Category: Environmentalism
A World Bank Report published in 1998 ranked New Zealand second in terms of ‘natural capital, behind Saudi Arabia. However, while we have a wealth of land, minerals, water, and good clean air, our bureaucratic planning and resource management laws have hindered New Zealand’s ability to use many of those resources effectively. The well-being of our communities has suffered as a result.
The Maori Council’s claim over the ownership of New Zealand’s fresh water was a blatant attempt by a powerful political group to seize control of a public good natural resource. New Zealanders are angry about it and so they should be. The opportunistic endeavours by tribal corporations to seize control of public good resources such as air, wind, the electromagnetic spectrum – maybe even sunlight itself – are outrageous but very real.
Many people believe that electricity prices are too high. They find it difficult to understand why, when most of our electricity is generated by old hydropower stations, the price has escalated at well above the rate of inflation since about 2002 when the market first started to function as it was designed to do. They would be right.
In 2003, the late Dr Michael Crichton, a best-selling author with more than 200 million books in print including Jurassic Park and State of Fear, was asked what he thought was the most important challenge facing mankind. He explained: “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age it takes on a special urgency and importance. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems.”
The whole thesis that there is a ‘sustainability’ crisis and that it requires urgent global attention, depends on a substructure of belief in such things as global warming, irreplaceable resource depletion ‘footprints’, and gathering problems of poverty and disease. All of these are, to a greater or lesser extent, disputable, and ought to be disputed, if unnecessary and counter-productive action is to be avoided.
There is a strange irony about New Zealanders. While some are extremely vocal in opposing foreign ownership of land or assets, many turn a blind eye when a foreign group like the United Nations effectively takes over aspects of our governance and institutional arrangements.
Alabama became the first state to adopt a tough law protecting private property and due process by prohibiting any government involvement with or participation in a controversial United Nations scheme known as Agenda 21. Activists from across the political spectrum celebrated the measure’s approval as a significant victory against the UN “sustainability” plot, expressing hope that similar sovereignty-preserving measures would be adopted in other states as the nationwide battle heats up.
John Key was right to take a principled stand to prevent the release of an illegal tape recording of a private conversation between himself and John Banks. If he hadn’t, the whole boundary between what is private and what is public would be forever blurred. Certain members of the media would feel perfectly entitled to snoop and engage in covert recordings across the board in the hope that they could get a ‘scoop’ and the rewards of an “exclusive” story. And those political leaders who are saying that the recording should be released are particularly disingenuous. In fact they should be ashamed of themselves because if they were the target instead of Key and Banks they would probably be calling for privacy too.
As the Head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde was warning about the bleak global economic outlook last week, New Zealand politicians were digging deeper into taxpayer pockets and promising to spend more. With our General Election on Saturday week, it is disturbing that so many parties are totally ignoring the dark clouds that are gathering as they try to bribe voters with money they don’t have.
The publication of the Auckland Plan has stimulated some vigorous and timely debate about the impact of excessive restraints of supply on the price of land in our urban areas. (Go to Interest.co.nz here and scan the 290 comments.)
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