Regional Development Minister Shane Jones during Question Time in Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Sir Ian Taylor is a leading New Zealand businessman and entrepreneur and the founder and managing director of Animation Research, renowned for its work revolutionising the way people watch sport.
OPINION
Kia ora matua Shane,
It was an interesting week in the debating chamber earlier this month, and once again, your oratory skills were on full display.
I’ve noted you often reference the Bible to explain some of your positions. While I admit my knowledge of that text is somewhat limited, I recall this:
Genesis 11: 1-9: The story of the Tower of Babel, the structure the people had started building as their “stairway to heaven”: “But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’”
Watching politicians debate over the past few weeks, I realise it doesn’t matter if people are speaking the same language or not. If they aren’t listening to each other, they might as well be speaking different languages, because confusion is certainly the result of those of us looking to our politicians for leadership and vision.
In your role as Minister of Resources, I understand the frustration you feel when proposed solutions bear no consideration of the potential cost to our economy or the ongoing damage to the global environment as a result of moving food production to countries with higher-emitting farming practices than we have in Aotearoa. Some suggest just taxing the rich, but we need to find balanced solutions.
We do need to acknowledge figures like Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, and our own Jeanette Fitzsimons, Rod Donald and Mike Ward, who have long fought the environmental battle.
But we get that message. We understand it. Now is the time to start listening to each other to find solutions that work. Solutions that make economic sense.
That brings me back to the Book of Genesis: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
So, matua, if that is the message from on high, let’s start speaking the same language and take on the seemingly impossible.
In that context, I have a proposal for you.
What if you could arrange a half-day in the debating chamber when I could bring a group we’re calling the “Coalition of the Willing” to share constructive, economic solutions around the opportunities climate change and sustainability offer to Aotearoa New Zealand?
Opportunities that could significantly lift our GDP, reduce billion-dollar infrastructure costs, create high-value jobs and maximise returns from our forestry and geothermal assets.
Opportunities to showcase world-leading technologies being developed by companies like Fisher & Paykel that significantly reduce carbon emissions from the products they place in our houses, based on the work they are doing, collaboratively, with our research institutions under the umbrella of a small, low-profile group of Kiwi scientists, businesspeople and innovators called the New Zealand Product Accelerator.
If you can get us to the debating chamber, this is a small sample of what the Coalition of the Willing will share with you, and any other politicians who might turn up.
1. ReWiring Aotearoa (Mike Casey and team)
2. Supercritical geothermal (GNS Science)
3. Bioforestry
In closing, I’d like to share an observation made by a 12-year-old girl called Manawanui for a video called “Papatūanuku Breathes”. It is a beautiful message delivered eloquently by one of the tamariki who will be affected most by the decisions we make today.
“Papatūanuku’s message is simple: we are all connected. The people, the plants, the animals. Papatuānuku is our waka and we have to find ways to look after her. Papatūanuku is guiding us. Are we ready to listen?”
What Manawanui describes here is “biodiversity”, the importance of which is becoming more apparent every day.
Humans are late arrivals in this unique, biodiverse community, yet we are having the greatest impact. This impact will ultimately affect our mokopuna, our grandchildren, more than it will affect Papatūanuku, Mother Earth.
Papatūanuku represents this unique community of life which, as far as we can determine, does not exist anywhere else in the universe.
She is guiding us.
Are we ready to listen?
COP29 is an opportunity to help steer us toward a more sustainable, low-emissions future.