NZ Minerals Council pushes for more risk in approving mining projects

From Josie Vidal, CEO of the NZ Minerals Council.

New planning and environmental law must leave room for innovation if we are to achieve change in New Zealand and build a country for the future, says New Zealand Minerals Council chief executive Josie Vidal.

“On the face of it, the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill are an improvement on the existing system which is too risk averse when it comes to approving projects,” Vidal says. “The new system needs to shift that balance to better allow developers to undertake projects to grow the economy and to manage any resulting environmental risks with science, engineering, and technology which will continue to improve.

“Planning and environmental law go hand in hand, but there must be balance and previously the scales have tipped heavily on the environmental side and not enough on the side of overall benefits to people and the economy.

“At the moment, what has been presented is like a half-finished house. The frame is there, but what fills it in will make it either work or it will be an eyesore. The major flaw is that national policies, standards, environmental limits and other directing rules that will make or break this law won’t be drafted until after the bills are passed, so submitters cannot be fully informed on many aspects of the proposed regime.

“We believe it is essential to stop the vexatious litigation from parties with no skin in the game that befalls many good projects and these laws set out to do that, which we support.

“Overall, the new laws as proposed tend to benefit smaller, urban projects and for that reason we want to maintain the existing case-by-case consideration for mining where assessment is on the merits of the specific project. Mines can’t fit into a cookie-cutter one size fits all approval approach that might work for a granny flat or suchlike.

“We support the concept of combined plans by local government - fewer plans will be easier for companies to navigate, and fewer resources (council and private sector) will be used in their creation relative to the status quo. Streamlining bureaucracy gives certainty to investors.

“We believe proposed zones within regional spatial plans must not preclude mining from occurring within zones not specifically designated for mining.

“Our concern is that zones are too prescriptive for mining when you are dealing with minerals that lie where they are formed and there needs to be scope for future prospecting and discovery.

“We don’t support environmental limits because they do not provide sufficient flexibility. An environmental management approach which allows mitigation, offsetting, and compensation can achieve better outcomes for both the environment and the economy than what is proposed with the prescriptive approach of environmental limits.

“Overall, we hope to see more explicit consideration of mining and its unique requirements to ensure we don’t sterilise any resources unintentionally.”

New Zealand Minerals Council’s submission on the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill is available here.