When I read the latest contribution by Shane Jones to the Santana mining debate in the ODT article ‘‘Hyperbole — a dig against mining’s doubting Thomases,’’ (13.6.26) I was reminded of that old saying about the pot calling the kettle black.
Or, as Minister Jones might put it; ‘‘a case of the cast-iron cauldron delivering an eloquent lecture on the dangers of excessive pigmentation.’’
After all, this is the same Shane Jones who went on to describe Dunedin’s new hospital as the ‘‘most expensive hospital in Western civilisation’’.
I haven’t checked every hospital ever built across that vast expanse Jones describes as ‘‘Western civilisation’’, but a brief look across the Tasman reveals that the Royal Adelaide Hospital, opened nearly a decade ago, cost more than $A2 billion and South Australia’s new Women’s and Children’s Hospital is expected to cost around $A3.2b.
I am assuming, of course, that Australia still qualifies as part of Minister Jones’ Western civilisation, but there may well be a very strong case for him excluding it, because Australia also provides some useful lessons when it comes to examining claims he makes about the public benefits of mining.
The question is not whether mining creates jobs, or whether gold has value. Of course it does.
The question is whether communities are being given the full picture in the case of the Santana fast-track application.
When mining companies and their political champions promise economic salvation, we are entitled to ask: how much tax and royalty revenue actually returns to New Zealand? How much profit leaves the country? What happens if rehabilitation costs exceed the bonds held?
And who is left managing the tailings, water quality and landscape impacts decades after the gold has gone?
It is that last point that has been at the heart of my questions to Minister Jones. Who is left managing the tailings dam once the mine has closed?
Australia offers plenty of reasons for asking that question.
Victoria’s Auditor-general identified mine rehabilitation liabilities of about $A1.17b, with rehabilitation bonds falling hundreds of millions of dollars short. The Benambra gold mine is a real example of a failed operation where taxpayers ultimately inherited long-term rehabilitation responsibilities.
Further north, abandoned mine liabilities in the Northern Territory have been estimated at around $A1b, leaving taxpayers to fund remediation long after the economic benefits have disappeared.
And beyond Australia, the 2014 Mount Polley tailings dam failure in Canada remains one of the most cited examples of how even modern mines operating in advanced regulatory environments can leave future generations dealing with the economic and environmental consequences for decades.
That is why the fast-track process deserves careful scrutiny. The gold will still be there next year and the year after that.
But the questions we fail to ask today may be with us for generations.
Surely scrutiny before the fact is preferable to regret after it.
Fortunately, for those of us who find ourselves numbered among the minister’s ‘‘doubting Thomases’’, Otago provides a rather convenient opportunity to examine the specific claim he makes about gold being the answer to paying for things like hospitals.
Less than 100km from the site of the new Dunedin hospital sits New Zealand’s largest gold mine. Macraes Mine has been extracting gold from Otago for more than three decades. If gold mining is the answer to funding hospitals, then Macraes should be the perfect case study.
During much of the time that gold has been extracted from Macraes, and exported offshore, the people of Otago have campaigned, lobbied, debated and argued for a hospital they believed their region deserved.
If mining is the key to funding public infrastructure like hospitals, as Minister Jones claims, these two stories should fit neatly together. Yet somehow they don’t.
Public reporting does not clearly show how much corporate tax Macraes Mine itself has paid, but it has been reported that the parent company, OceanaGold, paid no New Zealand corporate tax in two of the past five years — 2021 and 2023.
That does not mean no wages, GST, royalties or other economic benefits were generated. Undoubtedly they were. But that is precisely why greater transparency matters.
If Macraes has delivered substantial public value over the past three decades, New Zealanders should be able to see that value clearly and understand how it has been returned to the communities and public services that mining advocates point to when making their case.
Which raises an obvious question. If the connection between gold mining and public prosperity is as straightforward as Minister Jones argues, why are we still debating how to pay for the hospital just down the road from Macraes?
Hospitals and mines have something else in common. Both are decisions whose consequences outlive the politicians who champion them.
The difference is that we expect a hospital to remain an asset for future generations. We should be equally determined to ensure today’s mining projects do not become tomorrow’s liabilities for those same future generations.
Minister Jones clearly intended the phrase ‘‘doubting Thomases’’ as a criticism. I prefer to think of it as a compliment.
A doubting Thomas is simply someone who asks for evidence before accepting extraordinary claims.
That seems a rather sensible standard when discussing both the ‘‘most expensive hospital in Western civilisation’’ and promises that more mining will pay for it.
• Sir Ian Taylor is the founder and managing director of Animation Research Ltd.
