I spent last Thursday and Friday at the Local Government NZ Rural & Provincial Sector meetings in Wellington. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted the kind offer of a lift from Ōpōtiki Mayor David Moore and we drove to Wellington to listen to a parade of luminaries speak about the woes we find ourselves in

Because it was a two-day meeting with lots of talks and discussion, I will have to limit myself to sharing just a few of the topics that were addressed.

It was a surreal meeting for me in the sense that it coincided with the Americans and British giving the Ukrainians permission to launch ATACMS (Lockheed Martin's Army Tactical Missile System) and British and French Storm Shadow missiles well into Russian territory. This is something that Putin has warned repeatedly would be considered tantamount to a declaration of war by NATO and America and will solicit a very harsh counter response. Russia retaliated within 48 hours with the use of its new RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to strike the Pivdenmash weapons production facility in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine.

The RS-26 is equipped with multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) and is not the most powerful missile in the Russian arsenal.

First place goes to the RS-28 Sarmat (Satan II), the world’s most powerful and longest-range ICBM, capable of striking targets anywhere on Earth in less than 30 minutes. This missile is capable of delivering 10 to 16 MIRVs containing nuclear warheads. The yield of a single missile is 50 times the Hiroshima bomb. We should not forget that the Russians were the first into space with the Sputnik mission in 1957 that shocked the United States and started the space race. The West today has nothing comparable.

In my opinion, we are one step away from the use of nuclear weapons. I don’t want to be alarmist but if that were to happen then we are talking Armageddon. Anyone interested in expanding their horizons on what a nuclear exchange would look like is encouraged to read Annie Jacobsen’s recently released book, Nuclear War – A Scenario. I would like to think that humans are not so stupid as to go there.

Strangely, President Elect Donald Trump has so far remained silent. I don’t know what is going on in America, but sane heads need to prevail. Unfortunately, things look more like a circus. We don’t even know who is really in charge.

Yet none of this existential risk attracted discussion at this meeting. Subjects such as how we pay for water, energy and infrastructure are important, but they pale in comparison to the termination of human life on Earth, which is what a nuclear war would bring.

On the first day, we were entreated by the two Browns, Simeon and Wayne. Minister Brown read his speech in which a number of interesting points were made, and he answered questions. The speech can be viewed online. Not unexpectedly, there was the call to get back to basics, something I have been saying for quite some time now.

“The Government’s expectation is that, in many - if not most - cases, councils will work together to establish joint water organisations. This principle underpins Local Water Done Well, reflecting the need for collaboration to deliver sustainable and efficient water services.” Then there was mention of water levies and a new approach to water regulation, which was of most interest to me.

Here, too, it seems the Government has been reading my notes. You will have seen me write in this paper that we need to get real on what can be done with the money we have. Minister Brown put it this way, “At the same time, we are working to reduce the overall compliance burden on water service providers to keep costs manageable.”

He also referenced the role Bay of Plenty Regional Council will play in the regulatory system in his statement that “regional councils will be required to implement a single standard approach in resource consents, reducing bespoke conditions and creating a streamlined, cost-effective system”. Here, I am not so sure because all water sources and situations are quite different.

Mayor Wayne Brown riffed and answered questions about local government, regionalisation and wastage and efficiency. Something I have also been hammering back here for quite some time. In typical fashion, he used the word “idiotic” quite a lot.

In reference to the other Brown’s speech, Wayne stated: “You will take from what the minister is saying that they (Government) want to bring councils together. "You guys ought to start thinking about getting yourselves grouped else they’ll group you. You should make the decisions yourselves, that’s my view. That way you have more control.

“You do get treated more seriously by Government if you form regions. Local government is declining in its influence rather than as it should be, the other way around. In many countries in Europe and in China local government has more say than central planners. Central should provide guidelines.”

On the second day, we had a session on our energy woes, which is what I was particularly interested in.

The meeting coincided with the sad news of likely job losses at the Kinleith Mill in Tokoroa owned by the Japanese company Oji Fibre Solutions. The paper production part of the operation has apparently become uncompetitive largely due to decreased demand and high power prices. Redundancies at forestry-related industries is quite disturbing these days. As with everything in life, it is about adapt (evolve) or perish and it seems to me that there hasn’t been enough innovation in the forestry and pulp and paper industry. The impact of our total energy blindness is being felt by our industry sectors and soon it would seem in the pockets of domestic consumers and that wasn’t a welcome message.

Minister Shane Jones was the second of the heavy hitters to speak and, of course, he spoke about the $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF). The RIF is the successor of the Provincial Growth Fund that he distributed during his last term in office and which part-funded the boat harbour we were supposed to have started more than two years ago on potentially contaminated land.

Minister Jones kicked off with his usual swagger and what he himself referred to as “megaphone rhetoric”. He poured cold water on what he referred to as “climate change hysteria” and signalled a total disinterest in discussing emissions reductions preferring a focus on resilience building. If every nation took that view, dramatic and dangerous climate change would be an inevitability.

Comments like this by the resources minister displayed a total contempt for, and ignorance of, the seriousness of climate change, and the importance of limiting global temperature from breaching tipping points. If this happens, then no amount of resilience-building will work, and we are doomed.

I will continue to insist that if a small affluent country that has one of the highest per capita emissions on the planet cannot show leadership and demonstrate its own emissions house is in order, then why should anyone else. The minister clearly has no appreciation of what might happen if tipping points are breached?

Today, the consensus on climate change by climate scientists is greater than 99 percent. But I guess the minister thinks he knows better, and it is not a conversation he wants to have. He wants to “drill baby dril”’ or “dig baby dig” but doesn’t seem to know what he is drilling. He thinks antimony is a rare earth element.

I am certainly not mining-averse as essentially everything we produce, including agriculture, is in some way mined from Mother Earth but we have to know what we are talking about. When it comes to mining, it seems to me that the minister does not. He seems totally oblivious to the mining colossus 2,000 km to our west and the competition that would represent, and the time it takes to start pulling minerals out of the ground and purifying them. It’s not just about digging.

John Duffy, chief executive of Consumer NZ, and John Kidd, from Enerlytica led a panel discussion on the challenges facing our communities due to the energy crisis, and the role of councils in helping to mitigate this issue.

Since I got onto council in 2019, I have been trying to promote distributed energy systems and in particular in our sunny district that means an increase in the use of solar PV. From some of the comments made at the conference, it would seem the penny has finally started dropping at councils across the country.

Having talked about energy resilience and security since coming onto council in 2019, I felt vindicated although regretting that we have lost so much time in our district. I am happy to report that we have recently approved the expenditure of a very modest amount of money to fund a feasibility study for a potential solar farm at our airport. All the talk about economic development rings very hollow when we have an energy crisis.

I got my hackles up when Duffy and Kidd talked about the failures of the market and then, in the same breath, prescribed more market medicine, which according to them would remedy the situation.

This, I am afraid, had me seeing red and I had to ask how it was that after New Zealanders and their leaders started placing their unwavering faith in the market in the 1980s, we have had nothing but market failures in energy, housing, health and other areas. I asked the speakers why if the market was so great we were having all these market failures and crises. No answer was forthcoming.

As a result of some of my comments, Minister Mark Patterson’s advisors came to chat about nuclear energy. I told him that most of my working life was spent researching in the nuclear space. He seemed to be very interested in nuclear energy, and we agreed to carry the conversation on some other day.

I will provide more commentary on the conference in my report to the next council meeting.