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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 19. August 6 1979

The Lesson for New Zealand

The Lesson for New Zealand

The current Japanese situation has resulted from the type of (non?) planning and development that the country has undergone. Over the last 40 years Japan has gone through the type of fundemental changes that many "free enterprise" promoters in New Zealand are presently advocating.

This type of situation revolves around a mammoth injection of overseas funds. In Japan's case this was in the form of postwar redevelopment loans. For New Zealand it is the attraction of our natural resources, be they cheap electricity in the south, Maui gas fields in the North or iron sands all over the place. Our Government has invited the foreign investor to buy these resources.

While increased industrialisation may appear at the outset to be highly desirable for New Zealand, we must consider the level and kind of industrialisation we can afford.

The expenses that are involved in this type of development are not ones that accountants have shown themselves able to measure. It is the environmental cost that must be considered.

Many people believe that it is not possible that New Zealand could ever approach the situation that Japan now finds itself in. People likewise said that Britain would always be able to take our produce, that oil will never run out and that the Great War (WWI) was the war that would end all wars.

The time has come for a determined effort for comprehensive planning. The first decision that must be made is that of the type of life style that New Zealanders are to lead. It is therefore essential that we do not allow Government to further entrench the country on the path to becoming an arm of the "Great Multi-National Corporation.

The present policy of the National Government has been to suspend any planning procedures when they have been found to interfere with either economic or political expediencies. For example the Minister of Energy recently announced the Government was importing an Ammonia Urea Plant for Kapuni. He further stated that there were to be no environmental assessment procedures carried out.

This is the kind of development envisaged in the Japanese parallel. The wholesale adoption of techniques and technologies which may lead to undesirable effects without investigating these effects or instituting appropriate safeguards, is in itself an incompetent action. If it is allowed to continue it will place New Zealand on the road to socio-environmental disaster.

It is worth noting, in conclusion, that from the outside Japan appears to be environmentally aware, having retained 75% of its forest cover while New Zealand still logs its trees for export to many Japanese industries. Environmental planning is not therefore readily apparent in such things as the numbers of trees left standing but must exist as a state of mind for the people and the decision makers.

Paul Norman