Pussyfooting no substitute for firm leadership

Is the National-led Government losing its way? Dipping toes into political waters to test the heat is no way to govern. We need vision and decision, argues Garth George.

The National-led Government appears to have lost its way. It seems to me that Prime Minister John Key's intricate and inclusive coalition arrangement, rather than ensuring National's re-election next year, is shaping up to generate its return to political oblivion.

At the time the coalition was formed I was warm in my praise of it, but now I'm beginning to wonder whether Mr Key and National, in apparently trying to please as many people as possible, are pleasing nobody.

I'm beginning to wonder, too, at the direction, if any, the Government is taking New Zealand. For those of us who became used, in nine years of Helen Clark-led rule, to a firm hand at the helm and a clear (if often misguided) way ahead, it is perhaps disconcerting to watch the stop-start, one step forward, two back activities of Mr Key and his ministers.

One minute we are told by Gerry Brownlee, the Minister for Economic Development and Minister of Energy and Resources, that national parks are to be opened up for development, the next minute Mr Key takes a couple of steps back and hints that the proposal could be watered down.

I have absolutely no problem with opening up our so-called conservation estate - a term that generally describes land that is useless for anything else - for mining of valuable and marketable minerals.

After all, the Department of Conservation administers 50,000sq km of land from the top to the bottom of the country, or about 20% of our total land area.

Some parts of it are, of course, priceless, if not sacred, but that leaves thousands of square kilometres which could, and should, be exploited for the benefit of all and not just an outdoors elite. Underneath parts of it are billions of tonnes of marketable materials which could generate billions of dollars in export income.

In Otago and Southland alone there are an estimated 15 billion tonnes of lignite worth, at today's prices, about $500 billion.

And, according to mining industry experts, by setting up industries to convert lignite into higher-value products, such as vehicle fuels, fertilisers or other chemicals, the value of the brown coal could be increased 10 times, not just in exports but in providing stuff that we now have to import, and creating homegrown jobs to boot.

Naturally, opponents of the scheme, Greens, sundry other tree-huggers, bird-watchers, bug-lovers and whale savers, are up in arms. But their contention that the Government is back-pedalling after realising the idea is "hugely unpopular" is nonsense: nine out of 10 New Zealanders would far rather the riches of the conservation estate were harvested to provide a real boost to this tiny nation's economy.