The Green Party announced yesterday, if elected, it would commit to revoking any consents or permits issued under the current government’s fast-track process for three different types of mining: coal, hard-rock gold and seabed mining.
This would affect seven projects already up for being fast-tracked — including Santana Minerals’ nearly $6 billion Bendigo-Ophir gold project, in Central Otago, and Oceana- Gold’s Macraes Phase 4 (MP4) staged gold mine expansion, north of Dunedin.
Mr Jones told the Otago Daily Times the Greens were not only risking people terminating their investments, but also tying New Zealand up in "decades of litigation".
"It’s really important that Otago and the broader South Island community focus on the extreme damage that will be visited upon the local economy in the event that these threats were ever to become reality."
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the announcement was to put these mining industries, and their investors, on notice.
The fast-track process failed "even the most basic standards of transparency, accountability and environmental protection".
"We can have an economy that employs people without destroying the ecological basis of our existence for the profits of the few.
"But, if we are serious about leaving behind a liveable planet for our mokopuna, we must invest in industries which build our country up, rather than tear it open."
Santana Minerals, which formally lodged its fast-track application earlier this month, declined to comment on the announcement.
OceanaGold senior vice-president, legal and public affairs, Alison Paul said its two mines supported hundreds of businesses in the two districts where the company operated.
More than 1000 jobs at the mines and thousands of jobs in the wider communities relied on hard-rock gold mining.
"Approval of MP4 in its entirety will secure the jobs of around 700 OceanaGold employees and the continued employment of the staff from over 200 contractors that service the mine beyond 2030.
"As a leading contributor to the regional economy, the economic impact of MP4 is significant, with OceanaGold spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year, 80% of this in New Zealand."
Both MP4 and its Waihi North Project — also included in the fast-track schedule — represented the same combination of economic benefit and sustainable environmental management practices "regardless of the process they are consented through", Ms Paul said.
OceanaGold would apply for new consents at its Macraes mine next year through the fast-track process.
Its mines depended over time on a constantly renewing set of permits and consents "where it is always our intention to maintain the highest standards of sustainable management".
Mr Jones labelled the Greens’ announcement "ideological compost" and a "foolish belief that somehow prosperity comes from a community garden".
"You cannot run a modern economy and continually threaten to retrospectively strip investors and owners of their rights."
The effect would be "to gut the Otago economy".
"The Otago economy will be disembowelled, people will flee and sue the Crown at the same time.
"My message to the Otago commercial leadership is that this will devastate your economy.
"But worse than that, it will disembowel New Zealand’s sovereign reputation."
Green MP Steve Abel said the idea "of digging massive holes in the landscape and leaving a toxic tailings dam" was not supported by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders.
"And down at Otago, people don’t want to see that spectacular, rugged landscape and the amazing creatures that live there destroyed by Aussie gold miners."
Sustainable Tarras chairwoman Suze Keith said the fast-track process favoured the applicant’s evidence as other interested parties were not given the time to provide appropriate independent analysis.
It also significantly diminished the importance of the natural environment in its purpose.
"Our outstanding natural landscapes, such as the Dunstan Mountains where the Bendigo-Ophir mine is proposed, our waterways, our flora and fauna — should all be protected now and for future generations.
"Any decisions to mine should be carefully, openly and transparently and cautiously considered, with all affected parties around the table.
"Fast-track is not this mechanism."
