Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Did the Government botch their conservation announcement?

National probably has the right intention with underused conservation land but they completely botched the communication of the plan and its implications.

There’s a little bit of green in every New Zealander - and I could not agree with that more.

I reckon this backdown is a slam-dunk case of one person, Tama Potaka, stuffing up the comms. This concern about 60 percent of the conservation estate being up for sale has been building for weeks but last week it really hit a high point.

Sam, the producer, said to me, “Listen, we’ve got to do something about this. We’re going to have to do something about the conservation estate being sold. It’s all over my Instagram and people are flipping out.”

So we spoke to Forest & Bird and at the time I was talking to them and thinking there is a very good possibility they were catastrophising.

Monday morning, I go to the kindy drop-off, and one of the mums says to me, “Oi, have you seen what the Government’s doing with the conservation estate?” Let me tell you how often politics comes up at the kindy drop-off: never. So that was quite something.

That day, Tama Potaka fronted for an interview. When I heard it, I knew immediately Forest & Bird were not catastrophising. Tama Potaka was toast on this because his strategy in that interview was not to try to explain what he was doing but to get angry and try to deflect. That’s a really bad strategy.

I heard that and thought, “Oh, everything they were worried about turns out to be true.”

So one week after it hit Sam’s Instagram, it’s gone - because the minister could not adequately explain what he was trying to do.

There is a good case to mount here and he actually did a more adequate job with me. The conservation estate is messy. It’s full of bits and bobs cobbled together - stewardship land, conservation land, gravel pits, even the MetService building.

Some of it is great; some of it is not. It needs a proper reclassification. Some of it could be sold off - we don’t need to own it all and we could make money from it.

But Tama Potaka did not explain that. And here’s another thing: neither did Shane Jones. I think this has shown us the limits of his appeal.

He was very good at making bombastic statements about mining, drilling and threatening to restructure DOC - but when it came to convincing Ponsonby mums and Auckland Gen Zers, he could not, and the two of them have lost the argument.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.