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A sea-change in government attitudes to mining was signalled at the latest Aus-IMM conference, HUGH DE LACY reports.
In a statement of intent at remarkable variance from the pussy-footing of the previous Labour-led administration, Brownlee told the 250 delegates that the National-led administration was “absolutely determined to raise our living standards” and “our abundant mineral resources will play an important role in achieving that goal”. And to prove it wasn’t just more political soft-soaping, Brownlee laid out a bold three-pronged programme for expansion of the country’s minerals industry: A review of Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act which has locked up around 30 percent of the country’s most prospective land; improving access arrangements to the Department of Conservation (DoC) estate that, including Schedule 4 land, contains an estimated 70 percent of the country’s mineral potential; and changing the system for reclassifying DoC-administered land of high prospectivity to ensure the involvement of government agency Crown Minerals. “We are going to be far more pragmatic and supportive than the previous administration towards exploration and mining activity,” says Brownlee. Highlighting the potential for minerals to play a greater role in the country’s economic expansion, he cited a World Bank report that ranked New Zealand as second only to Saudi Arabia – and well ahead of “lucky country” Australia – in natural wealth per capita. He also mentioned Aus-IMM member and consulting geologist Richard Barker’s March 2008 estimate of the gross in-ground value of the country’s metallic minerals as exceeding $140 billion, “with lignite alone at least an additional $100 billion.” The conventional political wisdom that any suggestion of mining on the DoC estate would be tantamount to political suicide was proved wrong, with Brownlee’s widely reported comments to the Aus-IMM conference drawing little criticism, although Labour Party conservation spokesperson David Parker described them as “lunacy”. No doubt helping to create a more balanced reaction from the mainstream media and public was a subsequent call by Conservation Minister Tim Groser, widely respected for his former chairmanship of the World Trade Organisation’s agriculture committee, for an end to the “emotional hysteria” that had greeted earlier suggestions that at least some DoC land could be mined. “If you can extract wealth from [conservation land], that’s what we should do. Mining at its worst is dreadful, but mining in a modern technological way can have a negligible effect. When words like ‘rape’ and ‘pillage’ come out, people should just take a deep breath,” Groser was reported as saying. And his advice appeared to be heeded, with the typical reaction being that of the New Zealand Herald editorial in the week following the conference, which opined that, “The sum of land in public ownership is so large that more than enough would be left over if mining were to occupy a tiny portion.” Back-footed for now, the anti-mining lobby will no doubt re-group to oppose the expansion of the industry, but the initiative seems clearly with the Government. The most immediate beneficiaries will be the unlisted L&M Group and state-owned collier Solid Energy, both of which are conducting feasibility reports into gasification of the 11 billion tonne Otago-Southland lignite resource, which will provide a substitute for all the country’s oil-based transport fuel imports, and make the country a net exporter. But Brownlee also laid out the welcome mat for other minerals explorers, domestic and international, mentioning the “significant potential” for zinc, lead, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten mining, as supplements to the dominant gold industry. Brownlee is number three in Prime Minister John Key’s Cabinet, and mining has not enjoyed such powerful political support since the gold rushes of the 1860s. It really looks as if a new day is dawning for New Zealand’s minerals industries.
Q&M Vol.6 No.5 October-November 2009 All articles on this website are copyright to Contrafed Publishing Co. Ltd. |
It was the sort of central government leadership that the mining industry has been craving for decades – and Minister of Energy and Resources Gerry Brownlee delivered it in spadesful at the annual conference of the New Zealand branch of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (Aus-IMM) in Queenstown last month.