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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 13. June 15 1981

No Redeeming Feature — Smelter

page 5

No Redeeming Feature

Smelter

Aramoana is an area of salt marsh, beaches, farmland and a village on the Western shore of the entrance to Otago Harbour. It is popular as a fishing spot and a picnic and swimming beach. In the area is the world's only mainland Royal Albatross colony. As well as this, the area contains more than thirty different bird species, including the Pied Stilt, Banded Dotterel and the South Island Pied Oyster Catcher. Yet if the smelter is built, the complete township of Aramoana, the farmland, the upper salt marsh and the west harbour's last remaining bays will be destroyed. The smelter would emit toxic fluorides and create asthma-producing alumina dust. Smelters also create cyanide saturated waste which must be sprayed with chlorine before it leaches out to sea (from site stores).

No Real Electricity Surplus

The Government originally said the smelter needed to use up "surplus" electricity. However this surplus of 1500 GWh has already been sold to Comalco. The 3000 GWh of electricity the smelter will use is more than the combined annual needs of Wellington and Christchurch! To provide that power, Minister of Energy's 1980 Energy Plan calls for large scale dam construction programme.

The Ministry of Energy estimate cost of Glutha power at 3.63 cents per unit. The smelter is offered power at 1.74 cents per unit (we pay the difference). The price of electricity to the smelter is proposed to be linked directly to world price of aluminium. Exporting in world commodity markets like aluminium is a high risk venture. Yet Fletchers expect the government and the taxpayer to take such risks. Fletchers is protected from market collapse and the New Zealand people carry the can.

The Bits we Get

The government claims that the smelter will earn $120 million in net foreign exchange. In the meantime, an independent analysis by Mr Murray Ellis, a Ministry of Works and Development scientist, who used the aluminium price estimate of the smelter prospects, has shown the smelter to be uneconomic (as have other eminent scientists and economists). Mr Ellis has since been ordered by his Minister to keep silent on the issue.

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO SAVE THE KOKAKO! You WOULDN'T PAY) THAT IF THEY WERE OFFERED ...UNLESS THEY WERE A VERY SPECAIL KIND OF BIRD....

'Thousands of Jobs for All'

We get 950 jobs, which sounds great until you find out the capital costs involved. Generally it costs between $50,000 and $100,000 to create a new job in New Zealand. In contrast the smelter jobs will each cost between $685,000 and $1.5 million. If that amount was put into other industries, 9,000 jobs could be created. Smelter jobs are for skilled workers with stable work records (no shortage of these now). These capital intensive projects offer little to young unskilled and semi-skilled school leavers who are coming out of our schools at the rate of 20,000 per year.

Late 1980, the Commission for the Future released results of a major study of what people want for the future. Two thousand people were asked to identify which one of four scenarios they preferred. Only 7% chose the government's "Think Big" scenario.

Democracy Threatened

The problem with schemes like the smelter is that they close off other options-permanently. They do nothing to encourage the self reliance and resourcefulness which have been part of our national character. They take us away from national independence, and towards dominance by giant foreign firms. Worst of all, the way in which these decisions are being made excludes the New Zealand public. Who will have to live with the consequences!

Neil Anderson

Thanks to the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand (ECO).