Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
29 August 2012

Miners Pay the Price of Government’s Asset Sales Programme

New Zealand First says hundreds of sacked Solid Energy workers are paying the price of the Government’s intention to flog off the State Owned Enterprise to foreign interests.

Rt Hon Winston Peters says nearly 300 workers at Solid Energy’s Spring Creek Mine and the Huntly East Coal Mine have been ruthlessly axed because of the Government’s asset sales plan.

“Losing such a large number of jobs will decimate the communities which rely on these mines as a prime source of income.

“It has come to this because of the Government’s short-sighted decision to sell Solid Energy, and in preparation some mines temporarily look bad on their books because of the current coal price.”

Mr Peters says New Zealand will lose the skills of those made redundant who will join the exodus to Australia to take part in that country’s highly profitable mining industry.

“This skill flight will impact on New Zealand when the international price of coal rebounds and we find that there is a serious lack of skilled and experienced miners to take advantage of the boom times.

“It is clear that National is more interested in flogging off the country’s silver rather than protecting and creating jobs for New Zealanders,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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