The dawn of a new age of prosperity or an ecological disaster? The country appeared split down the middle as Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee unveiled the Govt’s policy on mining, through his so-called “stocktake.” Conservation lobby groups leapt to man the barricades against the goths and vandals. News media were flooded with wrathfully protesting messages. The Govt appeared to have bought a fight it cannot win. Some Ministers braced themselves for a fall in the Govt’s poll ratings. But others, those imbued with the belief NZ’s economic salvation lies in broadening the country’s economic base, were pleased with the uproar.

They think the noise might penetrate as far as the boardrooms of the global petroleum and mining giants, waking them up to the fact NZ Inc is open for business. Estimates of the value of NZ’s mineral reserves ($194bn was being touted) might seem wildly optimistic, given the constraints on mining which will remain, but they underline the need to get a realistic “fix” on the resource. Where the previous Govt appeared to put up the shutters, the Key coalition in seeking economic transformation is actively pushing to unlock the potential of petroleum, coal and other mineral resources, for which it needs foreign capital, technical know-how, and skills on a scale previously undreamt of to do the job.

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In the NZ Herald Fran O’Sullivan drew a picture of NZ’s future as “oil sheiks of the Pacific,” pointing out if MED projections are correct, the Govt could make $10bn a year alone from petroleum to tuck into a fund which could produce investment income for this country. Coal could also be part of the equation, with state-owned Solid Energy laying plans to exploit the $1trn worth of lignite in Southland into briquettes, urea and liquid fuels.

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