Or at least acutely embarrassed.
On Thursday, here’s how they defended to Hawke’s Bay Today their Government’s legislative assault on DoC conservation land:
“Napier MP Katie Nimon said claims that the bill threatens beloved places of conservation and recreation like the Ahuriri Estuary or Boundary Stream were ‘wrong and blatant scaremongering’.
‘National parks, marine reserves and valued conservation land stay fully protected,’ Nimon said.
Tukituki MP Catherine Wedd said the Department of Conservation (DoC) was not trying to sell conservation land, and the bill did not establish a programme of land sales.
‘Conservation remains DoC’s core purpose, and resources should be focused on protecting the places, species and habitats that matter most,’ Wedd said.
Unfortunately, at the same time at Government/National Party headquarters in Wellington, someone must have already been working on fresh talking points for them (we concede our local MPs have nothing to do with policy).
Because on Friday, National Party Spokesperson for Conservation (and Conservation Minister) Tama Potaka issued this statement:
“New Zealanders care deeply about conservation – so does National and so do I. We know how important our pristine landscapes, national parks, marine reserves, and wilderness areas are to New Zealanders.
“But we were not clear enough about how the Conservation Amendment Bill improves outcomes for conservation – so we are fixing it.
“We have listened and heard the clear concerns about the proposed amendments for disposal or exchange of conservation land – so I am removing those provisions from the bill.”
This after Minister Potaka met with the Environmental Defence Society and Forest and Bird and agreed the disposal and exchange parts of the bill would be removed.
“We have listened,” he commented. More appropriately he might have said, “What a monumental policy and political F-U!” You can be sure someone at National HQ certainly said that.
Bringing this ‘bigger picture’ home to Hawke’s Bay for illustration, MPs Wedd and Nimon are perfectly at ease with transferring the DoC conservation land that Ruataniwha Dam 2 advocates need to flood to allow that project to be resurrected.
That’s the kind of proposal the uproar over this bill is all about.
I have no faith in our local MP’s – they are party gnomes who follow the dictates of the bosses with no real empathy for local concerns (which is probably the core part of being an MP for any party) – but to blindly say that DOC land would not be carved up (when blatantly their coalition partner NZF wants exactly that) is a cop out – if Winston and Shane have their way DOC would be sold off to every mining company in existence and our MPs would go along with the tide regardless of community
The Kawekas, Ruahines and Doc reserves nationwide remain under threat from the Conservation Amendment Bill. Catherine and Katie say they’ve backed down on law changes that would have enabled selling it but still want to allow mining, logging, drilling, bulldozing, and leasing as much of our conservation land as possible.
The bill rewrites the Doc’s core purpose to enable economic development “to the greatest extent practicable”.
Resources minister Shane Jones (as reported by Newsroom) is keen to break up the Department of Conservation entirely, and open public conservation land to development. Our wilderness areas require protection for all time, not short-sighted exploitation to pay for today’s motorways and liquid gas terminals.
Jones says his party has “a profound belief that the DoC estate is an under-utilised resource that can contribute more to the expansion of our GDP”. It’s an issue he says New Zealand First will campaign on.
“God as my witness, if we form a future government, we will be pushing for the DoC department to drive more economic outcomes from the DoC estate, including income to defray the expenses of running the DoC estate.”
The whole Conservation Amendment Bill should be dumped, along with leaders who know the price of everything and value of nothing.
You’re absolutely right on the money, Tom. The 22-odd Ha of DOC land in the Ruataniwha dam v2 footprint would no doubt be viewed as not significant when viewed through a National Party lens, when the money generated through building the dam looks much nicer when viewed through that same lens. The problem is that it’s not just the 22 Ha of land that’s significant – it’s also the 180-odd Ha of native forest (from memory, in the Kessels report from dam V1) as well as the stretch of rare North Island braided riverbed that would be inundated. It’s also about the countless number of native invertebrates, bats and birds that would die or be displaced, and the thousands of tonnes of co2 that would be generated by rotting vegetation. This list is endless, not that National cares about that or the consequences. They’re only able to think 3 or 6 years ahead, not the 20, 40 or 100 years that sensible and visionary politicians (are there any?) should be thinking about.
so it’s back to bashing our 2 hard-working local MP’s for something that never eventuated?….it’s not the first time you’ve had a crack at these two women MP’s , Tom, so what’s going on there?
If anyone should feel ashamed it’s you and your socialist mates !
So it looks like the National-led coalition is backing down from the sale or exchange of Conservation land, but I wonder if they’ll replace those provisions with long-term leases instead