I’m from New Zealand, and I need your help.
Whenever I meet people overseas, there’s usually a perception that New Zealand is one of the only places left on Earth that is clean and green. It’s partly true – it’s a very beautiful place. If you go hiking, or ‘tramping’ as we prefer to call it, you can walk for a week and not see anyone if you pick your hills right. The stunning snow covered mountains do look a bit like in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit – mainly because that’s where it was actually filmed.
But it’s time to set the record straight, because there’s also the perception that the New Zealand Government is a relative saint when it comes to taking care of the environment and taking action on climate change. Rather than explain to you at length in words how this perception is dangerously wrong, all you have to do is watch this video clip of the actual New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key (and no, it’s not a Flight of the Conchords parody, although I desperately wish that it was). He lays out his plans to dig up as much of New Zealand for resources as he can, and to drill deeper and deeper oil wells in our oceans – even when powerful earthquakes, like the 6.5 quake that hit Wellington this week are striking at these drill sites.
All of this comes at a time when we know that the world has already gone too far in sucking out every last bit of fossil fuels we can find, and there comes a time to say No More. So in the coming months and year, our team in New Zealand will be scaling up our efforts to show our outrage at John Key and his Government, and that we shall not stand idley by as they plunder New Zealand. The number of jobs and royalties Key quotes are hardly to be the ‘game changer’ he suggests them to be. It’s classic 20th century politician policy – so desperately uncreative and unoriginal it’s appealing to some people. There are so many other ways New Zealand can prosper and grow, without short-term greed and plunder. Yes it won’t always be easy, and it will take creativity, entrepreunership and hardwork, but those qualities are at the core of the good old Kiwi, No.8 wire spirit, so I don’t doubt for a minute that we could do it.
So will you help us as we gear up to hold back the plunder of New Zealand – and share this so we can set the record straight with the rest of the world (you can tweet at him: @johnkeypm). The fight is on to keep New Zealand the way it should be.