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Gerry Brownlee (ONE News) -
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Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has been forced to admit that the
government has overstated the potential value of minerals on Great
Barrier Island.
ONE News discovered the true value is less than third of the
billions Brownlee has been claiming, could be mined from the
Hauraki Gulf island.
The government has claimed that there is up to $4.3 billion worth of gold, silver and other minerals, waiting to be mined.
But a report from Richard Barker, the geologist Brownlee's officials used to assess Great Barrier minerals resources, put the island's mineral value at $1.2 billion.
That number is nowhere near what Brownlee has been claiming it is worth.
"Look I think &the numbers are always going to be all over the show until you get something out of the ground, you simply don't know what the story is," Brownlee says.
"I'd go with Richard Barker; he's the expert on these things," says Brownlee.
On Wednesday, Labour leader Phil Goff chartered a flight to the island, inviting the media along.
Goff promised to make sure there is no mining on sensitive conservation land, if he ever gets a chance to form a government.
"Whatever John Key takes out of that estate that is protected, Labour will put back on becoming government," says Goff.
Whether there is one or four billion dollars locked up under Te Ahumata, some think the idea of mining Great Barrier could be a red herring.
"I've got the funny idea that this was thrown in there so that they could renege on this one, chuck this one out and say yes we've been swayed to public opinion and then they'll go hammer and tongs in the Coromandel or somewhere else," says Great Barrier resident Ted Scott says.
And with the news the government has been grossly overstating the potential value of minerals on Great Barrier, plenty will be asking if its other claims stack up.
