The hot air produced by our minister for resources this morning could’ve solved our energy crisis.
Shane Jones’ interview on RNZ this morning followed a standard format, beginning with some relatively measured comments on regional council reorganisation before lapsing into a parade of florid insults and recriminations. The Otago Regional Council was filled with “green banshees”, he said, before likening it to that other notoriously environmentally conscious political organisation, the Kremlin.
Interviewer Corin Dann took it in his stride, persisting with his questions on whether the government was upending local democracy until Jones finally conjured up a sentence weird enough to stop things in their tracks. “In Otago, that council, which does have a vast hinterland, is dominated and has been overtaken by these demonic eggbeaters out of Dunedin,” he said.
“Wh… wh,” replied a momentarily stunned Dann, perhaps searching for the phrase “what the fuck?”. He eventually settled on another one more appropriate for RNZ’s 50+ target demographic. “Why do you need to use that sort of rhetoric?”
A fair question. “Because I’m a politician,” replied Jones. Though the real answer could be “because I’m Shane Jones”. No other politician would call someone a demonic eggbeater, mainly because it doesn’t make sense. Jones’ office didn’t respond to The Spinoff’s request for an explanation of the phrase. Dann and his Morning Report co-presenter Ingrid Hipkiss were similarly befuddled in a brief on-air chat after the interview.
The most head-scratching thing about Jones using the descriptor might be that he’s done it before. In an interview with The Country earlier this week, he used the phrase to describe Green leader Chlöe Swarbrick. “Every time Chlöe stands up in parliament she’s like some sort of demonic eggbeater,” he said. “All full of rhetoric, all full of slogans, designed to scare away investment, destroy the god-fearing ability of Kiwis and Aussies to reinvigorate our mining.”
Swarbrick might see it as slightly rich for Jones to accuse her of being “full of slogans”. For someone so opposed to environmental initiatives, the minister for resources is a prolific and committed recycler of insults, phrases, and general concepts. This morning wasn’t the first time Jones compared the Otago Regional Council to the Kremlin. Before the demonic eggbeater came along to make Satan’s omelettes, he had another egg-based descriptor for environmentalists, calling them “woke, riddled munchkins who want to fry eggs on solar panels”.
Just like plastic processed in a recycling plant, Jones’ insults slowly degrade and leech from their original form as they navigate his neural pathways. During one particularly confronting RNZ interview about his decision to take cameras off fishing boats, he twice accused Greenpeace and environmental groups of treating judicial compliance as an “aphrodisiac”. Things only got more viscerally uncomfortable from there, with Jones – who rented pornography on his ministerial credit card in 2010 – accusing his opponents of engaging in an “orgy of litigation”.
When it’s not orgies, it’s mythical beasts. This morning the regional councillors of Otago were banshees. But hapū members who oppose seabed mining are “pixie-like”, people who stand in the way of “growth and development” are “unicorn-kissing” and Te Pāti Māori are like the death eaters from Harry Potter. All of the above have presumably engaged in the “emerald mannequin” thinking which Jones says polluted the last three years.
Environmentalists are the subject of much of the vitriol. But at least Jones doesn’t seem to want to kill them. Freddie the frog isn’t so lucky. New Zealand First’s deputy has engaged in a two-year campaign to murder the blind amphibian who he believes is obstructing us from accessing nature’s “bounty”. “If there is a mineral, if there is a mining opportunity and it’s impeded by a blind frog, goodbye, Freddie,” he told parliament in 2023. The frog is still on his hit list. “We won’t allow human beings to play second fiddle to Freddie the frog,” he insisted earlier this year.
If there’s a unifying theme in the insults, it’s that they paint Jones’ ideological enemies as unreasonable and unrealistic, engaging in weirdo behaviour unworthy of sensible discussion or even adherence to the normal rules of the English language. But just yesterday RNZ’s Kirsty Johnston revealed Jones allowed fossil fuel companies insider access to confidential draft legislation that went on to overturn this country’s offshore drilling ban. He’s been accused of being “captured” by fishing interests, which have donated more than $100,000 to him and New Zealand First.
Raising an objection to these ties, or anything else Jones stands for, doesn’t mean you need an exorcist for your kitchen implements. There’s little of real substance in Jones’ orgy of banshees and egg-beaters. It’s a distraction from legitimate criticism. A torrent of hot air. Maybe if we could harness it we wouldn’t need so many fossil fuels in the first place.
