The resources minister is creating a polarised debate where you’re either in favour of drilling and mining for everything, or you’re a woke climate alarmist. It’s going to backfire, argues Sefton Darby.

Almost 10 years ago a group of senior mining execs, government officials and the then minister of energy and Resources Simon Bridges gathered in a small beige meeting room in a large beige hotel in Hamilton. The meeting was happening on the sidelines of what passed for the New Zealand mining industry’s annual conference. I can relate what follows because at the time I was the national manager of minerals at MBIE, with responsibility for the impossible combination of both regulating and promoting the sector.

Bridges asked the execs what was troubling them the most. Excessive regulation or tax – no. Low commodity prices – also no. What was really distressing the mining industry, it seemed, was that people didn’t understand them. And the fact that people didn’t understand them was making their jobs all but impossible.

The cause of this “lack of understanding” had been Gerry Brownlee’s disastrous proposal to open up protected conservation land to minerals exploration. The proposal had led to such a massive public backlash that it caused the government to completely back down. That backlash meant getting any new mining project up and running was very difficult in the years following; the investment climate for mining became – ironically – much more challenging under National. 

Fast-forward to today and the question is this: is Shane Jones trying to make the same mistake? Is he, in being so pro-mining, at risk of creating the backlash that will destroy the industry?

By 2017 the Ardern government was very clearly saying there would be no more exploration for oil and gas, very little new mining and certainly not anywhere within a whiff of the conservation estate. And given that the Department of Conservation manages almost one third of New Zealand, everywhere is within a whiff of conservation land. 

Around this time I published a short book on the oil and mining debate in New Zealand . The cover quote of the book is “Everyone is angry around here and everyone is kind of right” – which is still an accurate reflection of the debate today. 

The book tried to find a middle ground in the debate, which it must’ve done because it generated both a thunderous denunciation by former Green MP Catherine Delahunty as well as some anonymous hand-written hate mail from someone on the West Coast condemning my anti-mining views. By the time the book was launched it was treated as a bit of curiosity by a lot of people because – to sum up the average conversation that I had with anyone in Wellington – “we don’t really do oil or mining any more, do we?”

The pendulum has now inevitably swung. Shane Jones launched the government’s minerals strategy in May on the West Coast, a place he described in his social media as having been “rudely abandoned by woke-riddled climate alarmism”. The first key action in that strategy: pass the Fast-track Approvals Bill. The bill has a few issues. 

In my current job I work for a company that analyses and models data on what communities think and feel about companies or entire industries. We can put a number on whether there is “trust” or not.

The mix of factors that make or break trust varies from community to community, industry to industry and country to country, but in mining communities there are two drivers of trust that we see pretty often. The first is regulation. Communities have higher levels of trust in companies if they are confident they are well regulated; there are red lines; that someone will hold companies to account. 

The second factor is perceived procedural fairness – do companies listen to and act on community concerns; are communities able to be involved in decisions that impact them; are the ways decisions are made transparent and fair? The proposed fast-track legislation seems to run pretty hard against both of these factors.

The problem with Jones’ hyperbole-filled culture war on behalf of the mining industry is that it creates a highly polarised debate where you are either in favour of drilling and mining for everything, or you’re a “woke, riddled munchkin who wants to fry eggs on solar panels” (Jones’ social media is a treat). 

The reality is more nuanced. I have plenty of friends who are woke-riddled climate alarmists, and a few of them work for mining companies. In reality, energy transition to address climate change will require a lot more of some mines (copper for electrification of everything) and a lot less of others (coal). There will be plenty of potential mining locations the government shouldn’t even consider touching, and others where it might work so long as credible and responsible companies do the work. Mining isn’t a yes/no equation – it’s about what’s being extracted, and where, how, and who is doing the extracting. 

The “who” is worth keeping an eye on. A decade ago there was a pretty steady parade of cowboy companies (and their lobbyists and lawyers) who made their way through the then minister’s office, and a few of those cowboys are back chomping at the fast-track bit. As Bryce Edwards notes, the lack of transparency and perceived conflicts of interest by decision-making ministers is going to be a major issue. 

I still work with some mining companies today and it’s an industry that is pretty obsessed with risk assessments. So here’s a two-point assessment for the New Zealand mining industry. Firstly – will it be easier to get a mine approved in New Zealand? Probably “yes” in the short term, but probably “no” in the long term because the fast-track legislation is so extreme it’s hard to see it surviving a change of government. That’s a real problem for an industry that takes decades to explore for and develop a mine.

Secondly – what are the risks to communities and companies alike? High – because you can’t legislate people’s voices out of the equation; communities potentially impacted by mining will find a way. The backlash is inevitably coming, and that will pull the pendulum hard back in the other direction. 

Sefton Darby is a Sydney-based consultant who has worked across industry, government and for NGOs working on transparency and good governance issues.