The Country 05/02/26: Shane Jones talks to Jamie Mackay

We find the Prince of the Provinces, Matua Shane, dodging foreign objects at Waitangi. We get his response to Sir Ian Taylor’s opposition to his proposed fast-tracked gold mine at Bendigo, Central Otago.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's the Prince of the Province's Martua, Shane Jones. We
find him today at WAYITANGI hopefully dodging the mud and
the dildos. Shane, You're going to have to dodge a
few bullets over your proposed mind gold mine in central Otago.
We had Saren Taylor on the show yesterday. Did you
get an opportunity to hear what he said?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ah? Yes, and I've accepted his invitation to come to
the South Island and have a debate. I don't care
if it's in Terrass or wherever it is. But look
my message to Sir Ian and that ilk, I've got
no time for this sort of chicken hearted approach. In
relation to being scared of using our resources. I know

(00:40):
that this is a particularly heated issue, but it's a
smaller part of a bigger question. How are we going
to create jobs, boost revenue, turn the fortunes of our
economy around if we don't take a risk and use
areas where we know there's proven natural resources. And by
the way, for those who pretend that growing grapes, etc.

(01:03):
In this supposedly spectacular landscape is something akin to the
purity of the Garden of Eden. Whatever we do on
the landscape, it changes the landscape. And this is only
a tiny little dot a kin, as I've said in
the past, to a beauty spot on the face of
a on the face of an alabaster looking beautiful woman.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I thought you were going to say, a beauty spot
on your face.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Shane, Sadly, there is the small matter of a double chin.
It may be hidden.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Hey what about Serene's arsenic filled lake that got me worried?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, there you go, more of this misinformation. Arsenic oozes
out already from the schist rock that exists around that
part of Otago. And look, we're not talking about mining
as in the nineteen thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. It's very sophisticated.
Now you've got a huge mind just down the road
called McCrae's. And have you heard or seen of any

(01:59):
catastrophic dev developments. Know, they've continued to develop, They've continued
to find the right guard rails. My message to my
foe in Terras is that you are not going to
guilt trip this government in denying Kiwi's jobs and new
opportunities and what is largely an empty landscape in Otago

(02:19):
for a gold mine located in an area where the
Chinese developed the gold mining activities in the past. Yes,
it will have some effect on the landscape, but put
it in proportion. Now. Look, I rather think that a
lot of these activists around the Terras area, what they're
actually doing is they're pulling up the ladder and they're
denying other Kiwis from other parts of New Zealand the

(02:41):
chance to move down there and enjoy twenty thirty forty
fifty years of mining activity.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
The mkra's mind, to be fair is kind of in
the middle of nowhere, I guess. And I'm just playing
Devil's advocate here, Serene, Sir Graham, who's the other one,
Sir sam Nimbi is a massah. Perhaps there's no argument
about it. The central Otago landscape is perhaps more beautiful.
Can I say that it's a bit like your beauty spot?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, well, of course it's got an amazing character to it.
But what does that mean? You never have any wind farms?
Does that mean you never have any solar farms? Does
that mean that putting farming down there, which is the
area's coming to the farming that the vineyards at a
tolerable level of change to the landscape. It's a debate

(03:33):
that shouldn't be driven by people who want to pull
the ladder up. And secondly, it's got to be settled,
not on this catastrophization that somehow we're going to have
a Jurassic set of outcomes. Let the process play out
and let the decision makers make their decisions on the
quality of the rational information.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
We haven't got a data a venue yet for the debate.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
No, no, no, I'm told that I know versus dealing
with Syrian and no. Look, I mean he's a very
famous Kiwi and I tend to do my politics be
soft on my personality and hard on the issue. I'm
looking forward to it, whether or not I find much
of an echo chamber down there. But it's important that
South Island people concerned about the trade off between a

(04:19):
mining and landscape, that politician like myself front up.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Have you been doing a bit of stirring of the
affluent over Penny hen.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Aray, Well, his grandfather is I may have told you
on this program. I'm very famous New Zealander who was
the last commander of the Great Marie Battalion of the
Second World war. I suspect that what's happened is that
Penny doesn't actually see a future in the way that

(04:49):
Willy sees it. Now, I know both of these guys well,
but I also know Willy is so indebted figuratively speaking
in a friendship for many years to JG. Miss Tummy,
that he can't bring himself to break labor away from
the Maldi Party, Whereas Penny knows absolutely that the Maldi
Party really have been something to an ideological flesh in

(05:11):
the pan. They've turned up with all this sort of
cultural peak cockery, and they're going to find this year
that there's no comparison and it's not synonymous. You know,
all this ideological cultural peak cockery. It's not synonymous with
political durability or effectiveness.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Well, Seane Jones, Prince of the province is Martoa. Shane,
good luck at Waitangui this weekend. I say, you might
have to dodge a few flying objects, but I'm sure
you're big enough and ugly enough to handle it.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
The last thing I want is that that rather compromising
object that Stephen Joyce had to put up with coming
anywhere near my anatomy. See you later.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
See you're Shane