Minister Nukes Property Rights In Macraes Mine Decision

Despite GRD Macraes gaining all the necessary resource consents - spending millions in the process - "in true Alliance-Luddite form, Conservation Minister Sandra Lee has rejected Macraes' application for a mining extension to their Reefton gold mine on the West Coast," notes Libertarianz spokesman Barry Cole, who says "Ms Lee obviously knows which pseudo-environmental pressure groups to pander to and which voters to appease.

"The Whitianga Waterways project was quite rightly allowed to proceed - but only because Auckland and Coromandel voters took precedence over the environmentalists. Sadly, West Coast voters don¹t have the same obvious political clout," he says shaking his head.

"But then the Coasters and their politicians have only themselves to blame," says Cole. "They had their chance to make a stand over the beech logging issue, but instead were bought off, and supposedly silenced, with a 120 million taxpayer dollar compensation payment," says Cole.

"Perhaps local MP Damien O¹Connor will show some real backbone this time and fight the eco-nazis, the femi-nazis and his anti-wealth coalition government on this issue," says Cole.

And what is Cole's solution? "The Libertarianz says we should start by dumping the RMA - a monster of an Act that has virtually nationalised all land in this country and spawns this kind of eco-fascism - and replace it with property rights-based common law, which allows land owners to pursue their own ends while protecting neighbours against any resulting and provable harms. It is the stuff of a civilised society," he says."

"We need to de-politicise the whole environmental debate," says Cole, "and common law is the way to do it."

It's enough to make you vote Libertarianz!

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>