricity generators, to meet peak load on winter nights, these could be ‘green peakers’ such as utility scale batteries, green hydrogen generators, or forestry waste burnt in the Huntly thermal plant.
And this is a pretty conservative report from a pretty conservative Government Ministry – we can actually do a lot better than this if we have better policies.
Hence the energy security scare campaign being run by the current Government, to justify more fossil fuel exploration, is built on nonsense.
There is no shortage of fossil gas, there is a shortage of brains in the Beehive.
We need urgent investment into Electrification, not extending our addiction to gas and oil!
Fitch Ratings analysts warned NZ earlier this 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 Government is moving away from that towards Gas which isn’t where we should be heading!
We need vision, instead we have a blind cyclops interested only in promoting their donor polluters interests.
If only our environment was a cigarette, this Government would love it then.
Renewable Electricity is indeed the only way forward, Fossil is history. We have a number of Solar Farms going ahead in the Far North on rural properties, one open already, the panels are set high enough to let animals–mainly sheep–graze under them to keep the grass level down. The only problem is foreign capital being involved–the Govt. should be doing this on a public ownership basis.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/northland-could-be-solar-farm-hotspot/BGWMIF67FNCDFEOBY227TPUZHI/#google_vignette
Masturbation Jones is an abject opportunist and crawler to some of the most toxic corporates imaginable. The petty nature of this CoC lot was revealed yet again when they applied RUC to EV vehicles, when really they should have got a credit!
You had a great comment until you didn’t want to have RUC for EVs.
So if there is enough power why were we going to spend $15 billion on Lake Onslow dam and why is gas not being used for electric generation instead of being converted to Methanol at great cost
Lake Onslow was cover because the sun won’t shine at night and wind is not always reliable so we need to store the surplus renewable electricity so it can be available 24/7.
Muldoon signed the Methanol contract so just the normal result from National party decisions.
Lake Onslow should be happening but the muppets you worship canned it.
Interesting that Shane Jones mentions Venezuela, whose people’s government is utilizing their fossil fuel reserves- though unfortunately is being interfered with in doing that by Jones’s zionist pedophile bosses because Venezuela doesn’t pretend ‘israel’ is a real country.