disoriented wrote:

happybaboon wrote: (lowish wage labouring jobs)?

There is some $$$ in mining jobs even if it is just labouring and driving trucks.

No such thing as labourers in a gold mine

LOLs my cousin does mining of gold. I'd class spending hours in the river in a wet suit with a suction pump as labouring

happybaboon wrote:

Kazmeistyr wrote:

happybaboon wrote:Fast and simple way to tell the ministers involved how ashamed you are of them http://www.greens.org.nz/ecards/dont-mi ... e-minister

Err, do any of the proposed areas generate any kind of money, let alone billions? Just curious

Yeah. Lots of tourists go to our conservation land. The nation as a whole benefits from tourists, a lot of whom come here 'cos we're "clean and green" - if we start building mines on high value conservation land we kind of put that image at risk...

In exchange for $40 million dollars to the Government and maybe "creating a few jobs" (lowish wage labouring jobs)? Yeah, not worth it.

Um yeah. But do they go to any of the "proposed" areas, in levels that create "billions of dollars"?

Kazmeistyr wrote:

happybaboon wrote:

Kazmeistyr wrote:

happybaboon wrote:Fast and simple way to tell the ministers involved how ashamed you are of them http://www.greens.org.nz/ecards/dont-mi ... e-minister

Err, do any of the proposed areas generate any kind of money, let alone billions? Just curious

Yeah. Lots of tourists go to our conservation land. The nation as a whole benefits from tourists, a lot of whom come here 'cos we're "clean and green" - if we start building mines on high value conservation land we kind of put that image at risk...

In exchange for $40 million dollars to the Government and maybe "creating a few jobs" (lowish wage labouring jobs)? Yeah, not worth it.

Um yeah. But do they go to any of the "proposed" areas, in levels that create "billions of dollars"?

Just build some dams instead, we need more dams, Dammit!

Check this out, look at page 7 to start cringing:

http://www.hays.com.au/salary/pdfs09/Re ... Mining.pdf

Yes, you can do your HT licence and earn more than your 8 year uni degree will ever get you.

Everyone seems to be making a big fuss about mines ruining our image, but what about all the dairy farms that are around the country? They're not too clean or pure are they, not with the water run off and dirty cows wandering through streams and rivers.

Carl_Ed wrote:Everyone seems to be making a big fuss about mines ruining our image, but what about all the dairy farms that are around the country? They're not too clean or pure are they, not with the water run off and dirty cows wandering through streams and rivers.

SHUT UP!! I LUV TEH BEEF!!! AND I LIKE CHEESE!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT MILK ON MY WEETBIX OR IN MY COFFEE!!!! I LIKE NZ MILK AND CHEESE!! IT"S MUCH BETTTERER THAN THIS RACIST* AUSSIE STUFF!!!

Gold, I could do without. Except if used to manufacture thingies that make cool "bing" sounds or let astronauts keep their eyes. I am sure a gold mine in a 3rd world country that nobody gives a shit about is more than enough to supply teh gold for things that actually need it work, rather than for some silly thin band made specifically to make blokes wince and allow teh ladies to flash about to their equally putrdidly materialistic girlfriends, all which would be much better spent on bike stuff that is made from some shit that is dug out of some third world country.

Milk and cheese is better than Gold.



* Aussies make Coon cheese.

A few follow-up points:

Dairy - believe me, we make a fuss about dirty dairying too. Can send you some links and info on that if you want. Latest on that was the Dunsandel water on TVNZ News tonight. Russel Norman broke this story and it's taken TVNZ some weeks to catch up but better late than never. Town's drinking water contaminated by faecal coliform bacteria. Sure there's a lot more dairy cows than any other animals around, but apparently there isn't enough evidence yet to be more cautious about allowing yet more dairy conversions in the area. Source could be something else of course - kiwis maybe?

Value of the minerals - The Government's estimate of the value of the minerals below the ground swings around wildly, by more than an order of magnitude. The truth is that they really have no idea until they have undertaken a lot more surveying work in these places, which in itself is pretty intrusive and destructive. What we do know, however, is that estimates of the value of intact conservation land for our economy greatly exceed the estimates of the value of the minerals below the ground in conservation land. And remember that part of the clean green brand is an idea that we have cultivated in our international markets not only of NZ as a place that has a fantastic natural environment, but also where New Zealanders care passionately about keeping it clean and green. We all know that's not 100% true. The question is how much below 100% can it drop before the brand is irredeemably damaged.

Mining jobs - there's no doubt that mining jobs are paid better than average. But by and large they're pretty awful jobs - hard, dirty and dangerous. Remember that the commercial value of the minerals mined may be very large, but the return that you and I get, as the "owners" of those minerals is generally very small (around 1 or 2%). So generally the deal is local communities get jobs and the spin off economic activity from those wages, but in return has the loss of the inherent value of the places in their natural state (including tracks for recreational purposes), loss of the minerals mined from being available to future generations, opportunity cost from other commercial activities like tourism in the same place, pollution while the thing's going, and then the legacy cost of cleaning up afterwards like toxic tailings dams and so forth. So yes, there's an upside, but there's a really big downside.


Government's plan - who can figure it out? Sure, it is certainly one of their techniques to try to distract the electorate with something eye-catching in order to slip something else through. It's also true that they make frequent use of the technique of floating an outrageous idea so that we all breathe a sigh of relief when the eventual pain isn't so bad. But I'm not sure that either of these fits. We get a pretty good idea of public sentiment with our petition on this subject, and people literally queue up to sign it. I can't see how persisting with this deeply unpopular idea helpds them, unless their real agenda is really just getting Gerry to make the decisions about mining in other areas of conservation land. And possibly it could be about fulfilling their promise to the Aussie mining industry (with whom they were talking about all this back as far as 2006. Funny theey didn't mention it in the election campaign). But right now the existing NZ mining industry is not too happy with the whole thing - for the most part the potential gains just aren't that great, and secondly, by revisiting the protection of land in Schedule 4, the Government is inviting conservationusts to withdraw their agreement not to oppose the mining activities in lower value parts of the conservation estate.

Kevin Hague wrote:A few follow-up points:

Dairy - believe me, we make a fuss about dirty dairying too. Can send you some links and info on that if you want. Latest on that was the Dunsandel water on TVNZ News tonight. Russel Norman broke this story and it's taken TVNZ some weeks to catch up but better late than never. Town's drinking water contaminated by faecal coliform bacteria. Sure there's a lot more dairy cows than any other animals around, but apparently there isn't enough evidence yet to be more cautious about allowing yet more dairy conversions in the area. Source could be something else of course - kiwis maybe?

It was the same kid who took a bloody great "Steamer" in the High School pool the night before swimming sports. Never found, little beggar. A whole day of leering foiled by a single bowel movement. Only something this purely eveil would ever contaminate one's drinking water with the humble, yet terribly sinister poo.

I recon the Great Barrier mining debate is a big smokescreen for when they announce mining in the Paparoa's or somewhere else of significant environmental value. It's all bullshit, there's no way they'll mine on GB.

As for the Dairy Farmers lobby... call me narrow minded but they can go fuck themselves. I'd sooner go without milk than have our rivers & streams raped the way they are at the moment. I'm a keen fisherman and have seen the effect on the rivers over the years - it's bloody criminal.

Your narrow minded

Zaphod wrote:I recon the Great Barrier mining debate is a big smokescreen for when they announce mining in the Paparoa's or somewhere else of significant environmental value. It's all bullshit, there's no way they'll mine on GB.

I'm not sure the paparoas will go anywhere either. The coal there is mostly thermal quality. And it's highly unlikely that the export price for thermal will get high enough in the forseeable future to cover the costs of establishing a mine+ongoing transport costs+corporate overhead. Thermal coal is abundant globally, it's much cheaper to mine it in asia.

That aside If it does ever get mined for domestic power generation then I'll laugh my ass off.

I was reading about the financial crisis in Mediterranean countries over the weekend and it reminded me of this debate - and similar debates about dairy, infrastructure etc. Country borrows too much. People are too busy believing their own propaganda/entrenched in their lifestyles to do what needs to be done to pay it back. Country goes down the drain. It's been slowly happening for 30 years

Yeah it seems strange J2H. Gt Barrier was never a starter, so I assume was a "sacrificial" part of the package. Coromandel was an odd choice, given that they are guaranteed to have the most vociferous opposition there. I guess that Paparoa was there because they thought Coasters would be most likely to be supportive. Then maybe having established the principle they could go after other targets in that next batch regardless of whether Paparoa went ahead. Or maybe the real Paparoa target was Gold - until open cast mining was ruled out. Hard to figure.

And as for the economics, I just can't understand how all that free trade doesn't seem to have solved the problem, no matter how much cheap stuff we import from China

Well, for a start the trade isn't free... But anyway.

Coromandel might actually have some gold worth chasing. And if it could be got underground with existing processing infrastructure then it would probably fit the vision outlined in the gubbiments statements. But in that case why would you publicise it? Doing it under the radar would be much easier for a one off.

At first I wondered if the locations listed were designed to fit areas of lower employment for publicity reasons, but that's too blatent - mining companies hire people they need regardless of where they need to import them from, they're not interested in unqualified people who are idle locally. Everyone with half a clue already knows that.

But considering the exploration expenditure required in any of the proposed areas, the (low) probability of success, the difficulty of raising funding on NZ's lacklustre stock market and the long lead time any project would have - not to mention the endless NIMBY BS a project would have to contend with - the whole concept just doesn't fit.

It's a smokescreen. What are they doing behind your back Kevin?