Official information obtained this week by the ODT shows this winter OceanaGold wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and several ministers to complain about Doc’s permit application process and to ask them to intervene.
Doc had declined an application to clear vegetation from about 6ha of lizard habitat at New Zealand’s largest gold mine, northwest of Dunedin.
Doc said the company had not supplied the department with enough information to make an informed decision.
When Doc declined the application OceanaGold said without permits in hand by the start of October work would be suspended for 700 direct employees at the mine and more than 200 contractors and their staff, which would result in layoffs.
As the news broke, Doc deputy director-general Ruth Isaac back-tracked.
She said there had been a miscommunication and Doc had declined the application "too quickly".
The statement Doc provided to media at the time said the department would work closely with the company, noting Conservation Minister Tama Potaka had directed Doc to clear its permit application backlog, which had since dropped from 1300 applications to less than 550.
At the time, Doc declined to release a letter its director-general and several ministers had received from the company.
OceanaGold senior vice-president Alison Paul also declined to release the "very long technical" letter.
However, this week, in response to an official information request, Doc released the letter along with other email correspondence relating to the company, the letter and the decision.
The letter to director-general Penny Nelson, dated July 6, was copied to Mr Luxon as well as ministers Mr Potaka, Chris Bishop, James Meager, Winston Peters and Shane Jones.
It said the decision to decline the application came as "a great surprise and disappointment", and it raised concerns about other applications lodged with Doc, calling on the department to ensure the company knew what information might be required to progress the application "urgently".
"Given how important these two permits are for the ongoing viability of our Macraes business, we have taken the step of copying this letter to ministers," the company wrote to Ms Nelson.
It is not clear from the information released by Doc whether Ms Nelson was made aware of another letter sent the same day to Mr Luxon and the ministers.
In that letter the company said it had "critical concerns" about Doc’s application process and decision-making.
It said Mr Jones and Mr Meager had recently visited the mine and extended an invitation to Mr Bishop and Mr Potaka to do the same.
It outlined "concerns with the Department of Conservation", including that the permit application had been "excessively delayed" for two and a-half years before it was "summarily rejected" at the "11th hour".
The company went on to "appeal for intervention".
"Given the serious nature of our concerns and the disproportionate detrimental impacts the Department of Conservation’s actions (or lack thereof) will have on the Macraes operation, we are writing to you directly to alert you to these issues," it said.
"We have exhausted all efforts to engage with the Department of Conservation in a reasonable manner.
"On several occasions, the department has used resource constraints to justify only processing one application at a time.
"We put on the record that [OceanaGold] is prepared to meet appropriate and reasonable costs of the department to expedite the process.
"If additional resources are required, we are happy to meet this."
