Mining the Roads

There are a number of issues that should be explored relative to Government policy related to mining and transport.

Mining on conservation land; what a balancing act. No one wants to see resources wasted but it is always a huge balancing act. The returns must outweigh the costs.

We are renowned and rightly so our clean green image and that does stimulate people to come and see for themselves, will they stop coming if we fail to protect the conservation estate?

It does seem silly to have this argument if we don’t know what is there! Nothing is lost or compromised from prospecting go and have a look at what is there and then debate the value of it. Perhaps the problem was that they announced it rather than just doing it.

The transport issue is vexed. We can’t compare ourselves to other areas because of the number of cars per person we have; we have a lot far more than most countries. The types and age of our fleet needs to be considered but even more so the types of roads that we have in New Zealand.

Our roads have very low margins for error. Being dual carriage ways with by far the vast majority of our roads sharing opposing traffic with a little white line to separate us! We are going to have more accidents because of that fact alone. The number of cheap older imported cars not built for our conditions (chip seal v concrete etc) must also be a factor.

Finally it is also pertinent to contemplate that we were bought into nationhood mainly in the time of the car and our infrastructure reflects that. We have large personal footprints on the environment living on big sections and in single units. We have very low concentrations of people so we all have to travel further and spend more time on the road.

I applaud the actions taken by the government but there are many more things that need to be done and I am not sure moving the age from 15 to 16 will make much difference.