Tuesday, July 4, 2006

More DoC

DoC currently administers somewhere between 30% and 40% of New Zealand's total land area and that is likely to rise to nearer 50%. They have their beady eyes on coastal waters. They are supposed to be have no policy making role at all but spend vast amounts of their time and ever increasing budget doing little else. They are in a unique position where they can claim that any failure on their part to turn any land under their control (be it a Natonal Park or landfill, and they do control some of the latter apparently) into a purely conservation and nothing else area means they are underfunded and need more resources. To date they always get it. They are not allowed to consider anything else (economic developement, heritage, nothing) apart from returning land to its 'native state' when they make decisions about anything. The countering and balancing views on these subjects are supposed to be supplied by other peri-governmental agencies which over the years have mysteriously failed to appear at all or have become so atavistic as to be useless. The Minister's decisions are not subject to any avenue of appeal - we have already seen this in action this year. The set up is beyond belief.Be very afraid of this mob. They suggest policy, represent themselves at any 'public hearings' on same, seem to be able to lose opinions that don't agree with theirs and then administer the result with the sort of 'black and white, no shades of grey, we are only following the rules' methodology so beloved of totalitarian outfits. Nasty bits of work.

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