New Zealand Elects Conservationist Government
11/29/99
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Title: NEW ZEALAND Elects Conservationist Government
Source: Environment News Service, http://www.ens.lycos.com/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 29, 1999
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, November 29, 1999 (ENS) - New Zealand voters
chose a Labour and Alliance party coalition in Saturday's election,
turning out the National government of former Prime Minister Jenny
Shipley. Shipley retained her seat in parliament.
The new Prime Minister will be Helen Clark, leader of the Labour
Party. Labour won 52 of the parliament's 120 seats and the left-wing
Alliance 11. The Greens were expected to be part of the new coalition
government but, with 4.9 percent of the votes, the Greens failed to
win any seats.
Alliance Leader Jim Anderton, viewed as a stumbling block by some in
the business community because of his support for trade tariffs,
higher taxes, and greater market regulation, will become deputy prime
minister.
After talks with Anderton Sunday in Auckland, Clark said she would
form a government by December 10. Parliament would then convene about
December 20, in time to introduce legislation before Christmas.
Conservationists are delighted with the election outcome as they
claim it gives the Labour/Alliance coalition a mandate to end the
logging of West Coast rainforests by government-owned company
Timberlands West Coast.
The Forest and Bird Protection Society's conservation director, Kevin
Smith, said those parties who backed an end to the logging all fared
well in the election, both nationally and on the West Coast.
"The decision of National, ACT, and New Zealand First to campaign
hard on the logging issue appears to have backfired badly for them."
The Shipley government, which has been in office for a decade, has
riled environmentalists with its support for an expansion of looging
and weak position on a number of other key environmental policies.
"Labour have easily held the West Coast/Tasman seat and the combined
party vote on the West Coast for the three parties promising to
protect the rainforests has exceeded the combined party vote of the
three parties backing the logging," said Smith.
Smith, a former West Coast resident, said that the Coast economy was
no longer reliant on native forest logging and this was confirmed by
the election result.
"Tourism, outdoor recreation, and conservation management can
generate better employment opportunities from the rainforests than
controversial and environmentally-damaging logging schemes."
The new coalition government is expected to move quickly to end the
beech and rimu logging, and has proposed to vest control of the
Timberlands plantation forests in the local authorities.
In its election platform, the Labour Party pledged to "establish a
panel of experts to apply appropriate conservation criteria, for
example, the criteria used by the Nature Heritage Fund, to all Crown-
owned forestry land on the West Coast, with a view to transferring
any land meeting those criteria to the Department of Conservation
estate. The management of the remaining land, along with the cutting
rights for any timber on those lands, would be transferred to a local
economic development trust with the West Coast community being the
beneficial owners.
As a consequence of this policy, the current beech logging -- called
"trials" by Timberlands -- will be stopped. All logging of crown-
owned indigenous forests will be halted as soon as supply contracts
in existence at the time this policy is announced are completed.
Labour will not honor, or pay any compensation in respect of, any
contracts entered into for the supply of indigenous timber from the
crown estate, from the time of announcement of this policy, and will
if necessary legislate to this effect, the party platform says.
Labour has said that Timberlands' hastily-signed rimu contracts may
be a stumbling block but that they were committed to bringing the
rimu logging to an end as soon as possible. Rimu is a valuable
hardwood that has been cut for rough lumber during the past few
decades.
Smith said he expected the new government to hold Timberlands'
management and its Board of Directors to account for their
extraordinary attacks on Labour and the Alliance during the election
campaign and for the company's massive expenditure on a public
relations campaign to discredit environmentalists.