Parliament has removed any obligation on the Government to promote the mining industry.
It says this will help its programme on climate change.
But the mining industry thinks this action is a misguided attack on an industry that can actually help in the fight against climate change.
The law in question is the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA), which was amended in 2013 to require the Government to promote the industry in international forums and elsewhere.
It has now been changed under urgency to give the Government "flexibility", according to the Minister of Energy and Resources, Megan Woods.
“We have modernised the CMA for consistency with the goal of contributing to net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Megan Woods says.
“It doesn’t make sense to have a net zero goal in one law and a requirement in another to promote mining fossil fuels that takes us away from achieving that."
This change was long pushed by non-government organisations. But the mining industry had strong reservations, saying it could harm, not help, the environment.
The mining lobby Straterra is saying little now that the law has been passed. But during consideration of the law by a parliamentary select committee, the head of Straterra, Josie Vidal, made her feelings clear.
She said the Bill conflates mining and greenhouse gas emissions, when New Zealand produces minerals for roads and concrete, and metals for electronics and electricity generation and storage.
"In addition, New Zealand has significant prospectivity in a range of minerals that are not currently mined, that will be important for New Zealand’s future and the low-carbon economy."
She also defended the mining industry as a whole.
"It is one of the most productive sectors in New Zealand.....the average annual wage in mining is $102,600 compared with $64,000 for the economy. Mining is concentrated in small parts of the country so its impact on the economic development of certain regions is significant.
"The consequence of amending the CMA will be to shrink the contribution of minerals activities to the New Zealand economy over time, leading to further reduction in New Zealand’s already low productivity.
"At the same time there will be no benefit to the global climate or the New Zealand environment because of “carbon leakage” and the fact that mining occupies such a small area of our country’s land area."
But Woods says she is pleased she no longer has to promote the exploration of fossil fuels in onshore Taranaki. She concedes, though, that some fossil fuels will be needed for the transition to a low-emissions future, but that will be temporary.
And Woods adds minerals are also needed for technology such as wind turbines, solar panels and batteries, and the latest law would give the Government a greater role in managing these resources.
An extra change strengthens the need for miners to engage with iwi and hapu.
“This is a significant step towards a sustainably managed crown minerals estate to provide for future generations," Woods says.
37 Comments
Bollocks.
Business has been assaulting both the ecology of the planet, and the chances of future generations. That long-term rape needs curtailed - this s no attack, it's a reclaiming.
Good on her - and I don't/wont vote Labour and regard her generally as being uninformed. But not nearly as uninformed as the brigade who thing economic growth is good and see it as back on track. They I regard as ignorant, in the original meaning of the word.
Crazy stuff. mining is huge in the rest of the world, as they dig for all the battery/ windfarm/;solar raw materials etc ... required to go green.
So we disadvantage NZ while the world digs. Then when new technology comes along we have missed the boat and we suffer huge COL increases...
Thanks James offshore... We cannot make hay while the sun shines.
Last one out...
This is a significant step backwards for Nu Zulund. Already have less than 10 years of gas reserves available, and they increasingly limit the ability to use our natural resources. Instead we have to import it all from over seas. But hey, at least it doesn't count towards our carbon footprint...
That's how I read it too - they've just stopped subsidizing PR on behalf of the industry. They are private companies - let them fund their own PR. And from what I gather - the PR spend was on promoting mining to international investors - in other words, come and gain wealth from extracting stuff from our land and oceans.
If we're going to extract stuff from our land and oceans, that stuff and the companies participating in it should be owned by NZers.
In short, extraction of any of our resources should be nationalised - and only to the benefit/use of NZers, not for export.
To be fair, the stuff is generally nationalized under the Crown Minerals Act - Crown owns the minerals estate inc. petroleum, gold, silver etc and mining companies pay a royalty to the Crown on top of regular business tax etc. Which I think is the justification for the Crown going out to promote internationally as we don't have the expertise/capacity/tech in our small country to extract it ourselves. That said, I stand by my original comment that I don't think it's necessary given the two industry associations that have a strong promotion ability. Many of the members are international companies.
Please keep up Kate. These resources have already been nationalised (petroleum in 1936). So the resource is owned by NZers - companies extract it under a concessionary arrangement. And the Crown extracts fair return via a royalty. So the logic is (if you’ve kept up) it’s in the Crowns interest to promote its extraction as it (NZers) benefit. Or at least used to before the ban.
And the Crown extracts fair return via a royalty.
Fair return? I'm guessing you haven't actually looked into the royalties charged;
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2013/0126/latest/DLM5156989.html
And bear in mind, the royalty percentage was (I think) 3% for decades prior.
And as for exploration and prospecting permits - much cheaper than obtaining a resource consent to build a house;
https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/permits/petroleum/fees-royalties/
That’s because the Crown owns the resources and, used to at least, wanted a fair return in those resources. Why would existing members of industry associations want to fund the promotion of the entry of new explorers. You should think about these things a bit more before prognosticating publicly.
The current NZ guvmint wants to go GREEN but not do the dirty work. After all if we do the mining for the GOOD of the planet, the sheople might actually work out that GREEn is not GREen after all. And that all the pollution caused for the cause of going GReen is making it not so Green. And then the sheople will find that in the end "green" is actually a very dark shade of GREY.(one of the "thousand" so to speak)
Typical really. Not uncommon but in the end the countries that do the dirty work are likely to use a "go your own way" policy.
Then what is NZ Inc going to do?
We need engineers and electricians in the next government.
She concedes, though, that some fossil fuels will be needed for the transition to a low-emissions future, but that will be temporary.
Actually,lots of ffs for a long time yet. Try building a wind turbine without them. On average, 1MW of wind power requires 103 tonnes of stainless steel, 402 tonnes of concrete, 3 tonnes of copper, 6.80 tonnes of fibreglass and 20 tonnes of cast iron.
What a hypocritic bunch. We are perfectly happy for all the nasty mining to take place where we can't see it-and who cares about the working conditions in many of these mines-as long as we can get our hands on what they produce.
Everything needs resources. The comparative amount of resources is also important. How does building a wind turbine compare to a coal fired power plant (and the resources to provide the fuel) in terms of total resource per MWh produced over its lifetime?
True sustainability would be only using the equivalent of what can be replaced over its lifetime (for both resources and energy). That's back to the Middle Ages. As PDK points out, we'll get there at some point, we are just working on how fast that will happen.
That 1 MW wind turbine will produce somewhere around 60 GWh over it's 20 year lifespan, that's over 30,000 barrels of oil worth (about 5000 tonnes), let alone that burning oil is at best 50% efficient. All of which will require plenty of other infrastructure to extract and refine.
The concrete base can be mostly reused when the turbine is replaced, the copper, steel and cast iron are also easily recycled. Yes there's a problem with the fibreglass, but it's a heck of a lot better than extracting all that oil from the ground.
Some heroic assumptions there on capacity factor!
Extracting oil from the ground is a heck of a lot better than strip mining or using children to dig for cobalt surely? Oil can be used for a myriad of uses and as a bonus when you burn it you produce plant food. Making PDK's keyboard and solar panel for instance.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/minerals-used-in-clean-e…
The technology and the cost point is not there to go green yet for many, (the major part of the population). It may be there in 10-15 years. But these clowns think everyone is on 250k plus with government perks and don't see what the problem is. Only positive is that these clowns will be out of office for at least 2 election cycles and we can get some perspective on this so business and people have a chance to transition in a well thought out and planned process.
Source?
I haven't seen any data for August, the month isn't even finished yet. The July just finished was the 4th warmest on record for NZ:
https://niwa.co.nz/climate/monthly/climate-summary-for-july-2023
Hottest July on record, globally:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/global-clim….
I'm starting to get really worried. Someone told me the planet was boiling!
"Global cereal production heading for a record high"
Release date: 07/07/2023
It seems like many commentators didn't read or understand the article. It is just removing a requirement for the government to promote mining.
There are no new costs on mining companies, except the need to fund their own advertising, but that's hardly something that the government should be doing for any industry, and arguably wasteful government spending that should be cut.
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