Latest / Best of Business / Catherine Delahunty and Josie Vida: Coromandel Watchdog chair and Straterra CEO on the pros and cons of the Government's mining strategy

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Catherine Delahunty and Josie Vida: Coromandel Watchdog chair and Straterra CEO on the pros and cons of the Government's mining strategy · Best of Business

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