Import News from the Importers Institute:
Miles of Nonsense
European Greens call for the destruction of the basis of the New Zealand economy. Prime Minister Helen Clark, while
agreeing with the basic premise of their argument, asks them to go easy on us because we are quite Green ourselves.
(This article was first published in the Exporter Magazine, December 2006)
The argument goes like this. The best environmental option would be for Europeans to produce butter and lamb efficiently
themselves for their own people rather than import it from halfway around the globe.
You could be excused for thinking that this is patently self-serving nonsense, spouted by a French farmer keen to
continue lining his pockets at the expense of European consumers. But you would be wrong. The words were uttered by our
very own John Minto (yes, that one) in a column in The Press of Christchurch, November 6.
Mr. Minto acknowledges the counter-arguments that we are more energy efficient than the Europeans, but he is not
impressed. That very efficiency is "putting a huge strain on our land, water supplies and animal-welfare practices", he
said. Besides, it is not just the environmental cost of the fuel used to transport our exports to market that we should
consider. "What about the cost of building the ships?" he asked helpfully.
Mr. Minto's views on world trade would normally be afforded about as much relevance as the views of any other left-wing
school teacher, were it not for the fact that they are actually in perfect tune with the world view of the Labour
government.
That government is spending $11 million on an advertising fest to promote the idea that it is indeed better for us to
produce our goods here, instead of having them transported halfway around the globe. The government cannot credibly
argue that the "buy local" campaigns are a good thing in New Zealand, but not in Europe.
The same government has also enthusiastically bought into the catastrophic theories on climate change espoused by the
likes of Al Gore. Miss Clark suggested New Zealand should aspire to become "carbon neutral". How this is to be achieved,
or when, was not made clear. Miss Clark did not go into details. We do not know if the Holy Grail of carbon neutrality
is to be achieved through wholesale de-industrialisation, closing down pastoral activity or both.
We do know that, should European farmers and environmental activists manage to convince enough consumers in Europe to
stop buying New Zealand products, Miss Clark's goal of carbon neutrality for this country would become that much easier
to achieve.
Of course, 'carbon neutrality' was never meant to be taken seriously. Like the proposal to build a stadium on the
Auckland waterfront (interestingly, at sea level), the idea was never more than an attempt to divert voters' attention
from a political corruption scandal. It should not, however, be completely dismissed - this loopy talk of carbon
neutrality serves only to give credence to those intent on destroying the pastoral basis of our economy, using specious
concepts such as 'food miles'.
Mr. Minto said, "In the 1980's, New Zealand abandoned the concept of self-reliance and embraced globalisation." He
called this a dumb strategy. The Korean word for self-reliance is Juche. It is the policy that resulted in millions of
starving North Koreans resorting to eating tree bark. Meantime, in next door China, hundreds of millions of people were
lifted from abject poverty by that country's decision to open its economy to world trade. Who is dumb again?
The government of Australia did not buy into the catastrophe-based hysteria underlying the Kyoto agreement. New
Zealanders were sold that pup on the basis that we would be making lots of money in carbon credits. It turned out that
we will probably have to pay those nice people in the Kremlin about $1 billion of carbon 'indulgences'. Who is dumb
again?
Charlie Pedersen, the President of Federated Farmers, was quite right when he said that environmentalists are at "war
with the human race". People who espouse the nationalistic, anti-trade, self-reliance nonsense in the face of all the
evidence deserve to be called for what they are: ecofascists. Miss Clark's duty is to defend the national interest, the
same as every Prime Minister before her. She can do that by countering their arguments with reason, not by attempting to
out-green the ecofascists. To do otherwise would only lead us to question her fitness for high office.
ENDS