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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Anderton on coal

Eddie on The Standard had some very interesting and refreshing things to say about the Pike River disaster.

"Armstrong draws attention to “two speeches by Jim Anderton in Parliament this week. The left’s old war horse was not in the mood to join the chorus of praise for the West Coast’s resilience at what fate might have in store for it.

That kind of sentiment has produced a miserable mythology which decrees the Coast must always suffer.

"That is not good enough in Anderton’s book. So he effectively served notice that he will putting his not inconsiderable weight behind efforts to find out why things went so dreadfully wrong at a mine which, as it has been open barely a year, should have had all the right equipment and safety practices.
Anderton seems to have made it his personal mission to end the life-and-death lottery that working in underground mines has entailed."

I hope you will have a look at this. It's something beyond the sort of thing that is being presented by the media so far.

7 comments:

Shunda barunda said...

Very interesting Robert.
This is a monumental balls up and I will be very interested to see why this occurred, the mines inspector 'issue' could be very significant indeed.

That kind of sentiment has produced a miserable mythology which decrees the Coast must always suffer.

Oh, I have much to say on this! While I am a proud 'Coaster' in one sense, I loath, and have no loyalty to certain manifestations of West Coast 'folk law'.
"Miserable mythology" is not something that gives anyone a lot of hope for the future.
Things need to change.

robertguyton said...

Tony Kokshorn has it in spades Shunda - Coaster!
Changed your view on him have you?

Shunda barunda said...

Tony is an interesting guy Robert, I have known him for quite a long time.
He is capable of seeing reason and he has done the right thing in the past even though it cost him personal friendships.
So while I find myself often cringing at some of his 'coaster-ness', I think he is still someone that can be worked with to a certain extent.
I make him nervous though.
He has made some big errors over this issue but his compassion for the families seems to have offset them somewhat.

Anonymous said...

I think Tony has been rockhard in supporting to coast in its hour of need, and Jim Anderton has taken a very staunch position on mine safety.

Pike River Coal is now on fire after a 4th explosion, it may be that the fire burns for some time and the mine does not reopen. I hope in time the Coast has less reliance on coal and can build some clean energy etc industries.

The coast is a most beautiful place and filled with wonderfull people, I hope its people do not have to suffer more mining tragedies in the near future.

robertguyton said...

Imagine the West Coast leading the way in clean energy developments!
That would be something.
Is food production (non-dairy) big there?
It seems to have the water and the temperatures for it. Don't know about the soils though.

Shunda barunda said...

Dairy is pretty much it Robert.
The soils are poor pretty much everywhere except some of the river valleys.
There is horticulture potential here though, and I was involved in a group a few years back that was investigating the possibilities.
Interestingly, they thought Southland was the region that should be looked into for species that would work here.
The Grey valley is suitable for horticulture and apples actually grow really well, it is not unlike the Motueka valley from what I have heard, not sure how true that is.
But all that land is now dairy.

robertguyton said...

We're awash with milk Shunda - it's time to rationalise and grow foods that are good for humans and good for the environment not just 'good for the economy'.
Poor soils can be made better. In fact, it's the m9ost worthwhile of undertakings for mankind. A recent questionairre revealed that 70% of NZ farmers don't know the carbon content % of their own farm. Scientific farming? I don't think so.