submissions – Tim Jones

Fast Track, Flash Frontier, The Fight for Freshwater – and something we should all be writing

Posted on December 27, 2024

My recent writing is brought to you by the letter “F”:

Fast-Track Foolishness

*The Barmy Army and Save the Basin agreed: no motorway flyover at the Basin Reserve!*

The current Government is determined to crush opposition from local communities, iwi and environmental groups to their plans to cover the country in mines and motorways. (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration – but there are a lot of environmentally destructive projects they plan to fast-track). That’s why they have just passed the Fast-Track Approvals Act.

But we’ve been somewhere similar before – John Key’s Government tried to fast-track a similar range of projects. I was involved in stopping one of those projects, a motorway flyover the Government intended to build at the Basin Reserve cricket ground in Wellington.

For 350 Aotearoa, I wrote about how we defeated that flyover proposal, and lessons we learned along the way. The key point is that, with determination and cunning, these projects can be defeated!

Flash Frontier Is On The Ball

It’s been a while since I’ve written any flash fiction, so I’m especially pleased to have my short-short story A Long Ball published in the Circle | Porowhita issue (December 2024) of Flash Frontier. Check them out!

The Fight for Freshwater reviewed

Cover of "The Fight for Freshwater: A Memoir", by Mike Joy.

I reviewed Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Freshwater for takahē 112. I knew a bit about Mike’s tireless work to prevent the sharp decline of our rivers, but there were so many other aspects to his life I knew nothing about. The Fight for Freshwater is a great, tightly written read – check out my review if you want to know more.

Something we should all be writing

Submissions on the Government’s odious Treaty Principles Bill close at 11.59pm on Tuesday 7 January. The Government recognises that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a barrier to the resource expropriation they want to carry out – which is why Christopher Luxon has let ACT off the leash on this one.

If you, like me, think that this Bill is a betrayal of the fundamental basis on which our nation was established, please submit against the Bill. There are many excellent submission guides out there – Together for Te Tiriti has a good one. I know it’s the holidays (and I’m enjoying my break!), but this is too important to let slide.

How To Submit On The Government’s Mining Plans

Posted on April 6, 2010

I blogged a couple of weeks ago on my opposition to the New Zealand Government’s plans to allow mining in our National Parks and other areas of high-value conservation land. Submissions on these proposals are open until Wednesday 26 May, and the Green Party has prepared a very helpful submission guide, including a link to the official online submission form.

You can find it here: http://www.greens.org.nz/submissions/submission-guide-mining-schedule-4

Making submissions is necessary, but not sufficient, to stop these mining plans going ahead. It’s also important that you talk to your local National MP and express your opposition to these plans. Here is a list of National MPs, with contact details: http://www.national.org.nz/MPList.aspx

(Don’t worry – most of them don’t bite, and some of the more liberal National MPs in urban areas are already concerned about the environmental -and electoral – impact of these mining plans.)

If you live overseas and want to help this campaign, then go straight to the top: email Prime Minister John Key at j.key@ministers.govt.nz and tell him what you think. If the prospect of visiting New Zealand is less appealing to you thanks to these mining plans, or if they put you off buying New Zealand goods, I suggest you mention that as well.

Finally, the plans to mine Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula have got most of the attention, but even if the Government decided to drop those plans, a lot of other areas of great beauty and environmental importance are at risk: for example, Stewart Island (Rakiura) is in the Government’s sights. Take a look at this article about Solid Energy’s plans to mine Paparoa National Park:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3490688/Coal-from-park-for-local-use-Elder

Digging up highly polluting coal in a National Park to power the expansion of highly polluting dairy farming. That pretty much sums up this Government’s attitude to the environment.

JAAM 26: Editing Progress Report

Posted on May 12, 2008

I’m editing Issue 26 of JAAM Magazine. Submissions closed at the end of March, and I’m starting to get some enquiries about how far through the editing process I’ve got – so here’s a progress report.

I’m currently going through all the submissions, listing those I’d like to include in JAAM 26. When I’ve finished doing this, then it’s a matter of comparing what I’d like to include with the space available, and then matching the two – a process which is going to involve me making some difficult decisions, as there have been many high quality submissions to this issue, and I’m not going to be able to include them all.

I estimate that it will take me another two weeks to finish reading through all the submissions, and a further week to work out what I can fit within the number of pages available. Therefore, at the end of May, I expect that I will be able to start notifying everyone who has submitted whether or not their submission(s) have been included. There have been a lot of submitters, so that process will take a little while – though I’ll make it as quick as I can.

After that, it will be a matter of arranging the contents into a coherent and interesting order, and giving the publisher everything needed to finalise the issue.

I hope this update helps soothe any frazzled nerves. Some wonderful work has been submitted, and I think this is going to be a very good issue of JAAM.