Mining bosses are hurrying to get their fast-track applications in before the election, wary of what a Labour-led government may do to the legislation.
Labour’s position has always been that the fast-track needs environmental protections at its core, which doesn’t take mining off the table.
With conservation lands being opened for development, potential American funding for critical minerals projects and an industry champion in Resources Minister Shane Jones, a sense of urgency is building for New Zealand miners as election day ticks closer.
Last week, Jones hosted officials from the American State Department interested in funding critical minerals projects in New Zealand.
A handful of mining executives had the opportunity to give an elevator pitch to the Americans, who flew in just for the meeting. They now await feedback.
At the roundtable and in discussions after, the fast-track was touted as a good way to advertise New Zealand’s mining potential to investors in theory – but feedback from experience was that it wasn’t all that easy in practice. Jones, at the meeting, said he heard and accepted this feedback.
After nearly a year and a half of operation, only one minerals project has found success with the fast-track: OceanaGold’s Waihi gold mine extension. Forest & Bird has appealed that decision to the High Court.
An application for the previously rejected Taranaki seabed mine was withdrawn after it was issued a draft denial. The ‘fast-track’ moniker has come to haunt its architects, who have said in the past a better name may have been the ‘one-stop-shop bill’.
Still, companies are keen to get their applications in before the election in November, in case a Labour-led government takes power and does something to make the process more restrictive.
Robert Eckford is the chief executive of RuaGold, which hopes to run an antimony mine in Reefton (a project it took over from Siren Gold, which also wanted to use the fast-track). Eckford is chasing American investment, as Newsroom reported last week.
Eckford says his real job title is more like “chief marketing officer” as he pitches his project around the world. In these talks, he feels a sense of urgency. “The main thing that comes up is ‘you’ve got an election in November’,” Eckford says.
The question is “does fast-track live on or does it not”, Eckford says. Maybe Labour would take mining out of the fast-track, maybe it would extend processing times – he wasn’t sure.
Eckford says in an ideal world, he’d have another six-12 months to work on the fast-track application, but is afraid he could miss the boat. “That’s why we’re breakneck speed to get it in,” he says.
Rachel Brooking, Labour’s fast-track spokesperson, says her message has been clear since the beginning: the fast-track should have environmental protections at its core, and if you’re a mining company looking to apply, treat it with the same rigour you’d treat something under the Resource Management Act.
Brooking says she’s sent this message to companies “over and over again”, and that Labour will have further policy announcements on this issue.
The best thing they can do, she says, is to apply the same standards to community consultation and environmental risk reduction as would be expected from the standard process.
But what about applications already in place, if the rules are changed after the election? Brooking says the best case scenario is that this is a non-issue, because any upcoming applications are submitted at a high standard.
Eckford says he has 16 years of environmental data from previous companies’ work: water testing, weather monitoring, environmental checks. And he doesn’t want to conduct the type of mining operation people think of when they think of the stereotypes, or when they hear controversy coming from other minerals projects.
Brooking says if the mining industry itself is worried about “cowboys entering the process”, then they probably agree with her on the need for a more robust fast-track.
“It’s of critical importance for New Zealand’s economy that our environmental resource is respected, and that some people, some companies, don’t get special treatment,” says Brooking.
Shane Jones, too, thinks the fast-track needs to be tweaked, albeit in a different direction – he wasn’t more specific, but his track record is consistently for looser restrictions. Whatever he has in mind, to make it happen, his party needs to hold on to its place in government after November.
Jones was confident this would be the case, but says his message to miners is “get your applications in ASAP”.
He doesn’t think this means they should rush through the due process of creating a thorough application: “Providing they’re not breaking the law, I feel that they should make the most of the opportunity. I don’t feel that I’m being reckless.
“If the law enables them to make an application, and they have the ability to operate within the law, bang that application in right now.”