In the above interview, Julie Anne Genter (to use a vulgar phrase) got her arse handed to her by the very polite Peter Williams. She was asked about points made in Troy Bowker’s NZ Herald article and her response was that it was fake news and that it is just the fossil fuel industry spreading misinformation. No doubt Bowker will respond to her accusations in a second article which I look forward to reading.
In the interview Genter spoke almost continuously and seemed to think that if she talked fast enough people wouldn’t notice that she didn’t answer the question or that what she was saying wasn’t true.
She deflected, distracted and talked and talked until finally, she had had enough of the hard questions and used the excuse that she had to go to another meeting and very abruptly hung up.
She didn’t answer any of the questions put to her properly. She tried the fake news claim and said that Troy was part of the fossil fuel industry. She tried to claim when challenged about cobalt being mined by child labour for batteries that cobalt was not part of all batteries, that its in other things and, that of course, New Zealand follows UN guidelines on child labour. It was hard to believe that claim since in the same breath she was also claiming without evidence that our railways are profitable! It is claims like that one that reminds us that she is an American import since any born and bred Kiwi would know that our railways have never ever been profitable.
Another stand out from the interview was her statement that the ministry for the environment is looking at recycling the waste. In other words, they don’t have a solution. She also claimed that the Climate emergency is real and we have to act now because in 10 – 12 years it will be too late. Someone needs to remind her that most of the world believed that the world was flat… until they didn’t.