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Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well. On Friday, the government unveiled its future plan for
mining with the release of the Mineral Strategy and Critical
Minerals List. The aim to double the country's mining exports
to three billion dollars by twenty thirty five. The announcement
has been well received within the industry, but has left
the environmental groups concerned. To discuss the pros and cons
of our future mining plan. I'm joined by the chairperson
(00:38):
of the corimandal watchdog, Catherine Delahunty and CEO of minerals
industry organization Stra Terra jos Vedell. A very good morning
to both of you.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Do you want a good morning everyone?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Morning?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Let's start with you, Josie. You said from your industry perspective,
it was a good day on Friday with that announcement.
From your point of view, what does this announcement mean,
not only for your industry but for New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, it's an acknowledgment of the value mining brings to
the economy and that's a good thing. And I guess
why we need it, you know, we've asked for sometimes
for a critical minerals list and a strategy is it
matters to the outside is looking in. You know, mining
is a very expensive business and the people who want
(01:25):
to invest in that want to see an enabling environment
across policy and law. And that doesn't mean there are
no environmental standards. In fact, in New Zealand's highly regarded
for the high environmental standards and the high employment standards
we have here, so it seems positive signals too. You know,
we're part of a global supply chain of the world
(01:47):
that needs minerals for the life we all lead now,
which relies heavily on electricity and technology.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's a fair point, Catherine. You were there protesting on Friday.
What was the reaction from you and the others protesting
to this announcement? Is what you were expecting?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, we submitted on the draft in it and it
didn't change much. What's depressing about this is it's I
can understand why Striterra like it. It could have been
written by them. It's basically promoting one industry without even
mentioning the fact that we live in a climate change constrained,
environmentally struggling world and also that the economic reality is,
(02:28):
and I have lived and worked in this issue and
run my area for plast forty five years, is that
the benefits go off shore. So investors, sure, they come,
they take, and the gold goes offshore as process off
sure on God, and the profits go offshore. And so
our communities are far from convinced by the mineral strategy.
But the government and others have admitted is really just
(02:49):
about coal, which is a greenhouse gas that's foluting the
world and we have to transition out of it. And
also about gold butt which is a metal of which
there is many many tons above the ground, most of
it in banks or in jewelry, and about six percent
in tech. And we actually can reuse all of that
for all our techniques. So you know that the contribution
(03:10):
to our economy is minor now and doubling it will
still be minor.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh I love the use of miner there the fast
track hasn't It? Isn't that a bigger concern for us?
All the fast tracking, Catherine? Is that a concern for
you because it's basically blocked any ability to question anything
or alter the plan, hasn't.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It's that's what's lifted the lift or level of anger
and anxiety in many communities across the country as we
no longer have a voice. It was always difficult to
go to court, but if you take the y he
situation we were about, we've been preparing for a number
of years finding people to help the expert witnesses to
go to court and ask hard questions about the proposed
(03:49):
mind under the forested Fuddy Kitaponger. All of that's gone
because Oceania are one of the groups on the fast
track list. So I don't think people quite realize and
I hope your listeners are interested that this bill is
taking away not whatever you think about the issue. It's
taking away the right to be heard by the ordinary citizens.
It's limiting marty rights.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
To be heard.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
It's absolutely saying that a very narrow group of government
appointed expert panelists and the Crown will decide what happens.
And that's not the way we've ever done it, and
it's a huge step backward. They're gutting their RMA and
they've created the fast track to prevent us from being heard,
which is one of the main reasons we were standing
there on on Friday one. Hundreds of us protesting against
(04:33):
the mineral strategy because that's the context in which it
is being imposed upon the country.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Okay, Joseph Videl will bring you in here too, the
fast tracking, you'd be loving the fast track? Could we
have a slower process so where more people get to
have their say? Why do we move so quickly on
things that are so critically important to everyone and the
ecology of the country.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So I think there's a lot of misinformation about the
Fast Track Act. For a start, there is still built
in there some stakeholder confrontation, and we do need to
move faster of our economic situation. And by faster, it
takes ten years to get a mine up and running,
so it's not like where there's going to be a
(05:15):
mine on every corner. This is just what it's doing
is actually creating a better process. Because at the moment,
to have your mind, you have to knock on about
fifteen different doors of government departments that cover different acts.
You get a different answer, you get different skill levels
of people who understand the act that they're implementing. And
(05:36):
what this creates is what's called a one stop shop
where you can go along and these companies spend millions
of dollars on science, backs and evidence, present that to
one group, not a whole bunch of different people, and
get an answer. So it's streamlining a process, which is
not a bad thing in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I don't think ye, I think it's outrageous, Josie, that
you would talk about it as if the Act doesn't
prevent public participation. That's not how it's done in this country.
It's perfectly true that it's a complex process. It's just
as complex and expensive for community. We have put our
lives and our money on the line many times, been
(06:16):
through many court processes would have frustrated us. But actually
speeding up the process to benefit just one group, which
are the developers and the industry, needs to be scrutinized.
It needs to be robustly challenged. It needs to be
in the context of our ability to say what happens
in our own communities. And that's been stripped away. There
(06:37):
is no process now. And believe me, I have read
the bill and the Act, and so the thousands of
US nearly forty thousand who submitted on this issue because
of that consumed.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Look, Catherine, you can see economically, you can see that
new Zealand is bus right. We're broken. We need the
money in the coffers quickly. From an economic point of view,
you can see that this is a good announcement, can't you.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
No, And I don't accept that we're completely broken. I
think that's actually the what the coalition government wants us
to believe. We're comparatively wealthy country that needs to make good, sustainable,
long term decisions. There are many things we can do
to work with for an economic prosperity that doesn't involve
creating the vast toxic waste dumps we see at Ye,
(07:21):
which hope, I hope you remember and I'm sure you do.
Roman the river went orange from a tiny spill from
a historic mind. We don't need to create that kind
of cost and legacy for our children. We need to
look at industries that are actually going to be sustainable.
One of them, in relation to minerals, is the reuse
of minerals. And the one good thing in the mineral
strategy was the one single sentence where they talked about
(07:45):
how you can reuse metals, and you can. You can
strip out of e waste a lot of metals, and
I would be delighted to see that happen, and it
creates jobs as well. We need to be a modern country.
It's not the nineteenth century. You don't just extract things
out of the earth. Around the world, clean tech is
getting away from the idea that you need a dirty
(08:06):
mind to create clean tech. So, for example, lithium has
been replaced. They're working on a way to replace this
in clean tech was actually salt rather than this in,
which is because lithian is often extracted toxically. Our own
people are working on this them coming up to your
thermal waste. We are smarter than this three billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, look, well that's a good point, right nothing, Well,
you know, is it nothing? That's a point, Josie. Do
you think we could hit that three billion dollar target?
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Absolutely? And I think, you know, Catherine makes some very
good points. And a recycling is definitely something to look at.
The one company that visis up here trying to recycle
minerals went to Australia because they had a better environment
and they were given some money to set up there.
So there are some things that need to happen for
(08:57):
us to go down that route. And I reject that
they're dirty minds, and I reject that we can be
how responsible for legacy minds that were one hundreds of
years or you know, one hundred years ago. We're using
techniques that are no longer used today. There's very strict
environmental standards. Minds pay a bond so they can't walk
away and leave a mess. They have to clean up afterwards.
(09:21):
So there's a lot of misinformation about that this is
not docing mining. And what the point that everybody seems
to be missing is there's a global supply chain where
two countries hold a lot of power, and what everybody
else who's got some minerals in the ground is thinking, well,
maybe we just need to sort of share the power
(09:45):
there so that we're not having to pay price a
price we can't afford for the things we need. And
we need energy and we can't Renewable energy is never
going to be one hundred percent. It's always going to
have to have some backup of coral gas because there
are times, you know, we've seen that happen last winter.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
We're talking mining with Catherine Delahunty and Joe's Dell. Catherine,
if we did hit that three billion dollars, that sounds
like a lot of money that would make mining worthwhile,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Well, three billion dollars is what the government just gave
to the landlords as a sweetener, and so that is
not a lot of money. And also I'm not sure
it's achievable. Actually, the country is eighty percent coal and gold,
and we you know, it is not going to produce
wealth for the country because the gold itself is all
of the big minds are owned by foreign companies Romance.
(10:38):
The money doesn't stay here, and we know that from
living in the community alongside a community that's had mining
since the nineteen nineties, and the wealth is just nowhere.
You know, you can't see it. It's just a really
it's a really sad argument to keep pushing that that
the minds are clean. We we know that. I'm not
blaming Oceana, Golden and the modern so called modern money
(11:00):
companies for what happened one hundred years ago. The technology
is different in some ways, it's worse because now we
have vast quantities we can act is far more minerals,
and some of the minerals, like gold, have hugely negative
toxic side effects you can't avoid, so they end up
in a huge waste stump and that's what we've got
(11:21):
behind way here google it. Sometimes it's just massive free
massive waste dumps. If there is ever in the long term,
which is the history of tailing dams in the twenty
first century, if there is ever an earthquake under that place,
or high levels of climate impacts, we're all in huge trouble.
And that is not the legacy we need. We can
(11:41):
do better.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We certainly can't do better. I reckon Jos just before
you go on, I just want to say, I think
we're a bunch of hypocrites because we all use stuff
we've got. I should be opening the studio window and
throwing my cell phone out. Everything we use these days
has some component from mining. So do you think essentially
those who are knocking mining are just a bunch of hypocrites.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
No, because people have, you know, hold views and whatever.
But I do want speak a little bit to the
economics and that money goes off shore, that's not true.
So in New Zealand we don't have the fly and
fly out miners. They live in the community. And I
drive to yh for the announcement on Friday, and it's
interesting different perspectives. I thought, I how great to live
and work here. What a beautiful spot. There's nowhere really
(12:27):
like this. And in Haiaki mining contributes nineteen point three
percent to GDP, In Buller where there's mining, it's twenty
percent to GDP, and in Waitaki the Otago area at
twenty six point point one percent to GDP. So that's
highly paid workers living in communities, paying rates, taxes, buying
(12:48):
all this stuff there, seeing the kids, the schools, supporting
local clubs. So money does stay in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
The amount of money that we've seen pass through, why
he is in the millions and there is no beautiful
youth center, amazing amazing sports ground that we don't see
the wealth of We see people having to go to
food banks. Roaman and so that's the idea that this
you can pull out. I mean, the problem with economics
(13:17):
is we just end up debating figures that are developed
by people's own agendas what we really need to do.
And having lived here for a long time, my great
grandfather was a minor, you know, you see the perspectives
on the ground for people in communities, and that's what
really counts in our regions. As hard as to live here,
I work when I was an MP helping families desperate
to get out of Wyhe because blasting under your house
(13:40):
is not a pleasant experience in that town. The company
has to buy uphouses and pay reparations to people, give
them free weekends and motels because of the impact. It's
quite bizarre that it's a lovely time, like why he
underneath it that blasting they're now talking about expanding right
underneath the whole town, which is old time.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
With that, Yeah, exactly. Look it's a real hot koumita
this one, isn't it? The text machine that's blowing up
on nine two nine two and I thank you both
for your time. Katherine Della Hunty, she is the chairperson
of the Corrimandal Watchdog and the CEO of minerals industry
organization Straterra. Joseph Videll, thank you both for your time.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
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