Open Letter to Hon. Chris Bishop Minister for RMA Reform and Fast-Track Approvals
Kia ora Minister,
We may not always agree on methods, but I am confident we share the same underlying objective: making decisions today that genuinely serve New Zealand’s long-term interests.
That is why I want to begin by acknowledging something important.
The Resource Management Act needed a serious makeover.
We’ve been too slow at building the things that will actually define our future. Renewable energy, electrification, advanced manufacturing, and the infrastructure that supports them. These are the projects that create real, compounding wealth for the next generation. These are the opportunities that fast-track us to the future, rather than the past.
Which is why I am concerned about the inclusion of the Santana gold mine at Bendigo in Otago as a Fast-Track project.
This is not an argument against mining. Mining still has a place in a modern economy. But shouldn’t the place of any extractive industry always be assessed on a simple basis?
Risk versus reward.
What does the project deliver, and what risks does it create, for whom and for how long?
Viewed through that lens, it is reasonable to ask whether the Bendigo gold project belongs in a process designed for speed rather than proven scientific scrutiny. Whether it should be treated as a fast-track consenting problem, demanding a decision be made in 90 days, or even less, as some are proposing.
Bendigo is a cyanide-leach gold operation that is:
• producing arsenic-bearing tailings
• stored behind a dam
• located in a seismically active region
• at the headwaters of major water systems.
Taken together, these factors do not appear well suited to assessment under the compressed timeframes of the Fast-Track process.
What’s at stake here is practical and tangible.
The proposal before the Government is for a giant open-cast mine, involving multiple open pits and a tailings dam designed to hold toxic waste in perpetuity.
That tailings dam will be higher than the Clyde Dam.
And in this case, size does matter. It’s where the risk versus reward equation really breaks down.
So, let’s start with the smallest unit involved in the Bendigo mine.
A teaspoon.
Working from the numbers that I have been able to decipher from Santana’s application, it would appear that to produce just one teaspoon of solid gold, the mining process will have to excavate up to 1000 tonnes of rock.
Scale that process across the life of the mine, and the numbers become stark.
According to the company’s own fast-track application, the project requires well over 200 million tonnes of earth to be dug up and moved, mostly waste rock and soil, leaving behind 18 million cubic metres of toxic tailings.
Those toxic tailings include arsenic, a poison described as the “forever” toxin because it never goes away.
Along with arsenic there will be other heavy metals such as barium, strontium, antimony, lead - all stored behind a rock wall higher than the Clyde dam.
And this is where geology adds to the risk reward equation.
The mine site sits alongside known active fault systems, in an area where seismic-hazard planning is built on an accepted reality. A major earthquake will occur again.
The only uncertainty is when.
When that happens, we won’t only be dealing with damaged roads and disrupted services. We will be dealing with tailings dams, waste-rock piles, contaminated dust and toxic material designed to be contained indefinitely, now subjected to violent ground movement.
Whichever way we look at it, Minister, once the gold is gone and the company has moved on, what remains isn’t just a hole in the ground, but a permanent body of toxic waste that must remain safely contained for generations to come.
Isn’t this the kind of risk that warrants particular care when decisions are being made under a fast-track process?
This region has a global reputation built on industries that rely on clean water and international trust. These include horticulture, viticulture, tourism, food and beverage exports, freshwater ecosystems, not to mention the water supplies that support communities and businesses downstream.
This is the kind of long-term risk that fast-track processes struggle to account for over time, not whether everything works as designed in year one, but what happens in year thirty, fifty, or even a hundred, when the mine has closed, and responsibility rests entirely with the public.
Fast-tracking doesn’t remove that risk. It just shortens the time we allow ourselves to think about it. Which brings us to the other side of the ledger.
What does New Zealand actually get in return?
The gold extracted will be sold into global markets at global prices. Much of the technical expertise is imported. Profits largely flow offshore. Royalties, taxes, and jobs, provide some return, but they are modest relative to the value of the resource and the duration of the environmental liability.
As former West Coast MP and Minister Damien O’Connor, who supported mining where it was done responsibly, once observed, if gold mining really delivered the lasting prosperity its advocates promise, the West Coast would be full of millionaires by now.
And while gold is often justified on the basis of modern technology, only a small fraction is actually used that way. The majority is held as bullion, jewelry, reserves, or investment stock.
Once the gold is gone, it is gone forever.
What remains is the obligation to manage waste, tailings and contaminated land indefinitely.
This is not an argument about being for or against mining. It is a question of proportionality. Whether a project with this risk profile, and this level of return, is suited to a fast-track process at all.
And it raises a bigger question. What should we be fast-tracking?
If we are serious about projects that genuinely change New Zealand’s future, the answer lies elsewhere.
In renewable energy. Electrification. Bio-Forestry. Advanced manufacturing. And in technologies such as super-critical geothermal, a resource that could provide us with reliable, 24/7, fossil-free energy, forever.
I know you are looking at a number of these, but surely these are the projects that deserve to be fast – tracked. Projects where the rewards compound over time, where the benefits accrue broadly, and where the risks align with the long-term public interest rather than deferred to future generations.
Fast-tracking is not a neutral act. It’s a choice.
It signals what we value, what we’re willing to risk, and who we expect to carry the consequences if things go wrong.
The question isn’t whether mining should ever occur.
It’s whether projects with permanent waste, perpetual liability, and risks that compound over time should be assessed in a process designed for speed.
That is not an ideological question.
It is a question of stewardship, and of the kind of country we choose to leave behind.
I am confident that you and I would agree that we must think carefully about the country we leave for our mokopuna, our grandchildren. Fast-Tracking, removing roadblocks, is critical to that.
But let’s ensure we are fast tracking them to a future that is sustainable. A future where we are once again seen as the world leader we once were.
Ngā mihi, Sir Ian Taylor
— Dunedin businessman Sir Ian Taylor is the founder and managing director of Animation Research.
