The Obstruction Economy

The first time Christopher Luxon used the term "obstruction economy" was 12 days after Waitangi Day in his state of the nation speech delivered on 18 February 2024, where he said you needed a PM who was "straight with you" and he had to make "tough choices" about forcing people with cancer back to 10 hours work per week and "there was a fine line to be walked between protecting the environment and building for the future".

It was all required, to "fix the economy" and "get us back on track" and for us to "get our mojo back" so we would stop being "soft and inward looking" after "six years of economic vandalism with nothing to show for all that spending". "It can't be fixed in one Budget, but we are bringing back financial discipline".

Something like that.

What this really added up to was a question about New Zealand values - for example if you knew that there were trillions of dollars of a useful metal lying in the seabed off the coast of Taranaki that Australians wished to mine, would you trample past Te Tiriti, kick iwi in the guts, sidestep the Environmental Protection Agency, fend off the fisheries and chip kick that extraction project onto the attached Fast Track Consent on the pre-approved schedule and score under the posts, a bag of gold in your hands? Hooray!!!

That's the likely plan now after the Australian mining company pulled out of the EPA hearing a few days ago - meaning all the "ready to go" protest groups and scientific experts that opposed their project never got to give their full evidence.

Christopher Luxon does not want to hear excuses - when he thinks there is too much red tape. Anyway people voted for change and all you need to do is not give a crap about the whales, the dolphins, the fish, and the harm caused from sediment and just block your ears to GreenPeace or Scientists while shouting, "I disagree strongly, you want an obstruction economy, I want to get things done".

To be honest - it's that bag of gold many are salivating over which is why they voted for the right anyway...so what if they destroy the planet? That's just red Tape and Russell Coutts was right to throw his tantrum over the contract he signed up to - kill the baby dolphins.

You know the type.

The metal under the seabed is Vanadium which is the sixth strongest metal on earth and since it was discovered in 1801, its mostly been used to increase the tensile strength of steel...you know car bodies became lighter and stronger but it was also used as a catalyst in the industrial production of sulphuric acid.

It's not especially rare - loads of it around the world - but there's giant invisible investment money wandering around looking for this kind of project - after being flushed through Wall Street in a new cold war with China's Cloud Capital super highway.

Cutting a long story short the investors and the miners have a "Greenwash" story to tell you - to help justify killing the whales and neglecting the harm, cos Vanadium has four natural oxidation states - which means it could be the holy grail for long life battery storage - like for 25 Years - which some say means it's all over for the Treaty, the EPA, Science and GreenPeace cos they are standing in the way of the Green Future.

It should be said that there are alternatives and it's all a big "might be the holy grail" at this stage.

Chris Bishop, former teen girl snapchat guy, former Tobacco Lobbyist killing his clients, and "shoulda done it sooner" flapper during the pandemic - is keeping his tiny sphincter mouth shut and refusing all comment when media hound him about what projects will be selected and put on the schedule...

The projects on the schedule skate past all the protections we have and James Shaw kept asking Bishop about coal mines and seabed mining projects making it onto that list of about 100 projects ...while Bishop cackled and grinned and kept it all secret - and Shane Jones and Winston barked about how they would never have done any crony deals about this sort of thing.

Notably Fast Track Consenting legislation had its first reading on 7 March 2024, a month after Waitangi Day, when Luxon pretended he cared about this from his cue cards and recycled speech.

The idea is to sidestep our laws that refer to Te Tiriti and to get past what Luxon calls "the obstruction economy" so that faceless international investors can make huge money while drills stir up the sediment and bugger the creatures harmed - this is the way of the National, NZ First and Act voter.

New Zealand can make a small margin off the side of all of this and eager wallets can become fat as Luxon sits down in one of his seven houses and laughs long and loud with his crony mates.

People voted for this change - he might tell himself - but they really did not - in fact they probably just voted for a $250 per week tax cut or some promise that now seems like BS for most cos they have not seen any of that yet. Still waiting on those three chupa chups per week - till July is the deal.

I get the sense that many voters don't really care what happens in their nation - once an election has past unless they are somehow directly disadvantaged.

Now we see the apathy, as people prefer to play games and watch fiction on TV and say "He's doing a great job", but some people 100% care about the neoliberal attack on what we value - and are busy being active...this is a long fight, a long long fight ...and they are not going to just give up now.

Debs at TPM reckons that the Fishery Industry is flexing its muscle over the proposed Vanadium Project off Taranaki - and Shane Jones has recused himself in a pudding of pomposity.

Where is Chris Bishop? Hiding behind the bike sheds with Casey Costello as the RAM Raids carry on unreported - well most of them these days.

Ripping up red tape that Seymour does not like on behalf of the Atlas Network, slashing Ministries like DOC, and the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, stealing the free lunches, not to mention cutting funds for RNZ, short changing The Police, and making many go backwards while making Te Tiriti a legal nullity again is all the rage for Luxon's fix to the "obstruction economy".

"This Government's measly two percent increase to the minimum wage means lower paid workers will again fall behind inflation and go backwards in real terms," Labour's Social Development spokesperson Carmel Sepuloni said this morning.

Yes the rich get richer and the poor get the picture applies as the Neoliberal attack rips down the trees, carves up the land, kills the kai moana and mostly white men in the same old boring suits wriggle with greed and Nat trolls pledge their ideological support to the destruction of all that made Aotearoa New Zealand special - under the shadow of the Atlas Network.

"You want a Prime Minister who will be straight with you", said Luxon, as they carry out their destruction with massive evasion and secrecy.

"It's time you got your mojo back", said the Luxon sucking the toes of the fossil fuel and mining industries - while Steve Braunias mischaracterised Chippy as a lonely cowboy and all the monied classes had a bloody good laugh about something a spin doctor made up.

These planet wreckers had robbed the Climate Fund and ignored complementary emissions reductions - as they tore down what we were doing - in service of Neoliberal ideology straight from the NZ Initiative.

I don't know about you, but I am with Te Tiriti, the environment, the trees, the whales, the fishes, the rivers and the indigenous people and Luxon can stick his "obstruction economy" rhetoric straight back up his high energy level "outward looking" bum hole.

It's up to us to be guardians of this place.

Who belongs to it?

All of nature and its treasures and creatures belong.

They are not an obstruction.

That's why we have protections and regulations for very good reasons - because we've seen what side stepping neoliberals have done to the planet so far...and it's time they were stopped.

The Obstruction Economy

Morena

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