Rodney Hide borrows Gerry Brownlee's magical mystery mining money machine

Hide: We'd raise 'hundreds of billions' by mining national parks
Act leader Rodney Hide says his party would allow mining in national parks and on high-value conservation land to unlock the "hundreds of billions of dollars" in wealth desperately needed to bolster New Zealand's flagging economy.

At his conference, Rodney proudly declared ACT's desire to mine conservation land with the claim that he loved open cast mines and breathlessly ooohd and ahhd at their magnificent arsenic laced scars on the landscape as possible tourism attractions.

Hmmm, let's see, holiday in Hawaaii, trip to the United States, brother in laws wedding, flights to the UK, amusement park theme rides, tour through Canada, you know what, I can't see Rodney visiting one single open pit mine when we took his $21, 974 dollar and 40 cent taxpayer funded trip around the world with his Girlfriend in 2009, perhaps the 'open cast mine' nature park fun run wasn't open that week he was staying at the Ritz.

Whanau, claiming that open pit mines are a replacement tourism venture is like suggesting we battery cage Kiwis for a special KFC drumstick food offer for visiting cruise ships.

Rodney is borrowing Gerry Brownlee's magical mystery mining money machine to make up bullshit claims of billions in minerals ready to plunder for our national wealth.

So are there billions in minerals that would justify damaging our clean green tourism brand?

The ever brilliant Gordon Campbell has sunk deep into the $140 billion claim and that it comes from mining lobbyist Richard Barker.

To date, the media has relied on an estimate of $140 billion for the minerals potentially up for grabs – a figure derived from a March 2008 paper by the Auckland consulting geologist Richard Barker.

So the man charged with trying to convince the Government to mine on conservation land has come up with a $140 billion pot of gold over the mining rainbow, how did he get that figure? Astoundingly, he calls it a ballpark figure - how big a ball park? When NZIER did the same research as Barker, they only came up with $85 Billion, Idiot Savant picks up the point on other surveys which showed even lower valuations...

Combining the two - minerals plus non-renewable energy resources - gives a total figure (for 2000) of NZ$3,683.2 million. Quite a difference from $140 billion, isn't it?

...so we have $3, 683.2 million from one valuation, $85 billion from NZIER and $140 billion from the mining lobbyist. Note: none of this takes into account that the ACTUAL amount NZers will gain will be nowhere near as high as any of these valuations, our laws are written for the Mining Industry, we get a fraction of the mineral wealth asserted to exist AND get the environmental fallout as well.

So the $140 billion valuation is a lie and you might recall that Gerry had used his magical mystery mining money machine to claim that there was $54 billion of minerals in the Coromandel, remember how I claimed that after all the bullshit promises of billions under dem der hills, we would all find out the actual revenue would be a pittance and we would turn to Gerry asking where our cow was and he would excitedly inform us he’s swapped it for some magic beans.

Yeah well what do we get out of the $54 billion to desecrate conservation land on the Coromandel? Over ten years? 1 Billion dollars. That’s barely $100 million per year for a decade and far less than the $54 billion valuation insinuated isn’t it?

Now Rodney argues that mining conservation land won’t damage our clean green image because mines can actually become tourist destinations as they have done in Australia.

Rodney, when I say mining damages our clean green global brand I’m not referring to the possible increase in foot traffic to a mine I’m talking about it damaging our clean green global brand . NZ exports can charge a premium because we have a clean green image right when clean and green are in short supply. Mine conservation land for a measly $108million per year for a decade and you put every export at risk because you damage the very reason they can charge that premium. Rodney you seem to have a ‘build it and they will come’ mentality towards open pit arsenic mines which suggests you aren’t really doing this for NZ economic gain at all, but are in fact doing it for the benefit of the mining industry.

In 2006 National told the mining industry what their intentions were on mining conservation land giving the mining industry plenty of time to donate money into the anonymous Waitamata trust yet for some reason John Key didn’t mention this mining of conservation land policy much during the 2008 election (he also forgot to mention those Australian mining shares he didn’t declare), are we to assume by Rodney's sudden desire to dig around the corpses of the Pike River Mine that ACT have found a new sugar daddy in the form of the Mining company?

ACT aren't just politically irrelevant and racist, they are also just utterly wrong.

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