National voters.....nice one!
 

Received an email today....contents.

In what must be a record for broken promises, National have on Day 1 of government delivered a letter to Forest and Bird that they will renege on their promise of public consultation before allowing mining on public conservation land. Denniston will be mined, without the public having a say.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

National now have a mandate to ride roughshod.

Its but the thin edge of the wedge, next will be the Kauaeranga Valley in the Coromandel. There's gold in them thar Schedule 4 hills.

Allegedly.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

and so saving lots of money that would be wasted listening to tree huggers bleating on and on.

I get sick of kiwis whinging on about "why cant we be as prosperous as australia"
NZ is sat on billions of dollars worth of mineral deposits but the Ozzies just get on with the job
while kiwis bleat on about conservation of areas 99% of them have and will never visit. :thumbdown:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Sadly I think JustCol's attitude is probably the majority and I feel we're heading down a path that no petition at this point can stop. If it's not somewhere people visit or get anything (overt) out of then it's fair game and anyone who thinks otherwise is alleged a treehugger and made out to be anti-progress.

Sell our assets, dig everything up and flog that too- why think about tomorrow when today we can profit?

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

There is a historical precendence for it BB. When land was taken from Maori way back when, one of the arguments was "well they're not using it" It's like someone taking your bach as you only use it for your summer holidays.
I know that I never go to the denniston plateau and am pretty unlikely to, doesn't mean it's not valuable.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I agree with Col, Oz isn't better off because they are so much cleverer than us it is mainly because they exploit their resources fully. All those people that moan about "not being able to eat the scenery" are right, go to north western WA, it ain't pretty but it pays the bills. I hope National have the guts to make the most of our greatest assets and develop these resources. Sell the airline it's a liability not an asset. Dig the coal, uranium, gold etc and charge the farmers for the water.
Go for it National.....nice one :)

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Because unfortunately, without profit, there may not be a tomorrow for NZ. If the problem is with the Taniwha, they are quite a materialistic sort of beast, and can usually be persuaded to move for a couple of million.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

There are plenty of conservation discussions in australia as well....currently a 'lock the gate' protest by farmers in qld for example: http://lockthegate.org.au/

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Except of course Australia has the rail, road and air infrastructure to support a mining industry. Plus its so massive that most of its mines are well away from centres of population and in places where people don't want to live or spend their holidays. You think its bad now trying to get to Thames for a weekend break, wait until they sink in a mine next to it and ore trucks are coming and going 24 hrs a day :p.

Most of the tax revenue will go offshore, foreign mining companies will bring in their own workers and pay the locals peanuts.

:D It's all well and good to make tree hugger jokes, until a gas company tells you its coming round tomorrow to frack-your-patch and there's nothing you can do to stop them.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

So you'd be ok for the resources under Rangiora to be exploited and don't mind it being turned into an open cast mining town? :cool:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

They already do! Lots of gravel dug up at Taggarts and Allied to make concrete and backfill!

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Gravel, isn't that what you find on a beach. Hardly going to sky rocket the economic success of New Zealand is it?

No, I'm talking real mining now, something like Australia's Super Pit http://www.superpit.com.au/PhotoLibr...6/Default.aspx on your doorstep.

New Zealand isn't a large country, if you want the economic might that Australia has got mining has got to be done large scale and with the minimum of fuss and nonsense. There's no place for nimby-ism or half measures like minimal environmental damage, surgical mining techniques like those at Pike River Mine.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

No, we have sand :)

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I'm sure it will be a top notch mining operation with appropriate consideration given to ecological damage limitation and with profits distributed for the benefit of society.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

What a bunch of losers Kiwis are, profits will be made and the bill to clean up (which experience in New Zealand has shown us previously can be costlier than the revenues generated) will be left to future generations of the public.

My problem isn't with mining really, it's with the cnuts who are supposed to be representing public interests.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

The trouble with leaving all that stuff in the ground is that when all the resources have run out elsewhere, someone with bigger guns will turn up and take it off us.

Take the money now I say!

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I told Kate she was a turnip voting for them!! In the end I got off my arse and voted green (as I was alarmed I would not have been allowed to moan about politicians for 3 years!) as they are the only party on earth I have any kind of alignment with value wise.

Hey ho, as I have mooted they are all pretty much useless and in the end all pretty much out just for themselves and thier own agendas. They do not give a stuff about us. I wonder how far right Justcol voted?

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Genesis - she must have fallen for John's charm lol....

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

They already are, are you feeling any richer for it?

This is a link to all the active mines in Australia and they haven't even scratched the surface here yet. You'll need Google Earth to view it

http://www.australianminesatlas.gov....ting_Mines.kmz

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Mana party...not that its any of your business

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

and did we expect anything different from the smiling assassin and his cronies.
Can't see it getting any better to be honest.
Perhaps we should press for a citizen's invoked reffurendum asking for NZ to become another state of Aus......? We are pretty close and it could be mutually beneficial. Then all the nasty stuff could be done over the ditch whilst we look after yoghurt, butter, cheese and possum handbags??
Of course National would oppose it.

http://nzstatehood.yolasite.com/

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

you are having a larf aren't ya :rofl:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

more like libertenz or whatever they are called.
No I think it was ACT and there is some deflecting going on. :lol:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Am I ?????

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I think he's having us on there???? Not that it's any of my business I agree ;)

Hey Justcol - are you old enough to remember 'I didn't vote Tory' badges in the UK. I am. Potential NZ growth opportunity maybe "I voted National but still oppose asset sales'.

The great thing (maybe) about MMP is that in Wellington (a rich part of NZ) many voters put Labour for their Electorate MP and National for the party vote. This is real power for the voter I think. Of course I didn't do that as I prefer to pin my support to one mast.

Wish they would get the special votes and referendum counted though - why a two week delay?

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

what?
so they think the person best able to represent them is the candidate they vote for and the best party to form the government is not the one that their representative is a part of. Weird, but then I suppose people in Welly are weird. Too close to too much power. :lol:

anyway the vagries of MMP and it's abuse have already surfaced with ACT's policy "victories". Banks bleating on about how great a deal he has got for his c&s support. Even worse than last time you could argue.

Been thinking harder about MMP.
To me the only way to make it acceptable is remove totally the FPP element and give us STV in the electorates. That would be more proportional.
Then probably remove coat-tailing and take the threshold down to zero to compensate. Let's have lots of small parties.
And have some form of mandatory transparent selection for list candidates that involves party members as it should do in the electorates.
Or you could have two types of candidate, one a list and the other an electroate.

I still want a representative not a party to serve me. Thanks very muchly.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I'm even cooler with STV but that is a much purer form of PR than MMP.

Have been cringing at media leaks re what deal Banks and 'my MP' have got out of Mr Smile and Wave this time and how 'wonderful' they are. Still want to know the final seat outcome re the special votes and the referendum.

I agree that 'one man band' parties just seem inherently wrong but what can you do when the Leader of a major party stitches 2 seats up in advance like that and the dumb voters go along with it?

I agree it is schizo to vote for a different party in the Electorate than in the Party Vote. Apparently Labour's electorate vote share was 35% not 27% BUT if people can and do do this, they do it for a reason and I think that reason in most cases is to avoid giving large majorities to the Governing Party even though MMP wouldn't usually deliver big majorities anyway even if they didn't split their vote.
So you may not like it but it does in fact give the voter more power to force politicians to co-operate.
This is not the first time it has happened like this according to Radio NZ National this evening. National's lowpoint of 20% party vote also had a higher Electorate vote share.

Maybe I will have to rethink my opposition to Peter Dunne since he is apparently claiming to have saved Radio NZ National from being sold off as part of his deal with Mr Key. In truth much as I like Radio NZ National as a substitute UK Radio 4, it would not make me vote for his 'one man band'.
He has also bagged free over 65 health checks lol. Just one per person once I think so oldies don't get too excited.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Cuts to the Department of Conservation:
Link

That's less than $3 per person in New Zealand saved? :confused:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

buts its still a saving of 7.5 million.
The only $x per person slant can be applied to anything. personally I can think
of a lot of better places I'd like to see my tax $$$ spent than funding DOC

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Yeah maybe but that's 96 more people unemployed with knock-on effect on their attached family, so the true saving is potentially much less.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

most of the time the jobs simply get farmed out to contractors

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

gotta disagree with that, DOC is where that money needs to go rather than another 100 metres of some motorway.
just listen to the experts from academia who have told the government so.

or perhaps not....?

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I'll never put a pretty view in front of progress... I honestly dont care at all about the environment
It is just ther to be exploited in my opinion. Not everyone's view but we're all entitled to our own

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Fair enough you're entitled to your own view. But it's a stupid view because the resources are finite. We have the means to invest in stuff that will continue to pay for generations to come and you want to just gain now with no regard for later. It's not about pretty views Col, you've misunderstood the whole point if that's what you think- it's about making sure we don't plunder NZ now for our own gain only to shaft our kids and grandkids.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

so are you saying we must go without so our kids or grandkids can plunder it all at a later date

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

Oh yes, that's exactly what I mean.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

then I say sod em!!, let them find their own stuff to dig up ;)

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

The original point of this thread was politicians renaging on their promises, but Justcol, you've brought a wonderful blinkered, ignorant, selfish point of view into it.
There's plenty of people who remember slag heaps around the now defunct yorkshire collieries being greenified to hide the shame of a country stripped of national resources with little or no regard for the future.
Don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this....

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

So we live in a country which has stripped of most of it's native forest already to make way for farming, pine forests, green grass, sheep and cows. Hardly the natural habitat that we're trying to protect here!!

I am not saying we should pillage the whole flipping planet, but it always makes me laugh that people in the developed world want to protest and step in to prevent others in the less exploited or developed countries who want to take similar opportunities for further development or 'progress'. :confused:

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

It's not as simple as that. Be neat if it was though.

Re: National voters.....nice one!
 

I don't think creating industry, jobs, revenue for god knows how many people is blinkered, ignorant or selfish.
What could be more selfish than to deny people these things because some bloody tree huggers don't like it?
I get sick of hearing the lets look at alternatives rubbish. I've been waiting a long time for these alternatives
to show up and there's still no sign of them. Its ok to be idealistic but back it up with something that will
be of some use to those who miss out on jobs.
As for the next generation legacy rubbish that constantly gets used as an argument, I have two sons and
I am happy happy with the legacy they have inherited.
Your right, we would never see eye to eye on this