John Key expects more mining in Crown land, which includes our national parks. Is this going to be his year for living dangerously?
To date, caution has been the mark of the John Key government. At mid-term, he now seems ready to take some risks and spend some political capital.
What else can you say when he promises there will be more mining on Crown land in New Zealand “notwithstanding public consultation” on a discussion document proposing changes to Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act – the schedule that specifies areas where mining is currently prohibited?
The new Greens leadership – Russell Norman and Metiria Turei – must have been waiting for this mana from heaven: the magic carpet that will carry their party back to parliament in the absence of the experienced and widely-trusted Jeanette Fitzsimons and sadly-missed Rod Donald.
Last December, the Greens released a leaked copy of a Department of Conservation email to Ngai Tahu seeking the tribe’s view on removing 20% of the Mount Aspiring National Park from the protective schedule.
At the time, Gerry Brownlee, the Minister leading the Schedule 4 review, kicked for touch. He said he was still waiting for reports from his officials in the Ministries of Energy and Resources and Economic Development.
Now, the Prime Minister announces on TVNZ’s Q+A that the Green’s dream-nightmare will come true: there will be more mining on Crown land, “notwithstanding public consultation” – and Norman is up there, hard on his heels, to ram the message home.
Now, Turei can wheel out their next secret document – a letter to the Prime Minister from the prestigious conservationists of the renowned Sierra Club, warning that “long term protection should not be sacrificed for immediate commercial gain”.
The Greens follow this with a caution that “mining our conservation land will be costly to our tourism industry and export industries that rely on our clean, green brand” The irony of this statement seems to escape them: protect the conservation estate from mining to save tourism. Not so long ago, they were crying out to have the conservation estate protected from tourism.
The Labour-led opposition seems content to let the Greens lead on this one, probably wisely. Their record on mining Crown land is not virginal. Instead, they focused on another plum dropped during Key’s appearance on Q+A: Key’s connection with an Australian uranium miner.
Interviewer Guyon Espiner shook the tree when he confronted the Prime Minister with his declaration in the Parliamentary register of interests showing that, in June 2009, Key had owned shares in a small Australian mining company, Jackson Mining, that had merged with a larger enterprise, Cauldron Energy, that has uranium and other mining interests in Australia and Argentina.
The thrust of Espiner’s questions was: had Key considered divesting himself of those shares to avoid conflict of interest while he was reviewing mining issues in New Zealand – and now he was the leader of a nuclear-free country?
“Well I could do it if people want,” Key responded, and after the interview, he told reporters he would.
By question time the next day, Labour’s Pete Hodgson was primed for attack. Key simply jinked and jived his way round Hodgson’s attempt to pin him on the conflict of interest issue. He had already gained a clearance on that rap from the Cabinet Office.
The Labour-aligned blog, The Standard, also sailed into Key with a whole series of questions and some credibility-related comments that would have earned the author a very cold shower if they’d been made in Parliament . Why had Key suggested that Jackson Mining was “just an Aussie gold mining company when he bought them”? How did Key know that there had been a merger, and not, say, takeover or just a sale, if he didn’t know about it before this question was asked? How didn’t he know this company was involved in uranium mining when it has been the company’s major focus for several years? And what about his promise during the campaign row over his Tranzrail shares to put all his assets into a blind trust?
The answers are pretty simple. Key says he bought the share in 2001. Then, the company was listed as Jackson Gold. It became Jackson Minerals in 2007. He didn’t say it was “just an Aussie gold mining company.” He said it had “a small gold mine.” He knew there had been a merger because Espiner had already told him there was one. Check the transcript. That was the first he’d heard about it. Jackson’s merger with Scimitar [now Cauldron] last year was when the company’s major focus shifted to uranium mining.
Key did not promise to put all his assets into a blind trust during the row about his Tranzrail share holding. He said his Tranzrail shares were held in a family trust, managed by a broker reporting to a solicitor acting as an independent trustee, able to act without reference to him personally.
Furthermore, he placed his ownership of the Jackson Mining shares on the public record in the Parliamentary register midway through last year – an act that makes his possession of mining company shares more transparent than it would be if they were veiled inside a blind trust.
As for the Prime Minister’s assertion that there will be more mining on Crown land, it is simply a statement of fact.
In the year ended last June, without any review of policy, the Department of Conservation received 27 applications for access to prospect, explore, or mine in conservation areas. Twenty-one were approved, six decisions are pending and none were declined. It is all on the public record in the Local Government & Environment Select Committee financial review of the Department, released last week.
Perhaps John Key is not having a year of living dangerously after all.