PM speech blunders?
Prime Minister Hon Henry Puna may have unintentionally made several questionable statements in the speech given in Auckland at the Pacific Islands Investment Summit panel discussion on Energy at 1.40pm, on Tuesday 6 September 2011.
While the local media were sent a copy of the speech notes it is not known if the PM actually mentioned the questionable items or whether he detected them and deleted them from his speech in time.
The statements are set out below.
“New Zealand is especially important for Cook Islands people as our history tells us that the indigenous people of this country came from my country. “
Comment: Did the New Zealand Maori not set out originally from Hawaiki and pass through Rarotonga, staying for a period on their migration?
“…we now realize that our current and past actions in using fossil fuel and emitting carbon into the atmosphere so we can have electricity for our homes, roads, computers and other modern amenities is wrong.
This has compromised the natural protective mechanisms in the ozone layers and has resulted (in my part of the Pacific) 18 cyclones in the last decade and 3 tropical depression. “
Comment: Wasn’t the ozone layer affected by chloroflurocarbons (CFC’s) and carbon tetrachloride not fossil fuels? Are not cyclones caused by the El Nino effect?
“The price of fuel has increased consistently over the last decade at the whim of the Arabs to the point where it has doubled and tripled at our end.”
Comment: Is not the price of oil determined by OPEC? Such a wide sweeping statement would be highly offensive to Arabs. The Cook Islands could easily have utilized refined coconut oil to reduce the financial burden as suggested back in the late 1980s by Tom Wichman but the political will was lacking.
The full text of the PM’s speech is set out below. - Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 554 09 March
- Norm exposes Trio of Doom
- Briefs from PM’s media conference Tuesday
- Tourism Industry ponders $5 million draft strategy
- Norman George resigns from Cook Islands Party
- Letter of Resignation from CIP
- Norman selfish says Prime Minister