Rod Emmerson’s view
Small forestry venture brought more benefits
Twenty to 30 years ago, during their tertiary education years, my children spent some of their holiday time planting pines on some unused land, mainly paid for by a non- refundable government loan. The trees were harvested recently. No fortunes have been made but the money will help with my grandchildren’s education. Their parents are already thinking of ways they can reuse the land.
The loan used by my children was used to plant millions of hectares of pines all over New Zealand. It has been a huge success environmentally and financially.
Now I read that the Overseas Investment Office has allowed those plantations to be sold to foreign owners. If there is some benefit for New Zealand in such a move, I have missed it.
The big difference will be that loggers, truckies and others will now be working for the benefit of foreigners and the profits will go offshore. We no longer own the land and will never reap its benefits. Coleman seriously thought he was in with a chance indicates he lacks intelligence and insight. We need a minister of health with the guts to fracture the cartels that not only grossly overcharge for their services but are frequently performing procedures that are known to be of zero benefit to the patient, while ripping off the ACC and medical insurers. Our spineless Medical Council knows full well what is going on but does nothing. New Zealand has a reputation as an honest country, where corruption is not part of our way of life, so it is fundamentally important that corruption, if it exists, is eradicated from our export education system. This can only happen through rigorous investigation and oversight of our export education providers. This matter needs urgent and thorough investigation and action. There is much discussion now about plastic bags. At any garden centre there are plastic bags of compost in the hot sun with no air in or out. This degrades the plastic to allow chemical leakage. It could be avoided if we went back to the oldstyle thick paper cement sack for compost. In a similar vein, how about biodegradable paper instead of supermarket plastic bags as a real environmental bonus?