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February 1, 2025 14 mins

The Government has recently unveiled its future plan for mining with the release of the minerals strategy and critical minerals list - with the goal of doubling the country's mining exports by 2035.

This development has been well-received by industry experts, but environmental groups have voiced their concerns.

Straterra CEO Josie Vida says this development sends positive signals to the rest of the world that New Zealand is committed to mining - which is good news for the economy.

"It matters to the outsiders looking in - mining's a very expensive business and the people who want to invest in it want to see an enabling environment across policy and law."

Coromandel Watchdog chair Catherine Delahunty says this seems like good news for offshore investors - but it isn't good for Kiwi communities.

"Investors, sure, they come and take and the gold goes offshore and it's processed offshore and the profits go offshore. So our communities are far from convinced by the mineral strategy."

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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talksb Well.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
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 of the

(00:34):
corimandal watchdog, Catherine Della Hunty and CEO of minerals industry
organization Stra Terra jos Vedell. A very good morning to
both of you.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Do you want a good morning everyone?

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Morning?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
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 (01:00):
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

(01:21):
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

(01:44):
that needs minerals for the life we all lead now,
which relies heavily on electricity and technology.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
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 (02:00):
Yeah, we submitted on the draft in it and it
didn't change much. What depressed about this is 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

(02:24):
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, is process off
sure on life 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

(02:45):
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 which there
is many many tons above the ground, most of it
in banks, are in jewelry, and about six percent in tech,
and we actually can reuse all of that for all
our techniques. So you know, the contribution to our economy

(03:08):
is minor now and doubling it will still be minor.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh I love the use of miner there the fast
track list, 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 it.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
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

(03:45):
mind under the forested Fuddy Kittaponger. 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 right to be heard. It's absolutely saying

(04:08):
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 the mineral

(04:29):
strategy because that's the context in which it is being
imposed upon the country.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
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 (04:50):
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 because 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

(05:11):
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

(05:32):
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 prevent 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 (05:52):
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, just as
compe is an expensive for community. We have put our
lives and our money on the line many times, been

(06:12):
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

(06:33):
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 (06:45):
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 (06:56):
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 a 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

(07:16):
see at Ye, 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

(07:37):
in the mineral strategy was the one single sentence where
they talked about 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
distract things out of the earth. Around the world. Clean

(08:00):
tech is getting away from the idea that you need
a dirty 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 lan is often extracted toxically.
Our own people are working on this the and coming
up to yoursmal waste. We are smarter than this three

(08:24):
billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
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 (08:33):
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

(08:53):
us to go down that route. And I reject that
they're dirty minds, and I reject that we can be
hold responsible for legacy minds that were one hundreds of
years or you know, one hundred years ago, were 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.

(09:17):
So there's a lot of misinformation about that this is
not Dorcy 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

(09:41):
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 (10:01):
We're talking mining with Catherine de la Hunty and Josie
verdel Catherine. If we did hit that threat billion dollars,
that sounds like a lot of money that would make
mining worthwhile, wouldn't it.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
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.

(10:34):
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 the
minds are clean. We we know that. I'm not blaming Oceana,

(10:54):
Golden and the modern so called modern money 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 access far more minerals, and some of them
minerals like gold, have hugely negative toxic side effects you
can't avoid, so they end up in a huge waste stump.

(11:16):
And that's what we've got 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 do better,

(11:38):
we can, We certainly can't do better.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Josie, 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 (12:00):
No, because people have, you know, hold views and whatever.
But I do want to speak a little bit to
the economic then 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 yhe for the announcement on Friday, and it's
interesting different perspectives. I thought, God, how great to live
and work here. What a beautiful spot. There's nowhere really

(12:23):
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

(12:44):
all this stuff there, seeing the kids, the schools, supporting
local clubs. So money does stay in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
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 and way we see people having to go
to food banks, roamen and so that's the idea that
you can pull out. I mean, the problem with economics

(13:13):
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 worked when I was an MP helping families desperate
to get out of yhe because blasting under your house

(13:36):
is not a pleasant experience in that town. The company
has to buy uphouses and pay reparations for people, give
them free weekends and motels because of the impact. It's
quite bizarre that a lovely time like way he underneath
it that blasting. They're now talking about expanding right underneath
the whole town, which is old time with us.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
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 See as the chief person of the
Corrimandal Watchdog and the CEO of minerals industry organization Straterra
jose Videll, thank you both for your time.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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