In your role as Parliamentary Commissioner of the Environment, you carry immense responsibility. You will be remembered, long after tenure, as the saviour of New Zealand birds (if you are correct in your 1080 stance) or as the person responsible for the greatest ecological holocaust of the century. Open letter to Jan Wright, from Janice Eaton

Ban 1080 on the ballot paper

By Roger Childs

The Electoral Commission has approved the registration of the Ban 1080 political party. Party leader Bill Wallace is delighted and the party name will now feature on every voting form in the forthcoming election. There had been a delay in getting the green light because there were six objections to the registration, five of which raised the issue of intellectual property rights and objected to the use of 1080 as a registered trade name.

What’s in a name?

The objections were suspicious, as objecting to having 1080 in a party name would be as ridiculous as the National Party opposing barefoot skiers calling themselves the National Barefoot Skiing Association.

On the basis of their current opposition to banning 1080, the suspects could be

• Department of Conservation
• Animal Health Board
• Environmental Protection Authority
• Tb Free
• Forest and Bird
• Federated Farmers
• The National Party
• Dominion Post
• The Commissioner of the Environment.

DOC and Tb Free deny being involved.

Dropping 1080 is alive and well

For supporters of a ban on 1080 drops the issue is of major current concern as DOC steps up its campaign, which it says is aimed at saving the birds. There are big worries in the northwest of the South Island.

This spring, the Department of Conservation (DOC) intends to conduct the largest aerial 1080 poison drop ever undertaken in New Zealand. Local residents bordering Kahurangi National Park are up in arms at the revelation that the Department is trying to keep the public from having any say in the matter, while operations are being planned on the basis of incomplete science. BaN1080 Press release

The capital’s influential daily the Dominion Post recently put out an editorial promoting even greater use of the poison. It followed Conservation Minister, Nick Smith’s mid July pronouncement that I am totally satisfied that 1080 is the most effective tool that we have to be able to ensure survival of many of New Zealand’s iconic native species.

Earlier in the year he had talked of the need to deal with a plague of mice and rats of biblical proportions which would result from beech seed masting in the spring.

Not only was there no supporting evidence for this bold claim, but the minister did not have an accurate analogy from the “good book”. The Bible makes no reference to plagues of rats, perhaps he meant locusts and there you are talking about billions.

Contesting the election

The news of the green light for the party was greeted with relief and delight by Ban 1080 leader Bill Wallace.
It’s official!  The Electoral Commission has reached a decision and the Ban1080 Party’s logo and name are now officially registered and can contest the party vote in the upcoming elections.  

Every voter in September will now see the party name and logo featuring on their ballot paper.