Patrick Phelps: A Green Party politician and a mining industry stooge walk out of a bar

Green MPs (from left) Scott Willis, Chlöe Swarbrick, Lan Pham and Steve Abel on the West Coast. Swarbrick said communities were 'being scapegoated to progress the Government’s anti-evidence agenda' but a local miner says urban 'fly-in-fly-out' politicians should reconsider their priorities.

KEY FACTS:

• Green MPs visited the West Coast to engage with coal miners and local communities.
• 70% of West Coast sites haven’t been assessed for contamination levels, according to the regional council.
• No new coal mines should be approved from 2021, the International Energy Agency advised.

Patrick Phelps, manager at mining industry group Minerals West Coast, and independent West Coast-Tasman candidate in the 2023 general election, responds to Chlöe Swarbrick’s September 25 opinion piece ‘What Green Party and coal miners have in common’.

Chlöe Swarbrick and I shook hands out the front of Monteith’s Greymouth.

It was just after 9pm. Sunday. The bar had closed. The rain had stopped. Herbert Street’s tar seal glistened like washed coal.

A “first time on the Coast?” from me, was answered with “yeah, it’s been really good” and a smile from Chlöe. It was a short chat in a car park between a Green Party co-leader and a mining industry stooge. It followed an hour or so I’d spent sitting down sipping beer and talking with Green Party MP, Steve Abel.

Days later I read with interest an account of Chlöe’s four days on the Coast. She claimed coal miners and West Coasters have much in common with the Green Party. I’m not sure I agree.

The Green Party’s political support and success is greatest in the areas where tar seal and concrete flourish. Its voting base skews urban and affluent.

The party’s top 10 general roll electorate seats measured in the percentage of the party vote won in the 2023 general election were as follows: Wellington Central (37.79); Rongotai (32.06); Dunedin (26.93); Mt Albert (25.28); Auckland Central (24.03); Ōhāriu (20.1); Banks Peninsula (19.7); Christchurch Central (19.52); New Lynn (16.74); Hutt South (15.51).

In places where minerals or petroleum make up a significant share of GDP (and, incidentally there is much more by way of wide open farmland and areas of wilderness), voters express their values in the ballot box rather differently.

In the Coromandel, the Green Party received the lowest share of the party vote of any party elected to parliament in 2023, 7.83%. By comparison, ACT managed 11.92%. In New Plymouth, 8.51% of voters chose the Green Party. Waitaki, home to New Zealand’s largest gold mine, 9.04%. In the West Coast-Tasman electorate the Green Party secured 10.77%.

If one looks at the West Coast’s coal country (the ballot boxes of Westport and Reefton in the Buller District where mining accounts for 20% of GDP and 10% of people work in mining) the Green Party scratches about 5.5% of the party vote.

About 50% of the West Coast’s GDP comes from primary production and manufacturing. For New Zealand generally, it’s about 23%.

The West Coast remains an energy and emissions-intensive economy. Ruminant animals turn pasture into milk and meat, emitting methane in the process. Factories then transform these raw materials into export goods. This requires coal.

Coal used in steel making is also exported to international customers. As is gold. The other major source of income outside growing, digging, and manufacturing relies on fossil-fuelled travel.

The conundrum for those of us choosing to live on the West Coast (which has the highest percentage of protected land in New Zealand) is that land-based and energy and emissions intensive industries are the chief source of our prosperity. The farms and the forests. The mines and the mills.

When the jobs disappear, the communities follow. The social fabric unthreads. People leave. Over the hill. Up north. Across the ditch. Many people I went through school with in Hokitika now live in Australia.

It’s a hard ask for people living here, bearing the consequences of decisions to restrict or eliminate the very industries on which we rely to take seriously people who claim to care about the places we call home, all the while choosing Remuera over Reefton or Wadestown over Westport.

For the people of this country to play any meaningful role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we will need to find ways of dealing with the methane produced in paddocks and the carbon dioxide produced in the factories that provide the income and goods and services we all need.

Persuading people that doing this will not make them worse off is the only way to secure the enduring public support needed to make it possible.

A fly-in-fly-out approach from urban politicians into rural electorates won’t cut it.

Nor will claims from such politicians that they have a lot in common with the people whose livelihoods and life savings can be written off depending on the policy approach taken. I commend Chloe Swarbrick, Steve Abel, Lan Pham, and Scott Willis for making the trip, and hope they return.

I would also urge them to take seriously the concerns of the people who choose to live here. Finally I ask that they recognise that they and their supporters choose to live elsewhere and do not have as much at stake.

There are problems to solve, none of which have obvious or simple solutions. In part, they will be discovered through more conservation, good faith, and handshakes. I remain hopeful.