However, the mining industry says the Australian mining magnate is looking for rare earth minerals — exactly what is needed for the Government’s transition away from carbon.
Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy holds a raft of exploration and prospecting permits in New Zealand, including one from Dunganville through to Kumara, another from near Ngahere to Marsden, and one around the western edge of Lake Brunner and the Hohonu Range.
Green Party spokeswoman for conservation Eugenie Sage turned up the pressure on the Labour Government to honour the pledge from former prime minister Jacinda Ardern in 2017 to stop new mining on conservation land.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had granted Mineralogy International at least 10 mineral permits to explore and prospect for minerals.
"One of the prospecting permits also covers 28,000 hectares of conservation and private land around ... Lake Brunner, the largest lake on the West Coast. This includes significant ancient podocarp forest," Ms Sage, a former conservation minister in the Labour-Green government, said.
"Clive Palmer is a mining billionaire, and Australia’s fifth richest person. Mining is invasive and can harm biodiversity and ecosystems. It can leave local communities to deal with severe environmental harm and the aftermath of a boom-and-bust employment cycle.
"Companies such as Mineralogy International Ltd should not be able to plunder nature here, especially on conservation land."
But Minerals West Coast manager Patrick Phelps said the Green Party’s spin doctors had picked some curious tactics.
As far as he was aware, Mr Palmer was "kicking a few stones over here and there" looking for lithium and rare earth elements.
"Both [of these] are used for producing wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles, all of which the leadership and membership of the Green Party affect to support.
"Either way, I suspect there’s a lot more work to be done before mining is likely."
The gap in prosperity between New Zealand and Australia had been in focus in recent weeks, Mr Phelps said, noting that much of Australia’s prosperity came from mining.
"Mining’s footprint on conservation land is small. Over nearly four decades, only about 4ha in 10,000 have been impacted by mining — an area smaller than Lake Brunner, incidentally. Finding an economic resource, and then navigating the Crown Minerals Act, Conservation Act, Wildlife Act and Resource Management Act is no mean feat.
"Ill-defined ‘environmental harm’ resulting from mining, alluded to in the Green Party’s petition, is hard to identify in modern times where miners have been operating under modern legislation," Mr Phelps said.
— The Greymouth Star
