Scoop  Politics

Sunday 14th February, 2010

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews Greens Co-leader Russel Norman & Doug Gordon from the Minerals Industry Assoc.

Points of interest:
- New mines on conservation land could be in Mt Aspiring National Park, the Coromandel Peninsula, north-west Nelson and Stewart Island

- 75 cents of every mining dollar stays in NZ, says Mineral lobbyist

- Green Party wants 13 percent of New Zealand land under Schedule 4 free of mines

- Minerals Industry Association calls for geological survey of country’s potential mineral wealth

- Gordon: Mines can be tourist attractions

- Norman: Government’s planned Conservation Fund from mining profits nothing more than “a bribe”

- Waihi: Greens say it’s a “very poor community” even with Martha Mine, miners say it would be “a ghost town” without it

The interview has been transcribed below. (Please note that the transcript is complete but may be hard to follow where the guests have talked over each other)

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

RUSSEL NORMAN & DOUG GORDON interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL As the Prime Minister mentioned in his speech last Tuesday many New Zealanders might indeed have been surprised to learn that petroleum is our third biggest export earner
after tourism, it is apparently. Now he wasn’t to unlock other rich resources of mineral wealth in New Zealand. Before the government's stock take is even completed he
announced he announced this week that he will allow mining on some of the conservation estate.

The conservation group say he's buying a major fight, they promise not only civil disobedience but also an international backlash.

So a lot to be lost or much to be gained and already we see the US Greens this morning saying it's insult to conservation what we're planning to do.

Russel Normal is Co-leader of the Green Party and Doug Gordon is with us from the Minerals Industry Association, an association that represents private sector companies that
mine our precious metals, industrial minerals, aggregates and our coal. Welcome to both of you. Alright 30 seconds each to start us off, state your case, for or against. Doug
you go first.

DOUG GORDON – Minerals Industry Association
Okay, I'm for what the government is doing, it's trying to close the GDP gap, it's wanting to have a look at the minerals estate as a possibility for that, and that’s all they're suggesting. The only way we can do anything with the minerals is to know what we've got and where they are. Saudi Arabia knows what it's got, it's oil and where it is, we know we've got minerals, we raised those potentials, the 140 billion to the government when it came in, but we need to know exactly where they are and we also need to know what the biodiversity is above them, so we can weigh rationally and come to a rational decision as to whether we should or shouldn’t access the minerals.

PAUL Russel – why shouldn’t we?

RUSSEL NORMAN – Greens Co-Leader
Well these are Schedule 4 lands, it's a subset of the conservation estate which has the most important and precious part of the conservation estate on it. We've reached an agreement as a country that – and people, who came before us put these lands aside, and we said these lands and this piece of biodiversity we're gonna protect for future generations and we reached an agreement not to mine it. What the current government's doing is they're unravelling that agreement whereby we agreed to protect our most important lands, on which we built a 20 billion dollar tourism industry, the reason that New Zealand's known as clean and green isn't because of mining, it's because of those precious lands in the conservation estate, and that’s the agreement that we're talking about unravelling. So we will get rid of what is a public good, a public conservation estate and exchange it for private profit for overseas companies.

DOUG Already we have some misinformation there. That agreement that was struck by the parliament in 1997 for Schedule 4 Lands does in fact allow underground mining on the Schedule 4 Lands. In fact in the Paparoa or wherever Pike River is, is in a national park, one of those lands, an underground mine, that’s the sort of thing we might get.

RUSSEL Coromandel for example, in the Coromandel Peninsula which is tremendously important not only to the people of Coromandel but the people of Auckland, it's a very valuable place, about half of it is in Schedule 4, roughly speaking including the coastal areas, the reason we put that aside is because it's so important to our tourism industry, and it's so important to the people of our country.

DOUG The Minerals Industry is not suggesting that we role back Schedule 4.

RUSSEL Well you're suggesting we mine Schedule 4 Land, that’s what you want to do, for overseas companies to make profit.

DOUG No no no we're suggesting that we find out what is beneath those lands in terms of minerals.

PAUL Oh come on Doug, let's not be cute....

RUSSEL If you’ve agreed not to mine it that’s fine.

DOUG No we haven't agreed, there should be a public process and that’s what Gerry Brownlee is also trying to get through to the country when he says look right now under the law the Conservation Minister has the power of veto.

PAUL No Doug, we've gotta move along, because we know that he's going to do a stocktake and that’s not gonna hurt a single tweety bird, but you fellows will want to go in and mine and that is the debate we're having. But I mean there is a very good point in terms of the actual potential mineral wealth that’s there. You tell me a very interesting thing about Saudi Arabia, New Zealand in relation to Saudi Arabia what is that?

DOUG Well the World Bank says we're second only to Saudi Arabia in terms of natural capital per capita.

RUSSEL And that natural capital isn't about the minerals, it's about the natural environment, if you actually read the report instead of the Prime Minister's rhetoric about it, what it actually says ...

DOUG It includes that you're right, it includes that as well.

RUSSEL It's about the natural capital, not about the minerals under the national parks, because the national parks are much more valuable to the tourism industry than they are to the mineral industry.

PAUL Let's get down to some brass tacks, where would the new mining be, would it be in national parks?

DOUG This is the whole point, this is for the people of New Zealand and the government and the conservation interests and the mining interests to decide, it hasn’t been decided yet.

PAUL But if you look at where we think the mineral wealth is, you know it's in the most beautiful parts of the country.

RUSSEL Mt Aspiring National Park.

DOUG It could be, Stewart Island, north west Nelson, the Coromandel, the Taupo volcanic zone.

RUSSEL All the important parts.

PAUL But I don’t know why you're so emphatic, you see, why the defensive on this – because mining accounts as the Prime Minister says for only 40 square miles.

RUSSEL 40 square kilometres but that’s wrong...

PAUL 40 square kilometres in New Zealand, well whatever, but we already mine on conservation land.

RUSSEL That 40 square kilometres figure is not really right, it's like saying that the forestry industry only uses the piece of land where they're currently cutting trees, because in fact there are mining licenses across thousands of square kilometres off New Zealand, but we also know that our much more important industry in terms of long term sustainable income is the tourism industry.

PAUL Which is now 21 billion.

RUSSEL That’s right 20 billion dollars and we think that we need a long term economic plan for New Zealand, not short term extractive industries, we've done those in the past ...

PAUL Is mining necessarily going to ruin the tourism industry, what do you think?

RUSSEL Okay, so we've done the kauri in the past, you asked me right, you asked me the question, the answer is that we need long term economic strategies which are based on our strengths around sustainability and embracing the new green economy which is happening globally,

PAUL Can't we get some of our mineral wealth and still have the kauri tree we all go and look at?

DOUG There's a win-win Paul, I think both things can exist in conjunction with each other. In terms of tourism, nobody wants to jeopardise our 21 billion dollar tourism industry, in fact 32,000 people go and visit the Martha Mine every year as tourists. The Horizon Tourist Company run tours into the Oceania operation in Reefton which is in the Victoria National Park, and believe it or not tourists actually go and visit the Stockton Plateau that we're seeing a lot of, that people are interested in that sort of thing.

RUSSEL It's an extraordinary sight, it is an extraordinary sight. A moonscape, you might say.

DOUG And most of the heritage values on the conservation estate are all mine sites.

RUSSEL And so what you would say is what is the long term future of the last 13%, remember we've destroyed the biodiversity on most of the country, we've put aside 13%. They can have, they're already mining the other 87%, we've put aside one fraction which is critical to our long term future and is also precious to New Zealanders, and they want to mine that bit.

PAUL Is there such a thing as clean mining Doug? Do mining companies give a bugger about the landscape really, what about the tailings, what about the roads in, the trucks, the dusty trucks, the whole business.

DOUG Yes they have to give a damn about it, under the law they have to. Even if Schedule 4 was removed in terms of a mantle of protection from some of these areas, there are incredible strictures that relate to access or conducting a mine, including insurances, bonds for clean up should there be a problem, and the protection of the biodiversity. Of course we care, we're Kiwis too.

RUSSEL What do you say about the Tui Mine for example where currently taxpayers are spending 10 million dollars to clean up a mine site, which was abandoned by the company that did it? And so we, not only do we lose the public wealth when you mine our conservation estate, but then we have to put our hands in our pocket again to clean it up afterwards, because you leave a great big mess.

DOUG Tui's important. Tui occurred between 1967 and 1973. In 1973 legislation was brought in to require clean up and rehabilitation and bonds, it was done under a piece of legislation that did not require that before, and the minerals industry in the late 90s drove an initiative to get that mess cleaned up...

RUSSEL And the taxpayers are paying for it, we're paying for it.

PAUL Why are you so emphatically opposed to it because we make two billion dollars in our mineral wealth at the moment, the potential there according to the Prime Minister, according to other sources, is some 250 billion we could be making by 2025. Why can't we just decide on selective cases, treat each case as it comes along?

RUSSEL Because what we need is a sustainable economic development ...

PAUL Blah blah blah ...

RUSSEL We don’t need a short term extractive industry. Once again it is short term and extractive.

PAUL No what I'm asking Mr Norman is why can't applications be made and they be considered by the Minister of Conservation and possibly the Minister of Tourism, and the rules are gonna be very strict.

RUSSEL And they can on 87% of the land, but what we're saying is that on 13% which is the last of the special places, the last of the biodiversity, we want to preserve those and protect those, and that’s why we're building a 20 billion dollar industry.

PAUL Alright you’ve not answered the question, let me ask you this one.

RUSSEL I did answer the question Paul, it's about long term economic development, it's not about short term extractive industries.

PAUL Doug Gordon, where would the money go, how would we know we're getting fair value for our minerals, these would be overseas owned companies probably majorly wouldn’t they?

DOUG Well you know contrary to a lot of myth, 75 cents of every dollar that’s earned out of mines actually stays in New Zealand. What the Prime Minister I think was suggesting was that were we to uplift some of these minerals on conservation lands, and by the way the whole of the conservation estate right now is open to mining, so it's a myth to say that that possibility's not there. He's suggesting that some of those royalties go back into conservation protection.

RUSSEL That’s an outrage, that’s a bribe.

DOUG Every year when we hear about the state of the environment we see the steady decline in biodiversity, wouldn’t it be a shame if right under our feet .....

RUSSEL Doug, what about the conservation fund....

PAUL No no I want to talk about jobs, [Russel] don’t jobs matter to you? It's all very well having birdies flying around in the bush, 72,000 kids, aged 18 to 24 are not in training, not in work.

RUSSEL And so Waihi, let's take Waihi for an example right, Waihi's a very poor community and the mine, having the mine there for many years, I think it's 20, 25 years now has not resulted in Waihi becoming a wealthy community ...

DOUG Absolute rubbish.

RUSSEL I want to address the Conservation Fund ....

DOUG 45 million bucks a year goes into that community, 100 million comes out of balance of payments, I have relations there that have been there for yonks, when there wasn’t a mine there it was like a ghost town, it would be a ghost town if there wasn’t a mine there, and there are huge efforts on the part of Vision Waihi to make sure that when there isn't a mine there that there's sustainable operations going on there ....

PAUL Time once again is our enemy Mr Norman.

RUSSEL And so on the Conservation Fund let me just say the government abolished the Conservation Fund and now they're proposing to give it back to us based on destroying the conservation estate.

PAUL Thank you both very much for coming in on the programme, I'm sure this'll be the first of many meetings and many debates.

ENDS

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