Even mining companies want the Government to back away from mining protected land

Mining companies are among the more than 35,000 people and organisations who have made submissions to the Government urging it not to remove Coromandel land from schedule 4 protection, Labour Conservation spokesperson David Parker says.

“The largest mining company in Coromandel, Newmont Waihi Gold (NWG) has released a submission telling the government to leave Schedule 4 land protection in place in the region. Their public release of their submission was titled ‘leave schedule four alone says mining company’,” David Parker said.

“Just what will it take to prompt Gerry Brownlee to deliver a back-down on mining in National Parks and the Coromandel?

“During my time in Parliament I have never seen such overwhelming opposition to a Government plan. There are now more than 35,000 submissions on the plan, more than 40,0000 people took to the streets to protest the mining plan and still the National Government is refusing to rule out mining in schedule four land.

“The plan has been a shambles from the start. Gerry Brownlee and Kate Wilkinson originally wanted 467,000 hectares of land opened up to mining, then they reduced that to 7000 hectares, and today the Government leaked to media that they are now considering 3500 hectares.

“The constantly moving plans of the Government show just how badly this process has been managed and we hope that should a back-down occur that it is handled in a much more open and honest manner than the sham submission process has been.

“Gerry Brownlee is the Minister of Economic Development. This latest policy failure will not cause New Zealand to catch up with Australia. Neither did the cycleway, the job summit nor the latest Budget. No wonder the Government has stopped talking about catching up with the economic fortunes of Australia. The wage gap continues to grow.

“Labour is opposed to opening up any schedule 4 land to mining and we are opposed to the decision making power of the Minister of Conservation being vested in the Minister of Energy,” David Parker said.

ENDS

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