Economic specialists were asked to sum up the status of the project at a one-day hearing session this week as the Santana Minerals fast-track proposal rumbled on.
Economist Benje Patterson, who was appearing for the applicant, said from a GDP perspective, the project was worth about 5.4% of the GDP of the inland Otago economy in 2024 figures.
‘‘This is a very, very large piece of economic work for the local economy. Nationally it is a smaller amount for the total NZ economy,’’ Mr Patterson said.
‘‘But as a fast-track decision it would be one of the biggest if not the biggest in terms of potential economic activity into the NZ economy.’’
Economist Kirdan Lees, appearing for the Otago Regional Council, said there was no definition available in what significant means in this context of the mine.
Economist Natalie Hampson, appearing for the Central Otago District Council, said her thought early on was the project was significant in a regional setting but not in a national context and that had not changed.
She said a national significant project had quite a high threshold, giving an example of a large power generation project.
Doubts over tax and royalties payments also lessened the consideration of the project being nationally significant.
Economist Geoffrey Bertram, appearing for Sustainable Tarras, said the only benefit in the project was the wages paid above the residential wage. The project had to be significant as that was why they were at the hearing.
He said there were very many non-monetary impacts of the project which could not be ignored.
But putting a money value on those effects was hard and he could not help the panel on how it was done.
Putting a value on non-monetised benefits was debated at the hearing at length on Wednesday, with Mr Patterson describing them as ‘‘ropey’’ and subjective.
But Richard Meade, who appeared for Sustainable Tarras said this valuing of non-monetary effects was a common practice in economics and had been done for years. He said it could be done but Santana had decided to not carry that out.
Bill Kaye-Blake, appearing for the Environment Defence Society, said the project benefits were overstated and the costs were understated.
