brownlee puts both feet in his mouth

Some truths about mining from the Commissioner for the Environment

From Scoop

"The government has not made a case for opening certain Schedule 4 land to mining says the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, in her submission."

“These areas have been set aside as some of our most precious conservation land and before we can even begin to discuss mining it in any rational manner we need a lot of good information which simply hasn’t been made available.

“There are also significant issues around having the powers of the Minister of Conservation watered down by granting shared access with the Minister of Energy.

“Such a move would unfairly privilege mining and compromises the role of the Conservation Minister who holds the conservation estate in trust for the public.

summarised as

"Mining plans don’t pass first hurdle."

and also from Scoop the Greens get into brownlee

"Minister Brownlee was emphatic last year when he said “I make it very clear that no one is talking about mining our national parks”. Despite this public assurance, the Minister went on to propose the removal of parts of Kahurangi, Mount Aspiring, Rakiura and Paparoa National Parks from Schedule 4, in order to allow mining. After three attempts, Cabinet released a discussion document proposing only the removal of part of Paparoa National Park for mining.

“Brownlee’s two failed attempts at writing the discussion document and a policy flip-flop were required before Cabinet gave the task to an independent sub-committee to complete.

“The public continues to be misled. The Minister has placed a reservation over Mount Aspiring National Park, ‘for the purposes of considering those areas of land for allocation of permits by competitive tender’.

“We now have a situation where the Minister claims that official maps on the Crown Minerals website don’t mean what they say. Who should we believe?

“We are well past the time when the Minister should be held accountable for the mess he has made of his portfolio,” Mrs Turei said

brownlee you are a fool and you have been caught out and publically shown for the lies you have told. You have made a mess of your portfolio but that isnothing compared to the mess you are trying to make around our environment and our people - shame on you.