Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Josie Vidal: On the mining industry wanting the latest changes made to the Fast Track Bill to be its last

Transcript

Josie Vidal: On the mining industry wanting the latest changes made to the Fast Track Bill to be its last · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fast Track Backtrack. The ministerial sign off powers have been
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: ditched in an amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: That means Old Shane Jones will have his wings clipped.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a difference between a campaign politician and a
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: member of cabinet, and collective responsibility means that I'm adopting
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the Shakespearean approach. All's well, that ends well.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Almost four hundred projects have been applied to be listed
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: in the bill, which is set to be passed before
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the end of the year after going through the Environment
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Select Committee. Ten percent of them, get this, just ten
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: percent are made up of mining and quarry projects, despite
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: all of the bluster that you heard from the opposition
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to this, and actually the mining portion just five percent,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: most of it housing development stuff like that. Josie Vidal
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: is with Straterra. They are fund at Straterra Minerals. They
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: are funded by the mining sector and we're here keen
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to hear their views this morning. Josie, good morning, good morning,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being with me. Is this going to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: change whether because I know that you as proposed submitted
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: on the bill and you were quite a proponent of it,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: will it change your support for the bill. Is it
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: going to slow the whole process down in your view?
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think it will slow it down. Well,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: it can't be called fast track and fast I am
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: worried that there's some pressure to water things down and
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: we can't go back to where we are now because
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: you can't get things done in this country. So I
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: understand why they've changed the ministerial decision making because there
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: was a lot of pressure on. But it does put
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of emphasis on the expert panels to be
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: truly expert and not to be beside the sort of
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: panels we already go up against where their consideration is
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: entirely environmental and there's no considerations for economic, social, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: cultural impacts. You know, we want a more holistic views.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: So if this is the watering, let that be the
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: end of it. And then the Selectmmittee report back on
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the eighteenth of October, and let's get this bill through
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: before the end of the year so we can get
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: some things done.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but now they've given an inch, you know that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: they're going to take a mile, aren't they. In terms
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of who's on these committees, as you say, who do
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: they represent, what interest do they represent? They're going to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: have some environmentalists on there, they're going to have some
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: representatives from EWE, they're going to have some in certain circumstances.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't sound like the quick drive through
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: eating experience that I was describing earlier.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, well that's where the pressure is going to be.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: That for us, the heart of the bill.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: Is the one stop shop, which will make things a
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: lot faster. So at the moment with a mining project,
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: you have to go and knock on every door of government,
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: and some are very slow, and some are belligerent, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: some don't even agree with mining. So if that can
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: come into a one stop shop, we get decision made quickly,
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: that's the goal for us. I never understood the resistance
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: to ministers making decisions because ministers make decisions every day
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: and we wrote them.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: In to do that. But I can see that there
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: was significant pressure, and as you say, it's interesting, the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: pressure was on things like mining, which is five percent
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: of the project that was out mining and quarry and
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: you'll have no houses and no infrastructure. So it is
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: a holistic views.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It is indeed, Josie, thanks so much for your time
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and your view on that. That's Josie Vidal from stra Terra.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: She's the mining chief executive there at Stra Terra Minerals.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It has just gone seven away from six Ryan Bridge.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Actually I emailed last night Bathurst Resources because they've got
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the mine in Stockton and they've got another twenty years
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of coal that they can get out of it. They
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: run the Stockton mind and they wanted to use this
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: fast track bill. He's in Australia the boss at the moment,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: but I just said, what do you think is this
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: going to slow it all down? Is this going to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: be a big deals? Basically, hopefully the changes won't take
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: away from the main point, which is exactly what Josie
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: has just said. It is the one stop shop, the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: streamlined system to get their resources and consents so they
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: can get digging for And clearly we need energy in
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: New Zealand right now, don't we. For more from News
• 4:20
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• 4:23
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• 4:26
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