Mr O'Connor was today joining West Coast mayors at a meeting in Wellington today with Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters.
With the pending ban on new mines on conservation land, a Government 'no' to the Te Kuha open-cast coalmine near Westport, and fears that low value stewardship land will be permanently protected, there is talk of a return to the tension of the early 2000s when Labour ended native logging.
"The most endangered species on the West Coast is fast becoming the 'Coaster'," National Party list MP Maureen Pugh said at the weekend.
But Mr O'Connor said National's mismanagement of Solid Energy led to over 1000 job losses on the West Coast, and that was far more than the 50 that now may not eventuate at Te Kuha.
"That debacle didn't destroy our region and neither will this. We need to focus on the opportunities in front of us."
While backing gold and rare earth mining, he was lukewarm on coal.
"The issue of coalmining is a challenging one, given the international markets for coal."
He was "disappointed" in the Te Kuha decision, and the way it had gone in circles for so long but noted that the previous government had failed to make a decision so the current minister had.
"I understand the process."
However, other minerals were needed for new technology.
Asked about the pending 'no new mines on conservation land', he said there was still a lot of work to be done.
"It's not as simple as that. Existing mines have rights. As the Minister of Conservation herself has acknowledged, it can't simply be a zero ban."
For now, stewardship land is part of the proposed ban, Mr O'Connor said.
However, he said Labour Party policy was to assess the land, protect the high value land and use the low value land for production purposes.
Under National, all stewardship land had sat in limbo.
Asked if the West Coast was sliding back to the tough days of the logging ban, Mr O'Connor again blamed National, saying the biggest blow to the region had come under National's last term.
"We have moved on. The economy stumbled, but we still have more opportunities than other regions."
He agreed the answer was not just tourism, but a mixture of dairying, forestry and "we still have mining".
People should see the glass as half-full, "not half-empty" thanks to the $1 billion fund, he said.
