The announcement by the Minister of Conservation Nick Smith to compensate the Maori owners of the Lord River block in Stewart Island is today being welcomed by ACT Otago Candidate Gerrard Eckhoff.

However, Gerry Eckhoff said it now appears that the Minister is indulging in environmental apartheid. "Landowners are now compensated for loss of economic opportunity - if they are Maori, where as Pakeha landowners must suffer in silence with no prospect of compensation," he said.

"The Native Forest Amendment Act and the RMA conspire to steal land through loss of economic opportunity to owners of wetlands, bush remnants and other areas like tossock-grass land.

"It is outrageous that a Minister of the Crown indulges in the selective treatment of land owners based on race. It is high time a cost/benefit analysis of DOC was carried out.

New Zealanders cannot afford the social and economic cost of separate development," said Gerrard Eckhoff.

ENDS

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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>>