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Dave Cull.
Dave Cull.
The Dunedin City Council has been challenged to ban a gathering of mining industry representatives from meeting in a council-owned venue.

The New Zealand Minerals Forum is scheduled to hold its annual three-day conference at the Dunedin Centre in May, beginning with a welcome by Mayor Dave Cull.

The programme features talks on mining investment opportunities in New Zealand, including the ''substantial undiscovered underground coal deposits'' on the West Coast, which could be a ''game-changer'' for the industry.

It also included talks on the coal user/climate change ''dilemma'', best-practice environmental management and new low-carbon technologies.

The gathering in a council-owned venue was opposed by Coal Action Network spokeswoman Rosemary Penwarden and Generation Zero Dunedin co-convener Adam Currie, speaking at yesterday's Dunedin City Council public forum.

Many of the forum's presentations were about coal or other industries with high carbon footprints, promoting a ''business as usual'' approach ''to eke out more profits at the expense of all our futures''.

Also, coming less than two weeks after school pupils rallied for action on climate change, the council needed to do more, they argued.

They challenged Mr Cull to cancel his welcoming address and for the council to block the use of a council-owned venue for the forum.

Cr Aaron Hawkins questioned DCC chief executive Sue Bidrose on how Dunedin's approach compared with councils further north.

In Palmerston North, the city council was considering a new venues policy amid protests over the staging of the New Zealand Defence Industry Association Weapons Expo in the city.

In Auckland, the council had stepped in last year to ban alt-right speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux from its venues.

Dr Bidrose said the DCC would be seeking a legal opinion, but the issue was ''complex and fraught''.

It would consider what sort of constraints could be placed on a lawfully operating organisation, and whether a ban from council-owned venues would be a breach of the Bill of Rights.

Once those issues had been explored, more information would be presented to councillors but that would not happen in time for May's minerals forum in Dunedin, she said.

chris.morris@odt.co.nz

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Lets not muck around with industries like this. We should round them up and re-educate them. About time we had a gulag or two.
The planet will burn if we don't make radical social and industrial change in the next 12 years. We must act now.

Because the far left love democracy

The 'far' left love. The alt right hate.

Yeah, lets ban anyone we don't agree with, from having meetings.
At least all those unemployed coal miners will be free to join your marches in the future.

There are minerals other than coal. New Zealand has some and needs to utilise them. That doesn't mean there should be big holes in the ground everywhere or in National Parks. Despite endlessly hearing Greens say there are alternatives to any mineral and plenty of alternative jobs, mines and minerals are necessary for New Zealands future.

And besides, conferences of all sorts help inform the wider community of different thoughts and beliefs. Of course that is also a practise the Greens don't believe in. If opinions don't match theirs then those opinions should never be heard.

I'd ask is the convention against NZ law? - No so let it be, if all these councillors were serious about Oil, Gas and coal they would be walking around naked or knitted cardians from the local sheep.

As for Cull, what was he thinking accepting the invite for the opening speech in the first place,

if it is cancelled what will it cost be? included in the cost to the wider Dunedin, hotels cancelled, non spending in the town, possible legal action against council which is really the rate payers, Future tourists to Dunedin , word of mouth.

This carbon nonsense needs to be put to bed....listen we've been told for years by the likes of these protestors and governments about global warming and sea level rise but when it comes to building a stadium at sea level and a billion dollar hospital at sea level, these two are either helping finance it, or are strangly silent...

Not Hewers! The boys from Kai will be up next.

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