New Zealand’s Future: Using Our Natural Resources

Bear in mind that everything I say in this post is said simply because I love New Zealand and care about it having a great future in the world. But I seriously wish we’d do some things differently. We deny ourselves the growth that our natural resources could give us, and we have political parties that don’t know that correlation does not imply causation. Those are the two things that have been frustrating me most recently.

I’m not one to get involved in New Zealand politics. But Sir Paul Callaghan’s talks about giving NZ a prosperous future have been making me think a lot more about how we can go about doing that. And it frustrates me to no end seeing our politicians doing exactly the opposite to most of the advice Sir Paul gives. So, like any blogger who gets very worked up about an issue, I thought I’d have a public bitch about it and offer my personal opinion on the issues. Thank you all for the opportunity.

Sir Paul Callaghan has repeatedly said that the only way for New Zealand to achieve economic growth and development is through sustainable innovation. He states that tourism is clearly not sustainable, citing the fact that there is a clearly defined limit to how many people can do the Tongariro Crossing each day. Completely true. So Sir Paul says that the way we achieve economic growth depends on our entrepreneurial talent, and how we nurture it. I completely agree, but I would not rule out the use of our natural resources too quickly.

Many people forget that New Zealand has one of the largest EEZ’s (Exclusive Economic Zones) in the world. In fact, our EEZ stretches to fifteen times the land area of our physical country. The ocean that we control has an incredible amount of resources in it, including oil. Now don’t get me wrong – I appreciate the value that our “clean green” image gives our country, and by no means do I want to destroy our tourism industry. I would oppose any huge mining project on the mainland in an area that tourists actually visit and notice. But how about hundreds of kilometers out at sea? Would anyone ever notice a few oil rigs? I doubt it, and yet the value that they could bring to our economy is enormous. A few oil projects would contribute very noticeably to our GDP.

Of course things could go wrong. There’s always the possibility that a disaster could occur on one of these oil rigs. But, like anything, it’s risk vs reward. And in my opinion, the value that using our natural resources could bring to New Zealand is far greater than the risk of a potential disaster. We would invest hugely in safeguards against disasters, and have plans ready to be put into action immediately in the event that something did go wrong. We would also, of course, use the most modern and safe mining and exploration methods in the world.

People often wonder how it is that Australia is powering ahead of New Zealand each year. It’s obvious – they’re smart enough to use their natural resources. And at the same time, they still have a huge tourism industry. I believe that in order for New Zealand to continue to grow we need to focus on three things – tourism, intelligent use of our natural resources, and sustainable innovation (nurturing entrepreneurship).

Now, I appreciate that this is perhaps a little bit of a hot topic given the Rena ship disaster in New Zealand. But this is where New Zealand needs to forget the word “green” for a minute, and just think logically. A few days ago, after the Rena showed that it had an oil spill, Phil Goff went straight to stating that this disaster should end all deep-sea drilling. He said: ”There shouldn’t be deep-sea drilling until we know there are safeguards in place that can absolutely be relied upon”. Think about this. The captain of a ship makes a massive error and runs the ship into the reef. Unfortunately, this leads to an oil spill from the ship. And by Goff’s logic, this means we should end all deep-sea drilling in New Zealand.

If you go by that logic, we should stop using plastic packaging on products simply because our rubbish bin blows over in the street. This is what I mean by our politicians do not realize that correlation does not imply causation. Simply because an oil spill and deep-sea drilling both involve the word “oil” does not actually mean that they are related or caused by similar things. But since this is a “green” issue, we don’t tend to think too much about it and we’ll all go to arms against anyone or anything that talks about mining or oil.

The point I’m driving at is that we need a political party to be strong about using New Zealand’s natural resources, and realize that we are insane to deny ourselves the growth that intelligent use of our resources could bring. Sir Paul Callaghan’s idea of sustainable innovation to grow New Zealand’s economy is perfect – but it’s not as easy to master. Innovation, to a large extent, depends on luck. Use of natural resources is more solid and depends less on luck. I believe a combination of the two is required.

Alright, that wraps up my complaints about New Zealand policy for today. Well in all honesty it doesn’t even cover a fraction of them, but I figure I’ll get enough flak for going against the status quo “green” policies. I’ll end on the note of suggesting that if you haven’t yet watched any of Sir Paul Callaghan’s talks, please do watch one such as this – it’ll get you thinking about how we can make New Zealand a country that has a place in the world.