The Government - which told Solid Energy employees yesterday it would not recapitalise the beleaguered state-owned enterprise to save 230 mining jobs - has separately called on objectors to coal mine developer Bathurst Resources to withdraw from a pending Environment Court challenge.
The pro-resource sector National-led Government has long been antagonising environmentalists with its bullish "economics versus the environment" stance and the call yesterday for objectors to step aside was its most public challenge to date.
Forest and Bird rejected the call to withdraw from legal action, labelling the Government's reaction as "hitting the panic button", Forest and Bird conservation advocate, Nicola Toki said, when contacted.
"To suddenly come out, the day after Solid Energy lays people off, is hitting the panic button," she said.
She said the Government was attempting to "deflect the glare of mismanagement" of Solid Energy, given it was reported Prime Minister John Key had said the coal company had unrealistic coal prices built into forecasts, she said.
Plummeting coal prices down 30% to 40% and estimated $200 million revenue decline this financial year prompted Solid Energy to announce on Monday the axing of 25%, or almost 450, jobs.
Yesterday, Minister for State Owned Enterprises Tony Ryall told a delegation of Solid Energy miners visiting the Beehive that the Government would not offer a one-off cash injection to support Spring Creek mine.
Minister of Economic Development Stephen Joyce a few hours earlier had called on Forest and Bird and West Coast Environmental Network to withdraw their Environment Court action against Bathurst, which is due to begin in late-October.
"The Escarpment Mine [of Bathurst's] is an open cast mining project that is ready to go and would provide 225 jobs and incomes for workers and their families on the West Coast straight away," Mr Joyce said.
In a week when almost 670 jobs have been lost at Solid Energy, KiwiRail (158) and Nuplex (60), Newmont WaihiGold announced yesterday 20 jobs would have to go as operational costs surged faster than gold prices.
Bathurst, which is developing a specialist hard coking coal mine near Solid Energy's Stockton coal mine on the Denniston Plateau above Westport, offers at least 225 jobs in its start-up phase and wants to quickly build exports from 2 million tonnes to 4 million tonnes a year from the estimated 80 million-tonne resource.
Forest and Bird has called repeatedly for the protection of the Denniston Plateau from open pit mining, because it had a unique and irreplaceable biodiversity. Ms Toki said destruction of the plateau was still seen as "publicly and politically unpalatable".
Bathurst's application and granting of more than 20 consents from two West Coast councils has been dogged at every turn by Forest and Bird and West Coast Environmental Network. They appealed in the High Court, Environment Court and Court of Appeal the granted consents and climate change issues which have delayed Bathurst's full start-up by up to a year.
Mr Joyce said the ongoing objections were to resource consents granted more than a year ago and the whole consenting process for the development had now taken "a staggering seven years".
Bathurst has said it has spent $250 million in acquisitions, development and costs of operating boutique-size mines it has purchased along the way.
"If we are serious about jobs and providing incomes on the West Coast then objectors should stop getting in the way of this immediate opportunity to create those jobs," Mr Joyce said.
