NZ Anti-Mining Update: Government Goes Back On It's Word

 

The following news is from the latest issue of Greenpeace Online Magazine. It related to the No Mining Campaign that Lucy was involved in.

Anti-Mining Campaign 2010 "Don't Undermine New Zealand"

Ours, not mine

In 2010 we all celebrated victory when the Government said it would not modify Schedule Four, and that it would let the public have say on any applications to mine public conservation land.

Now, however, the Government has gone back on its word.

Bathurst Resources, an Australian company, is planning to turn the unique Denniston plateau into an enormous 140 hectare open-cast coal mine. On the first day of its second term, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson said that she would not allow public submissions on Bathurst Resources’ application to create an access road. The mine itself has already been consented. Greenpeace will support efforts to stop the destruction of this unique area.

 

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See more on the Anti-Mining Campaign at the AUSXIP Lucy Lawless Anti-Mining Campaign 2010 "Don't Undermine New Zealand" for more news, photos, video and other multimedia

See more about the 40,000 strong march on the AUSXIP Lucy Lawless Anti-Mining Protest page by Lucy Lawless & 40,000 Kiwis for more news, photos, video and other multimedia

See more of Lucy's role as an Eco-Warrior and Greenpeace Ambassador

Democracy To Function Properly Requires Regular Displays of Unreasonable and Immoderate Courage -Taranaki Daily News 09 March 2012

When The Government Is Not Afraid

Written by Chris Trotter
Taranaki Daily News 09 March 2012

There's a line in Michael Moore's Sicko documentary that every democratic citizen should commit to memory. The radical film-maker declares: ''Governments should always be afraid of their people, but people should never be afraid of their government.''

Mr Moore was comparing France with the United States, and wondering how two countries, both with revolutionary traditions, could end up so far apart. Americans' fear and hatred of ''Big Government'' is legendary. But the French will challenge government policy at the drop of a chapeau.

In the US you strike and demonstrate at your own risk. French governments do not like to risk demonstrations and strikes. In 1968 - well within the memory of senior French politicians - demonstrations and strikes brought the Fifth Republic to the very brink of revolution. It took the active intercession of the French Communist Party, and a 10 per cent pay rise, to separate the workers from their youthful student allies.

Governments in New Zealand were also afraid of the people - once. And the people gave them good reason.

The National Party was elected for the first time in 1949 on a rocksolid promise to abolish what they called ''compulsory unionism''. In 1951 they provoked a fight with the Waterside Workers Union. If they could make an example of New Zealand's toughest and most progressive union, then abolishing compulsory unionism would be a piece of cake.

What they got was a very different sort of example. For 151 days the wharfies and their allies fought Sid Holland's government toe-totoe. The Government ''won'', but only because the Machiavellian boss of the Federation of Labour agreed to keep its 300,000 members ''neutral''.

It would be another 40 years before the National Party was prepared to have another crack at organised labour. And the only reason Bill Birch's Employment Contracts Bill passed into law without serious amendment in 1991 was because the Council of Trade Unions, dominated by ''moderate'' state-sector union bosses, lacked the courage to give Mr Birch and his mates a bloody nose.

Well, we've had 20 years to appreciate the benefits of ''moderation''. Perhaps we've all been much too polite for far too long.

Then again, civility and moderation are qualities highly prized by New Zealanders. Our country is one of the oldest, continuously-functioning democracies on Earth. As far as possible, we prefer to communicate with our political leaders through the ballot box. It's only when they deliberately and stubbornly refuse to be advised by the democratic process that we get angry.

I guess that's why Labour, the Greens, the CTU and Grey Power have opted to fight the partial privatisation of the state-owned energy companies by launching a Citizens Initiated Referendum. Between elections, it's one of the few ways of using the ballot box to make your point. CIRS are, of course, non-binding, but a Government refusal to be guided by its undoubted success would be extremely provocative. Knowing a majority of the electorate was against their policy, but proceeding anyway, the Nationalled Government would be positively inviting the people to organise a more robust response.

The precedent is there in Greenpeace's campaign against mining Schedule Four land. The spectacle of 50,000 New Zealanders marching up Auckland's Queen St was more than enough to throw Mr Key and his Government's big blue bulldozer into reverse.

Discretion will, once again prove to be the better part of National's valour if Kiwis respond to the Labour/green/ctu/grey Power call for volunteers. If anything, the spectacle of ordinary citizens, muffled against the Autumn gales, standing on tens-ofthousands of street corners clutching clip-boards and ballpoint pens, or knocking on the doors of tens-of-thousands of former National Party voters, is likely to prove even more terrifying than Robyn Malcolm, Lucy Lawless and their Greenpeace legions.

The task of gathering the 307,000 signatures required to force a referendum on asset sales is not a small one, but it can be done.

And, frankly, we need to do it. As citizens, we've been passive for far too long. As the veteran British Labour politician, Tony Benn, tells Michael Moore in Sicko: ''An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.'' Much harder than a nation that's beatendown, demoralised and genuinely frightened of its own government.

Democracy is not a political system for fearful people: to function properly it requires regular displays of unreasonable and immoderate courage.

 

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Click here for more on Lucy Lawless New Zealand Greenpeace  Anti-Mining Campaign 2010 "Don't Undermine New Zealand"

March Against Mining–The Mining Sector Bidding For Mining Access

On 1 May 2010 Lucy and 40,000 kiwis marched. The rally was held in Auckland to send a message to their government to stop mining in national parks Lucy was in the front marching with everyone to show her support.

It looks like the issue may become a problem again according to the NZ Herald article which appeared today:

Mining sector 'planning conservation land access'

Less than a year after being defeated by strong public opposition, the mining industry is planning another bid to gain access to minerals lying beneath the conservation estate, leading industry figures have indicated.

Labour MP David Parker yesterday said "senior" mining industry sources had told him they planned to seek an increase in the size of pockets of Schedule Four land, which may be used for mining related activities.

Under current law, miners could obtain permits to allow "interference" on Schedule Four land restricted to areas 10m by 10m….

Less than a year ago, public opinion - including a march down Queen St by 20,000 to 40,000 people led by actors Robyn Malcolm and Lucy Lawless - forced the Government into an embarrassing u-turn over its plans to remove Schedule Four protection from 7058ha of the Department of Conservation estate.

Read More of the Article

You can also see AUSXIP Reporter Jo's photos and video (focused on Lucy) on the AUSXIP Lucy Lawless March Against Mining subpage