Seemorerocks: Crony capitallism, corruption, social injustice - NZ headlines

This is the scorched earth approach to mining on the sea

bed, lucky our oceans aren't dying, aye? (sic)

'Cunning' bid to prospect and mine West Coast seabed

Ironsand sampling off the coast of Patea on the New Zealand Diving and Salvage Ltd MV Island Leader II for Trans-Tasman Resources 2013. Photo / Bevan Conley

16 June, 2015

The Minister for the Environment has been urged to rule on a "cunning" bid to prospect and possibly mine a vast area of seabed directly off the West Coast.

Trans-Tasman Resources, which spent $65 million in a failed bid to mine ironsands from the South Taranaki seabed, has shifted focus to now apply for a prospecting permit here.

But because the permit area falls within the 12-mile nautical limit, it will not need a marine consent from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if it proceeds to the mining stage.

The EPA has previously rejected two applications for seabed mining within the exclusive economic zone, one from Trans-Tasman and another from Chatham Rock Phosphate.

By coming in under the 12-mile limit, Trans-Tasman would only need resource consent from the West Coast Regional Council.

For now, Trans-Tasman is in the initial stage of getting the exploration permit.

"They are being cunning by only applying for an area within 12 nautical miles (limit), which is within West Coast Regional Council jurisdiction under the RMA," Green Party mining spokeswoman Eugenie Sage said today.

The Minister for Environment could rule and have it dealt with by the EPA "given (the regional council's) lack of expertise and the EPA's much greater expertise on the impacts of the proposal and its high risk," Ms Sage said.

EPA spokeswoman Tanya Piejus confirmed the authority was responsible for managing the effects of specified restricted activities on the environment in the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. That started at the 12 nautical mile mark and extended to 200 nautical miles offshore.

The prospecting permit Trans Tasman has applied for covers 4436 square kilometres, extending from Karamea to Ross, from 1km offshore.

Trans-Tasman said in a statement it would focus on developing offshore mineable resources of iron rich mineral sands known to host ilmenite, zircon, garnets and gold. Ilmenite can be used for paint, and garnets for sandblasting.

Andrew Stewart, from Tran-Tasman, said they were in the very early stages of resource investigation.

Getting the prospecting permit

would allow them to undertake activities for the purpose of identifying areas likely to contain deposits of heavy minerals and potentially precious metals.

"As such, it is impossible to say at this stage what the potential type and scale of operations and economic outcomes -- including jobs -- could be."

Prospecting would be undertaken over a two-year period and include activities such as collating relevant information, literature reviews, undertaking geological modelling and potentially conducting surveys such as sampling and geophysics surveys.

"As such, these prospecting activities would have almost no impact on the environment," Mr Stewart said.

Beyond the 12 nautical mile mark, the water was too deep anyway.

The company would "actively work with West Coast Regional Council and other key stakeholders prior to the commencement of any field work," Mr Stewart said.

New Zealand's emblemic kauri trees are being ripped off to make table tops. The export is illegal, but make a couple of scratches on the log and you can call it a Maori carving

Northland leader calls for halt to swamp kauri trade

A Northland Maori leader is calling for a moratorium on the mining of swamp kauri and a review of the laws that regulate it.

Kauri logs unearthed from peat await sale. Photo: RNZ / Lois Williams

Dover Samuels said iwi from Te Hapua to Kaipara were fed up with what they saw as the plundering of a national treasure.

The one-time Minister of Maori Affairs, now head of Northland Regional Council's Maori Advisory Committee, said it was time to halt the trade while a rethink of the whole industry was carried out.

A listing on Ali Baba under the heading: 'Ancient KAURI Tabletop for dining or boardroom'.

A listing on Chinese-based website Ali Baba under the heading: 'Ancient kauri tabletop for dining or boardroom'. Photo: Ali Baba

Mr Samuels said the advisory Committee had been consulting iwi in recent months about policy affecting their interests and the consistent message was that they wanted the industry controlled, in part because of the damage it's doing to wetlands and lakes.

"Many of the whanau and hapu where these taonga lie are very concerned about the exploitation of what they say, and what they see as a New Zealand taonga, said Mr Samuels. "Not just Maori, but New Zealand, taonga."

Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy yesterday defended the regulation of the swamp kauri industry, saying MPI staff kept a close watch on what was going out of the country.

The MPI website says swamp kauri can be exported as manufactured or finished products, but not as logs.

But some companies have exported logs legally by carving the surface and exporting them as finished products, with MPI approval.

Mr Guy said the trade was good for the country.

"They are finished products," he said.

"I have seen some photos where some fantastic-looking swamp logs have been carved and they're going to be an amazing feature for our country in an international country that they're destined for.

"We manage it very, very closely."

Fiona Furrell, who heads the Northland Environmental Protection Society, scoffs at the idea that the carvings represent New Zealand.

"The first one we saw an MPI photo of, we call it the Casper log, because it looks more like Casper the friendly ghost than any sort of Maori or authentic carving.

"It's just this big log with weird markings and paint all over it and what looks like a big smiley face. "

Mr Samuels said tangata whenua were not impressed with MPI's rationale for sanctioning the logs as carvings.

"I mean, how naive can you be when you say you've applied some sort of artificial tiki to the log, or an artificial carving to the log, and say that passes the requirements of the legislation? I mean, that's absolutely ridiculous."

Ms Furrell said if Mr Guy thought the swamp kauri trade was good for the country he should head north and inspect environmental damage caused by the mining.

"Drained lakes, drained wetlands, completely destroyed natural environment that is protected."

The Northland Environmental Protection Society believes shipments of swamp kauri are slipping out of New Zealand undetected by MPI or Customs.

It says there's no shortage of overseas websites advertising kauri logs and timber for sale including China's biggest online commerce site, Ali Baba.

A kauri log for sale on Chinese-based website Ali Baba. Photo: Ali Baba

The society's researcher, John Allen, said photos appeared in June 2013 on the website of a New Zealand shipping company that transported five logs weighing up to 40 tonnes each from Auckland to a customer in Shanghai.

Dr Allen said the society referred the site to MPI and asked it, under the Official Information Act, to provide records of all its swamp kauri export certificates for 2013, but the shipment was not among them.

He said the society asked MPI and Customs to investigate but nothing has come of it.

Dr Allen said further analysis of the export application forms for the year revealed 23 percent were for unfinished kauri slabs and offcuts, which he said were illegal; 30 percent had incomplete buyer details, some giving only a first name and phone number; and more than 10 percent lacked shipping destinations, all details which are legally required.

Mr Samuels said these were all clear signs it's an industry that needs reining in.

At a time when standing kauri forests are being killed by a fungal disease, he said, it was even more imperative to conserve the ancient trees that lay underground.

"Right now our kauri forests are at risk, and we [Northland Regional Council] are trying to put together some policies that will ensure these trees are still standing for generation to come."

Mr Samuels said there should be a moratorium immediately on swamp kauri mining, pending a full review of its economic and environmental impacts.

Northland MP Winston Peters told Morning Report that the practices were creating environmental despoilation.

Listen to Winston Peters on Morning Report ( 4 min 48 sec )

More on corruption in this country. The previous government banned the inhumane practice of live sheep exports getting in the way of the plans of a Saudi businessman. To void being sued this government of (and for) crony capitalists provided a farm for home. It cost more to get each sheep over there than an economy air fare to Saudi Arabia.

Now it turns out there are no Saudi farmers in the desert where the new 'farm' is situated.

Saudi desert farm a 'sham'

Radio NZ,

17 June, 2015

Having poured millions of dollars into a demonstration farm in the Saudi Arabian desert, the Government now says there are not many farmers in the area.

The farm is supposedly for showing off New Zealand agriculture.

But Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Todd McClay told Parliament yesterday he did not know whether Saudi farmers had access to the New Zealand-funded demonstration farm.

"I'm not aware that there are a great number of farmers in that part of the desert," Mr McClay dded.

The Labour Party said Mr McClay's acknowledgement is further proof that the Government's Saudi deal is a taxpayer funded sham.

Labour's trade spokesperson David Parker said the Government had bought off Saudi businessman Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf, who owns the land where the demonstration farm is being built, and whose anger over the cancellation of live sheep exports was preventing a free trade deal with the Persian Gulf States.

"If this was meant to showcase New Zealand's agriculture as a model farm and we've now got the Minister saying there's not many other people farming in the desert, it really shows what a waste of money this has been."

The Government has spent more than $11 million kitting out Mr Al-Khalaf's farm, including flying sheep to the Saudi demonstration farm, and funding irrigation and the building of an abbatoir.

Mr Parker said $4 million of that money was a facilitation payment to Mr Al-Khalaf. He said facilitation payments are considered to be bribes in many countries.

The Government has repeatedly claimed that it was the Labour Party that created the friction with the Saudi businessman when it was in power, and that Cabinet papers from that era will prove it.

For the last two weeks Government ministers have been saying those Cabinet documents will be released within days.

However in Parliament yesterday, the Government again blocked Labour from making the papers public.

Prime Minister John Key maintained his Government was only fixing what he called Labour's mess.

"My position has always been that the Government had to act to try and tidy up the situation, but it was a situation of Labour's making is my view," Mr Key said.

But Opposition parties don't buy that.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters asked Mr Key in Parliament whether the Government's Saudi deal amounted to corruption.

"Is it not a fact that this Government has entered commercial arrangements involving bribery, corruption and jack-ups of the tender process?" Mr Peters asked.

Mr Key responded that in his experience when you start calling people names you are losing the argument.

Labour says Saudi sheep papers show it aced legally

The continuing downward movement in dairy prices while indebted farmers go to the wall. How long (between this and drought) before we get farmer suicides?

Dairy prices fall for seventh time

Dairy prices have fallen once again, but the rate of decline is more modest.

Radio NZ,

17 June, 2015

The average price dropped 1.3 percent to $US2409 a tonne, the seventh consecutive all.

A key price to farmers, whole milk powder, slipped 0.1 percent to $US2327, while skim milk powder dropped 0.2 percent to $US1978.

This leaves the dairy sector still waiting for signs of a turnaround in milk powder prices, in particular.

The biggest price drop was for anhydrous milk powder - almost nine percent.

But there were gains as well: butter milk powder prices increased by an average of 10 percent and cheddar cheese and butter also rose by more than two and three percent.

Rennet Casein gained more than four percent.

Treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf told Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee said the slump was worse than expected.

"While we anticipated continuing weakness in dairy prices in our forecasts, there is now a greater risk that prices could take longer to pick up with the recovery starting later this year or in early 2016, rather than the second half of this year as anticipated."

He said falling interest rates and the lower value of the New Zealand dollar would help offset the slump in dairy prices.

Dairy analyst with AgriHQ Susan Kilsby said there were some positive signs in the announcement, but nothing to indicate the expected price recovery would be immediate.

"The index prices were down at the auction overnight, but the specific whole milk and skim milk powder contracts that the NZX Futures market settles against, those contracts actually rose.

"That's for product that's actually being delivered in two months' time.

"So that does indicate we are seeing a little bit of firmness in the market for the nearer deliveries.

"But then on the other hand ahead of the auction we saw a flattening of the NZX Futures curve, meaning that the prices for products [for delivery] around Christmas have actually come back and it was really rhe reduction in that outlook that brought the reduction in the AgriHQ milk price for the 2015-2016 season back 14 cents to $5.50 a kg of milk solids.

"I mean, we do expect prices will gradually increase, but it's taking a while for milk production around the world to slow down and of course here in New Zealand, we had a strong finish to last season's milk production as well.

"Things are starting to turn, but it's taking time for their recovery."

Falling dairy prices led Fonterra to cut its forecast payout for the season just gone to $4.40 a kilo of milk solids, while it set a new season forecast of $5.25.

Other companies' opening forecasts range from $5.50 to $6 a kilo.

Ongoing dairy falls hitting rural economies hard - Labour.

The Labour Party said the ongoing falls in dairy prices were stripping billions of dollars from rural economies.

Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson said the price drops meant $13 billion would disappear from New Zealand's economy over this and next year - and small towns would bear the brunt.

He said the country relied too heavily on the dairy industry which was at the mercy of global trade prices.

"This is tough for farmers themselves who are going to be facing a big cut in incomes over this coming year, but it's the rural communities that rely upon those farmers who will really notice it.

"We're talking here about a town like Opotiki, in the Bay of Plenty. $30m will disappear from that town and that means jobs and other peoples' livelihoods at risks... That's a problem that will be felt right across New Zealand."

Dairy Auction: Dairy prices slip again

With (quite a bit) of luck Tim (the Gross) Grosser will not get his "trade" deal

Fast-track TTP or lose another deal - Groser

Trade Negotiations Minister Tim Groser says if the United States does not quickly pass "fast-track" authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, America can also kiss goodbye to a big trade deal with Europe.

Tim Groser says the TPP could stall until 2018. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

Radio NZ,

17 June, 2015

Mr Groser said he expects that, unless Congress gets its act together in the next few weeks, the TPP will stall until 2018 at the earliest.

"If they do not provide the package of measures that are being debated in the US congress now, not only will TPP not go ahead but you can also kiss goodbye to TTIP, the similar mega-regional deal across the Atlantic."

He told the BBC that people will not negotiate with the US if they believe legislators - in this case Congress - will not politically back negotiators at the end of the day.

"The rest of us will move on to other opportunities but the evidence in favour of the US gaining from trade is literally overwhelming. How on earth their elected representatives can still be debating whether trade is bad for the US economy, to me, is simply astonishing," he said.

The TPP deal would ease trade restrictions among the US and 11 Pacific Rim countries, but has caused controversy as critics believe the deal could create issues for New Zealand, including changing the way Pharmac buys medicines.

On the Auckland housing crisis