The Prime Minister must rein in the Minister of Resources, NZ Firsts Shane Jones, whose recent statements are a declaration of war on nature.
In his statement in the House on December 12 Shane Jones went full Trump and declared war on conservation land, biodiversity, and climate science. His flippant and uniformed comments about the large scale gold mine proposal on conservation lands at Wharekirauponga are disturbing, but what’s worse he is threatening to remove public, local body and DOC participation in mining consent decision making.
Will Chris Luxon restore the Government’s reputation, or will he let Shane Jones wreak havoc?
The Prime Minister must take control of his Minister – who represents a minor Party – and make it clear that the National led Government are not proposing widespread environmental vandalism, the undoing of many years of hard work to protect the natural world and to ensure democratic participation in decision making.
Public support for protecting our forests, water, the climate and native species is huge and there will be strong push back if this Government continues down this bizarre track.
In 2010, 40,000 people marched down Queen St and told the then [National] Government that they could not mine conservation lands, forcing a back down. Mr Luxon needs to take note that the public of this country think taonga species, forests and mountains must be protected. In this region the economy relies on the environment not on extracting gold which is above ground in large supplies, mainly in bank vaults.
We value this place, and we will resist all attempts to damage it and we know we are not alone!