Cam Slater: Shane Jones Says ‘Goodbye, Freddy’

Almost every day I am finding more and more reasons to like this Government. Shane Jones has spoken with complete sense as the Government moves to mine, drill and sell our natural resources.

Resources Minister Shane Jones has gone “full Trump” and declared “war on nature” with comments he made about mining, a conservation group says.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Jones, a New Zealand First MP, said that “mining is coming back”.

“We most certainly need those rare earth minerals. In those areas called the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate, where it’s stewardship land, stewardship land is not DOC land, and if there is a mineral, if there is a mining opportunity and it’s impeded by a blind frog, goodbye, Freddy.”

Stewardship areas are parcels of land with conservation value given to DOC in 1987 that haven’t been afforded additional protections. The previous Government began a process to accelerate the reclassification of stewardship land.

“We are going to extract the dividend from Mother Nature’s legacy on the DOC estate in those areas previously called stewardship land,” Jones said.

“Now, why is this important? If we do not have coal and gas continuing to contribute to our power system, we’re going to have blackouts, brownouts; we’re going to have a power system that lacks security, riddled with risk; and it’ll diminish the status of our nation as a first-class, First World country. This side of the House is not taking that risk.” 

 Newshub

This is simply brilliant. It will enrage the left wing elite and especially the Green Party.

It is now obvious that NZ First sees their path to re-election is by bashing the hell out of Greens and the Maori Party, not to mention the media.

It is already paying dividends with NZ First jumping 2% and overtaking Act in the process.

Ironically this path will also cement the Maori Party in place, taking those seats from Labour for the foreseeable future.

Labour are going to have significant problems claiming they will be a sensible Government when they are shoehorned by the nutters from the Greens and the racists in the Maori Party.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.