A busy week

Do you hate the regime? Do you hate their tyranny, their transphobia, and their desire to destroy the environment? If so, you're in for a busy week - because submissions on bills on all of those things all close on Thursday.

The details are on Parliament's select committee page. Submissions on the following all close at 11:59pm on Thursday 2 July:

• The Conservation Amendment Bill. This bill allows the regime to sell off the conservation estate to foreign billionaires, repurposes DoC towards economic exploitation of conservation land, disestablishes regional conservation boards, and violates Treaty settlements.
• The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill: NZ First's anti-trans hate bill, which seeks to legally define trans people out of existence.
• The Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, which aims to persecute the homeless while also allowing police to ban any public protest.

Also closing at the same time is the Local Government (Port Companies Accountability) Amendment Bill, a members bill which would bring some much-needed transparency and accountability to port companies. That one's worth submitting on too if you're a transparency advocate, though in support rather than opposition.

Stacking up controversial bills like this seems to be a clear attempt to deter submissions. So don't be deterred. We've already seen that if we scream loud enough at the regime, it backs down, and its likely to be even more sensitive in the lead-up to the election. So scream at them. If you don't have time to write a full submission on everything, pick one to do a good job on. For the rest, saying "I oppose this bill, and recommend that it not be passed" is a perfectly valid submission, though it will count for more if you can specify particular things you hate. And if you can, submit early - with so many controversial bills due at the same time, parliament's servers may end up overloaded by the backlash. Submitting early, rather than trying to do everything at once, may avoid this.

Screaming works

Last month, the regime introduced the Conservation Amendment Bill, a steaming pile of shit which would allow it to sell off huge chunks of the conservation estate while opening up more of it to mining, development, and exploitation. Pretty obviously, this did not fit with the public's expectations and the value it placed on our natural taonga, and people started screaming about it. This week, after being challenged in the House, Chris Luxon tried to claim it was just about selling a few old buildings - but no-one believed him. And so just like that, the regime has backed down:

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka has announced the controversial exchange and disposal provisions for conservation land will be dropped from the Conservation Amendment Bill.

The minister said he never intended to dispose of vast swathes of the conservation estate, but acknowledged the public outcry over the bill. He took personal responsibility for giving New Zealanders that impression. “That’s on me – that’s on us,” he said at the Environmental Defence Society conference in Auckland. “We were not clear enough.”

Good. Our taonga places are exactly that - taonga, to be kept for future generations. No government has any right to sell or despoil them.

Obviously there's more work to do here. The bill guts regional boards, compromises Treaty settlements, and includes an odious "economic opportunities" clause in the department's functions which push it towards enabling rather than stopping the bulldozers. But stopping conservation land from being sold is a good first step. And if it helps drive a wedge between National (who want to get re-elected) and NZ First (who want to pay off their mining industry donors with public taonga) then that's a bonus. The sheer scale of public opposition has also opened space for a serious push-back - something the Greens have recognised - which could be leveraged into giving our taonga places greater protection. Hopefully people will push on that as hard as they can.

Meanwhile, the lesson in this is that if we scream loud enough, the regime backs down. Their desire to be re-elected is a weapon we can use against them. So keep screaming. Screaming works.

Orcs want to pillage Te Wāhipounamu

Te Wāhipounamu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a taonga of Aotearoa's conservation estate. So naturally, the orcs in the Beehive want to dig it up and despoil it:

The Green Party says the government's decision to grant a prospecting permit on heritage land is unacceptable.

It comes after a permit was approved within Te Wāhipounamu, one of the country's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The permit covers 157 square kilometres, and allows prospecting for all minerals except uranium.

Green Party list MP and resources spokesperson Steve Abel said heritage sites had long been ruled out for mining, and should remain that way.

But the problem here is that, legally, they're not ruled out for mining. Bits of them are, if they're national parks, nature reserves, wilderness areas, or other areas protected by Schedule 4. But Te Wāhipounamu includes land not protected by such status, and the New Zealand state has repeatedly rejected extending it. In 2017 Labour's Ruth Dyson put up a bill to explicitly protect World Heritage Sites by adding them to Schedule 4. National voted it down. And in 2023 the Greens put up their own bill, which (among other things) would have protected all state land managed by DoC under Schedule 4. Labour voted that one down. And in 2025, when stewardship land on the west Coast was reclassified, Tama Potaka refused to extend national parks or further protect land within Te Wāhipounamu. Which rather invites the question of whether he knew about this application, and whether he made his decision in order to advantage the applicant. But given that its going to court, I guess we'll get to find that out...

What this tells us is that we need greater protection for taonga land and ecosystems. Once this tyrannical, destructive regime is voted out in November, the next government needs to make it a priority to protect our natural heritage, as part of the project of undoing every shitty thing that it has done. And that means urgently expanding national parks and fully protecting World Heritage Sites under Schedule 4. In the meantime, I guess we've just got to hope that any exploration activity permitted by this "consent" is delayed.

The orcs are back

Last time National was in government they tried to pillage the conservation estate and open our national parks for mining. But we told them to go fuck themselves, and they slithered off. Unfortunately, Minister for Corruption Shane Jones, who shamelessly takes "donations" from mining companies, didn't get the message:

New Zealanders need to “get over ourselves” and identify which areas of the land administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC) can be used for economic purposes, including mining, Resources Minister Shane Jones says.

[...]

Jones said he would be making a “major speech” about the mining industry and related economic matters in Waihi next Friday.

He would be saying: "We have an inordinately large DOC estate, much of which is overrun with weasels and rats and stoats and noxious weeds,” Jones told Newstalk ZB on Friday.

"Weasels and rats and stoats and noxious weeds" sounds more like a description of the current cabinet.

Kiwis of all political persuasions value the conservation estate, and understand that it is for conserving, not exploiting. If National doesn't want its own "blue green" supporters to abandon them again, it needs to tell Jones to shut the fuck up, and rule out any mining on the conservation estate (including any recategorisation of conservation land to enable it). As for the other parties, the best way to kill this idea dead is to deter investment, by making it crystal clear that any mining or exploration permits granted will be legislatively revoked, with no compensation, and that any investment made will be lost. Its worked well against the oil and gas industry; now the opposition needs to apply the same tactics to defend our natural taonga.

Why won't Labour keep its promises?

Back in 2017, Jacinda Ardern promised "There will be no new mines on conservation land". NZ First stopped her from doing it in her first term, but since winning an absolute majority in the 2020 election Labour has refused to move on it - and has explicitly voted down a bill which would implement that promise. So why? Its not as if keeping conservation land for conservation is unpopular. Quite the opposite:

But a new poll commissioned by Forest and Bird found the majority of Kiwis (66 percent) think the Government should implement its 2017 promise to stop new mines on public conservation land. Sixteen of the respondents disagreed and eighteen percent were undecided.

That's a pretty big public mandate, and more people than voted for Labour and the Greens in 2020. Actually keeping their promise would be a popular move. So why won't Labour do it? Do they work for their voters, or just for a small clique of big donors?

This sort of betrayal undermines trust in the Labour Party, and in the political system as a whole. It builds the impression that politicians are just liars. But its also a driver behind Labour's fall in the polls. After all, Labour clearly doesn't care about its voters. So why should they care whether Labour stays in government?

Eugenie Sage's mining ban bill

A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn:

• Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill (Eugenie Sage)

The bill is pitched as protecting conservation land, and it does immediately do that. But it also goes further, doing exactly what it says on the label: prohibiting all new prospecting, exploration and mining permits, on conservation land or not, from 1 January 2025 (and new permits of any sort for coal immediately). It also requires existing permits to be surrendered immediately where protected wildlife is on the specified land.

There are a number of strands here (protecting schedule 4, protecting endangered species, banning new coal, banning all new mining), each of which could have been its own bill. And I think the "no new mining at all" provision is problematic, because it covers things like quarries, which actually seem necessary for a while longer. The other provisions though seem like a very good idea, and in the case of the coal ban, doesn't go far enough - to save the climate its not enough to ban new coal mines, but to shut down existing ones as well. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer's Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill shows the method we need to adopt there, and has a number of useful provisions around extinguishing existing permits which could be stolen. The only question is the sunset date we choose, and how long we give the coal industry (and the industries dependent on it for energy) to manage an orderly shutdown and transition.

Another government agency which refuses to enforce the law

Back in 2008 Parliament established the Walking Access Commission. While initially concerned with negotiating public access, the Commission now administers a network of walkways across New Zealand. It has an explicit function of enforcing the law around these walkways, and there are offence provisions to ensure safe public access. In order to enforce these, the Commission can appoint enforcement officers, who have statutory powers to prevent offences.

So how many of these enforcement officers has the Commission appointed to ensure safe access across its walkways? Someone used FYI, the public OIA request site, to ask them, and the answer may surprise you: zero. They have never appointed any enforcement officers, and have never prosecuted or fined anybody. While police and DoC rangers can also enforce the law, if they had a policy of outsourcing enforcement to those agencies, you think they'd say so. So the natural conclusion is that this agency is simply uninterested in enforcing the law.

Is this a problem? Parliament certainly thought it was a big enough deal to grant these powers in the Act, and refusing to enforce them (even by outsourcing to another agency) seems like a frustration of Parliamentary intent. And if they're not going to bother, then maybe those powers need to be removed, and the job explicitly given to a competent agency which can do it: DoC.

Labour should have fixed this long ago

Back in 2017 the government promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. They then did nothing for three years, supposedly because of opposition from NZ First, but they still haven't done anything about it despite having won an absolute majority. Meanwhile, a mining company wants to dig up a World Heritage Area:

Kokiri Lime Company Limited have applied for 40-year consents to quarry approximately 30ha of primarily mature native forest within Te Wāhipounamu South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. The planned quarry includes 15ha of conservation land, 1ha of which been quarried before.

World Heritage Sites are meant to be legally protected from desecration. But ours aren't. Back in 2017 Labour put up a member's bill to add them to Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act (basicly forbidding all mining), but the then-National government voted it down. Sadly, Labour didn't take the opportunity to pass such a ban last term, and haven't made any noises about doing it now they have a majority. And so we have greedy corporations still trying to dig them up.

The government should have fixed this long ago. Their failure to do so is now looking like a deliberate refusal, almost as if they don't really care about conservation at all...

Stewardship land is conservation land

The Greens' greatest disappointment while in government this term has been the failure to implement a ban on mining on conservation land. Promised by Jacinda Ardern immediately after gaining power, it had long been assumed that the problem was NZ First (who have a long history of environmental vandalism). But it turns out that the real problem all along was Labour, who are refusing to commit to a ban and playing semantics over "stewardship land" and "conservation land":

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was asked on Thursday why the Government has continued approving mining on conservation land since 2017, despite promising it wouldn't happen when she took office.

"One of the things we have been working through, and has taken a little bit of time to work through, has been the difference between conservation and stewardship land," Ardern said.

"We have large amounts of land that are technically under stewardship land where these applications often apply and that's been one of the things as a Government we've been trying to resolve."

The problem: stewardship land is conservation land. It's right there in the interpretation clause: "stewardship area means a conservation area..." (that is not subject to specific protections). And while not subject to specific, high-level protections like a reserve or national park, the fact that it is a "conservation area" means it is held for "conservation purposes", meaning "the preservation and protection of natural and historic resources for the purpose of maintaining their intrinsic values, providing for their appreciation and recreational enjoyment by the public, and safeguarding the options of future generations". And just for additional emphasis, there's a specific clause requiring stewardship land to be "managed that its natural and historic resources are protected". A mining ban is absolutely consistent with this. Or, to turn it around, allowing mining on stewardship land is prima facie inconsistent with it, and can only be done where the stewardship land has no natural or historic resources to protect.

What these word games show is that Labour is two-faced on conservation, and won't stick even to its clear commitments. Which isn't really surprising. After all, remember how they handled the offshore gas exploration ban: make a big announcement, then immediately undermine it by extending permits where-ever possible. This is just more of the same. They want the green cred for making the announcement, but don't actually want to follow through with actual meaningful policy (see also: "my generation's nuclear free moment"). And if wondering why the Greens might not want to be in government with them, shit like this is why.

This is how you deal with criminal fishers

In October 2018, Sealord's fishing boat Ocean Dawn repeatedly bottom-trawled in a Benthic Protection Area on the Chatham Rise. It was a crime which devastated a pristine marine environment. And today, they've been properly punished for it:

Sealord has today been ordered to forfeit a $24 million fishing vessel for bottom trawling in a protected area.

The company was also ordered to pay a $24,000 fine in Nelson District Court for trawling in a Benthic Protected Area.

[...]

In addition to the vessel Ocean Dawn being forfeit, the proceeds from the sale of the entire catch taken in the five offending trawls is also forfeit which amounts to $1,12294.13.

The captain and first mate were also convicted and fined. Hopefully it means they won't work in the industry again.

There will no doubt be appeals, but hopefully this penalty will stick. And its absolutely appropriate for a company which repeatedly violated a reserve. Hopefully it means that the fishing industry will get the message that this sort of criminality is not acceptable. And hopefully they'll start handing down similar penalties for catch fraud as well.

Another environmental crime

A farmer in Te Anau has slashed and burned 800 hectares of native forest:

A Te Anau farmer accused of slashing and burning down 800 hectares of native forest in two years has been served with an interim court order to stop.

Southland District Council says Peter Chartres caused irreparable damage to flora and fauna when he cleared mānuka on his property to make room for pasture - ignoring an abatement notice in 2015 and multiple warnings he needed resource consent to clear trees older than 20 years.

Chartres denies he has done anything wrong and plans to oppose a permanent court order the council is applying for.

800 hectares of native forest isn't just a loss of native habitat and biodiversity - its a loss of carbon as well. Using the look-up tables, 800 hectares of indigenous forest of at least 20 years of age is at least 126,960 tons of carbon, worth at least $4.2 million at current prices (I wonder if he paid for it, or committed carbon fraud?). But its worse in the long-term, because at peak native forest soaks up well over a thousand tons per hectare. Which means this orc's destruction spree cost us at least 800,000 tons of long-term carbon storage, enough to soak up 1% of one year's emissions.

A court order is a good start. But acting without resource consent and ignoring an abatement notice is an actual crime, punishable by 2 years in jail and a fine of up to $300,000. This orc should be prosecuted. Or are farmers above the law?

Ending tenure review

Something I missed: the government has introduced a Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill. Its primary purpose is to immediately end tenure review, with any review discontinued if a substantive proposal has not yet been put to a leaseholder. According to LINZ, there are currently zero substantive proposals waiting for a decision, so hopefully this means the process is stopped dead in its tracks. It would also replace the lax scheme for consenting activities (which has seen proposals to clear or irrigate crown land rubberstamped) with one mirroring the RMA hierarchy of permitted, discretionary and prohibited activities, and apply a formal decision-making process to them. Both of which are a huge improvement over the status quo.

There is a minor secrecy problem in new s22E, in that proactive publication requirements can be ignored if the Chef Executive is satisfied that good reason would exist under the OIA for withholding. Which echoes the clause in the new Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3) I blogged about earlier in the month. Its not that this is a bad idea, but the lack of oversight is problematic, and introduces unknown unknowns (we don't know how much is being withheld, and therefore how much transparency we're actually getting). And it has the same solutions: automatic review, and publication of the fact that something has been withheld so that we know how much we're not being allowed to see.

The orcs lose again

The orcs in the mining industry have just been handed two defeats in a row in their battle to despoil our environment. Their idea was to rip the top off a mountain on the West Coast to dig an open cast coal mine. But most of the land they want to use is a reserve, and the rest is managed by the Department of Conservation. Two weeks ago, the High Court upheld Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage's refusal to allow them to despoil conservation land. And yesterday, the Supreme Court backed the Court of Appeal's ruling that reserves are not for mining. Meaning that the Buller District Council must manage the land to protect its scenic, biological and natural features. Which should absolutely forbid digging it up and turning it into a giant hole in the ground.

Faced with a ruling like this, you'd think the orcs would slink away and give up. But weirdly, they have announced their intention to ask the Buller District Council for access again. I guess when your business model depends on digging holes in the ground, you have a hard time understanding when people say it can't and won't happen.

Getting what they paid for again

It looks like the fishing industry is still getting what they pay for:

The Government has again bowed to fishing industry pressure and refused to extend a marine reserve around Campbell Island, a subantarctic sanctuary recognised for its value in conserving and maintaining unique creatures.

Campbell Island/Motu Ihupuku is uninhabited and is New Zealand's southern-most island. It is accepted as one of the most pristine places on earth and an important breeding ground for seabirds and marine mammals.

The move has exposed a split between the Green Party and its Government partner Labour over protection of the oceans.

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage says she backed enlarging the sanctuary. But she was overruled by Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash, who sided with industrial fishing interests.

There's no actual fishing down there, but the fishing industry opposes sanctuaries for ideological reasons: they hate the idea that there might be anywhere they are not allowed to pillage. They're not interested in sustainable management, they're not "stewards" ensuring a viable future for their industry, they're purely about environmental destruction. As for how to stop it, a first step is to vote out the politicians they've bought, and elect ones they can't buy.

This is not rehabilitation

When miners pillage conservation land, they are typically required to "rehabilitate" it afterwards. Its not much compared to the damage they do, but its something. But apparently even that is now too much to expect. NZG Limited, a company owned by Oravida directors James Blackwell, Julia Jiyan Xu, Stone Shi, and David Wong-Tung, has been mining gold in the Mikonui Valley near Hokitika. As a condition of access to conservation land, they were required to restore it afterwards, including recontouring it, replacing topsoil, and replanting it in native forest. But none of that has been done. Instead, all of these requirements have been quietly waived by DoC, and the area has been left looking like a moonscape:

A mine on conservation land on the West Coast conditionally signed off as rehabilitated has been described as a desolate wasteland.

The remaining condition for sign-off is one year of weeding.

There’s no topsoil, a gaping hole remains, and replanting, written as a concession condition, wasn’t done. The Department of Conservation (DoC), which signed off the rehabilitation, said conditions were changed after a discussion with the mining company. If rehabilitation is not completed, the company can lose the bond it paid when it gained the concession.

So rather than forcing them to meet their commitments (or take their money to pay for any failure), the conditions were weakened to allow them to walk away with their pillage free and clear. Its absolutely disgusting, and I am boggled as to why DoC or the Minister would allow it. But the article also notes that "no mining companies have left sites that have not been rehabilitated to the satisfaction of the Department of Conservation on public conservation land in the West Coast area". If that's the case, maybe someone should start looking at those sites to check that its not a similar story there.

Meanwhile, if this is an example of how a Green voice in government leads to better conservation outcomes, we're better off with them in opposition.

Labour's bad faith on mining

In her 2017 speech from the throne, newly-elected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised that "There will be no new mines on conservation land". She lied:

Twenty-one mining applications have been approved on conservation land since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's speech promising there would be no more.

The delay in legislation to back up the commitment has meant that for the past two years it’s been business as usual, and mining applications have continued to be processed. As one conservationist puts it: "Rome continues to burn" while the promise has floundered.

Between November 2017 and the end of January, 21 mining applications have been approved.

Fourteen of those are mining approvals on land that hasn't been mined before. The remaining seven applications approved were issued for land that had previously been mined or were re-issues of previously approved mining access permissions that had lapsed.

In the two years prior to the announcement, 19 mining applications were approved.

So its not just that Ardern has failed to deliver - she has allowed more mining than National did. And this hasn't happened due to an accident or failure of circumstances - the government simply promised something, then refused to deliver it, refused to expend the political capital to convince its coalition partner so it could keep faith with the public, refused to even admit there was a problem. The message is clear: if you want to protect our wild spaces, don't vote Labour.

Another broken promise

Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:

West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new mines" policy for conservation land has been parked before the general election in September.

[...]

On Monday, O'Connor said it was a complex issue and there was "not time".

"There's a hell of a lot of work to do."

He referred to the West Coast's "unique perspective" and the large number of existing mines on conservation land.

Its Labour in a nutshell: promise big, do nothing, don't deliver (see also: "my generation's nuclear-free moment"). Its dishonest, but its also stupid: it discounts the value of every future promise they make, and people don't turn out to vote for a party they don't trust. It's also a breach of trust with the Greens, who worked hard for this policy, and have now seen it stalled due to Labour chickenshittery. And that's not going to make confidence talks with them any easier in future.

On the positive side, the policy being "parked" means it is no longer under "active consideration", which reduces the scope for the government to keep information on it secret. So I guess its time to hit the OIA and fine out exactly how much or how little they did, and how this breach of faith happened.

Conservation land is for conserving

Today, the government declined an application to build a hydro power station on conservation land in the Morgan Gorge, near Hokitika. National MPs are complaining about this on Twitter, but if you read David Parker's very thorough decision, the reason the application was declined is clear: because granting it would have been contrary to the Conservation Act. The area in question is a pristine environment and an outstanding natural feature. Allowing the development would have changed its character utterly. Conservation land is held for the purpose of conserving its natural and historic resources, for both their intrinsic values and (where not inconsistent with those) for recreational purposes. The law requires an application to be declined if the proposed activity is contrary to the Act or the purposes for which the land concerned is held. The decline was thus a no-brainer. (And if any of those wailing National MPs disagree, they can always seek a judicial review of the Minister's decision. They won't, because it is very obvious they will lose).

The clear message here is that this isn't a National government which will ignore the law until forced to obey it by the courts. Instead, the law is going to be enforced. Obviously that will upset the orcs, who want to destroy everything for private profit. But they are exactly what the law is there to protect us from. Conservation land is for conserving. That should not be difficult to understand.

Still taking the piss

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled on the pillage of swamp kauri, stating clearly that export was forbidden unless it had been clearly turned into a finished product. But less than a month later, MPI was again approving minimally carved logs for export, pretending they were "finished products" so the pillagers could make a quick buck:

A Supreme Court judgment has placed Te Uru Rākau, the Ministry for Primary Industry forestry arm in the role of deciding what’s art and what’s a log.

Te Uru Rākau's call is a swamp kauri log with light carvings, similar to those found inadequate as to be considered a finished product, and a paua shell-dotted resin inlay is a genuine sculpture.

[...]

The decision to call an item exported in December, barely a month after the Supreme's Courts judgment, a sculpture has shocked the Northland Environmental Protection Society’s Fiona Furrell.

“I feel this Ministry is making a mockery of the Supreme Court ruling.”

And she's right. The "products" MPI is approving are no different from the raw logs the Supreme Court ruled were illegal. Which is not the sort of behaviour I'd expect from a government agency. But I guess that's what happens when you let yourself be completely captured by the industry you are supposed to be regulating.

Growing the conservation estate

A decade ago, the public fought a battle with Meridian Energy over the Mokihinui hydro scheme - a plan to build a dam on conservation land, flooding a scenic river gorge. Now the area has been protected forever by adding it to Kahurangi National park:

A wild and remote river gorge that was nearly dammed for power generation will be part of the largest piece of land ever added to an existing national park.

Nearly 65,000 hectares of land north of Westport will become part of the Kahurangi National Park, expanding the country's second largest national park by 14 per cent, the Government announced on Wednesday.

The added area is slightly larger than Christchurch and about half the size of Auckland.

Its the largest addition to a national park ever, and a huge victory for conservation. But its worth remembering that DoC still controls approximately 2.5 million hectares of unprotected stewardship land, which still needs to be assessed and then assigned protected status according to its value. Hopefully this is jut the first step in that process.