Ryan Bridge: Here we go again with nonsense on mining

The same crowd who moan and complain when we don't have enough cash to upgrade schools or pay teachers and nurses more are the same lot who throw eggs at Crown cars and chant 'shame' at ribbon cuttings for mining operations.

The latest whinge is about Otago Council giving road access to some Aussie gold miners to mine gold in an area that was basically founded on doing just that.

You don't get wealthy sitting on your hands or waving banners.

That's not how you create communities people want to live in, in which teachers earn a decent wage, and nurses don't work 16-hour shifts.

A country that looks a bit more like, oh I don't know, Australia - you know, the place all our kids are moving too.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Critical minerals, another example. Why wouldn't we do a deal and pull it out of the ground?

Everyone else is doing it. By the way, a lot of this stuff goes into electric cars and electronic tech, like the cell phones and computers the Greens use, rather than into things like SUVs.

So what's the problem now?

Some facts before people get themselves too carried away, before you start to imagine giant open-cast pits stretching from coast to coast, blighting the landscape.

Current mines make up 4000 hectares of land. That's 0.015% of our total land mass.

And the Conservation estate? 0.5%

If we are serious about creating a wealthy country where society functions, our elderly have warm homes, and our kids see a future, we need to start doing something about it.

Something other than waving banners and getting poorer.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.