Is Shane Jones Right About Mining?

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, May 25th, 2024 - 36 comments
Categories: Environment, Mining, Shane Jones - Tags:

On Thursday Minister Jones launched his new pro-mining strategy in a rural village that was the actual birthplace of the Labour Party. 

“I deliberately chose to come to Blackball because we need to re-legitimise [and] reinvigorate mining,” the former Labour MP said. 

“It’s been abandoned by the Labour Party. They are now a metropolitan, identity-driven party that feels embarrassed about those historic roots.”

There’s no doubt of Jones’ theatrical precision. In political terms he is seeking to ensure Labour never ever gets another regional electoral seat ever again. 

“We need to use the endowments that we’ve been given, we need to profit from them and stop the catastrophisation that every time you put a shovel, a machine, a digger in the ground – you’re destroying the sacredness of earth mother.”

I’ve written before about how hard an actual ‘just transition’ would be for Blackball. 

What Minister Jones actually launched was a Draft Minerals Strategy for New Zealand to 2040. It’s not a huge industry in New Zealand employing about 5,000 directly and generating about $1 billion in exports. 

Jones is quite fortunate that there are some large mining prospects that are already getting closer to production. Santana Pty has already released an estimate to the Australian Stock Exchange that its proposed new gold mine in Tarras has about $4b in gold for extraction. 

With 18 months of permitting and pre-construction, it is likely that this massive strike will be a producing mine within this parliamentary term that will produce political gold for Jones.

About 40 minutes up the road from Blackball is Reefton, and that has been assayed as having a seriously massive deposit of Antinomy. 

Reefton through the sustained investment of one main developer has really turned itself around. A strike of this scale will strengthen it for decades to come. 

We don’t have to be reminded that the economic and social history of major parts of New Zealand would not exist without extractive mining, including Dunedin, most of the West Coast, most of central Otago including the boom towns of Queenstown and Wanaka, also Thames, Paeroa, and Waihi and many more. It’s still strong in our imagination as The Luminaries showed so clearly. There’s also a whole heap of New Zealand ghost towns from dead coal mining around Huntly and Meremere, and those barely clinging to existence in Ohai and Nighcaps and Kaitangata.

Mining and petroleum is one of our highest productivity sectors. Way back in 2011 it was calculated at a figure of $330 per hour worked addition to GDP, making it our highest productivity sector on that metric.

On the other hand there’s the Pike River Memorial, dedicated to the 29 miners who were killed in a single mining incident very close to Blackball itself.  It is also not for anyone except the super-rich to try at any scale. Todd Energy have poured in over a hundred million dollars into dry spudded wells in Taranaki: zip return.

But a Class A miner in New Zealand can easily command $150,000, and are always in hot demand for mines in Australia. A dozen of those salaries in a town like Westport or Reefton would do at least as much social and economic good as a new backpackers dedicated to ferrying hikers to the Paparoa Track. Get a few mines going and we’d need a strong School of Mines again, generating our own pipeline for skilled trades earning very, very big.

We don’t have the refineries that could make higher value minerals our of raw ore – other than the old Glenbrook mill (which no longer takes ironsand), and Tiwai Point (which doesn’t use mined product from New Zealand at all). But if there were sufficient sustained development, it might become worth it again as it has before.

The previous Labour-Green government were not supportive of mining. Late in 2023 they stopped any requirement for the state to promote mineral extraction. They passed the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Act 2018 which banned al new oil and gas exploration in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone. Three onshore exploration permits were granted, with just one going forward to a petroleum mining permit. 

The real test for Jones and this government will be if they propose mining on conservation land. 

New Zealanders have consistently marched against such a move in their tens of thousands, including myself, and I would happily do it again. 

I suspect Jones has found a lucky streak of timing, and he will continue the march toward re-investing in regions that he started with the Provincial Growth Fund. His strategy is likely to play a lot better in the South island than the north. 

As seen in the hikoi to parliament two weeks ago, a fast tracked mine would be vigorously opposed by Maori on the streets.

If he tried that Blackball speech in Mangonui or Kerikeri his own iwi would be out there telling him how they felt. Same in Taranaki against seabed mining. Who knows maybe the Puhipuhi gold prospect north of Whengarei will get back into frame again.

But for the South Island, on the assumption that he leaves the DoC estate alone, Shane Jones appears to be on a winner. Just maybe Shane Jones is partially right.

36 comments on “Is Shane Jones Right About Mining? ”

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  1. Obtrectator 1
    25 May 2024 at 12:00 pm

    I have to agree that it's daft to oppose all mining simply because it's mining. Some extractive activity will always be necessary. Just as long as the extractors clean up after themselves both during and after their operations, an obligation that has far too often been neglected in the past, and still is today.

    That's very interesting about the proposed antimony (not "antinomy") mine at Reefton. A deposit of possibly global significance right here in little ol' NZ. Remarkable irony, too, that antimony is an important component in both the historical technology of printing (its alloys make the best-quality moveable type), and now, it seems, in electronics and computer memories.

    • thinker 1.1
      25 May 2024 at 7:24 pm

      Think about the issue not so much about the mining, but about conservation land.

      What is the point of having conservation land, if you are going to mine it?

      I don't like like all the current downplaying of 'colonialism' per se because there is a lot of legacy from colonialism that we wouldn't want to do away with, even if we take it for granted – medicine, travel, education, for example.

      But, there were many bad things about colonialism that are probably the reason we use the term negatively. Power-mongering, exploitation of indigenous rights are but two.

      Another major one is the systemic exploitation of natural resources. Once it was realised that the world is a finite place, it led to a race, if you like, to build empires and systematically exploit natural resources for building fortunes for the wealthy.

      The worst of the exploited resources are harmful to the environment.

      It seems to me that one common theme about resource exploitation is the exploitation of people at the pointy-end of the process. Films like "Blood Diamond" shows the exploitation of ordinary Africans in diamond-mining. New Zealand's several major coal mining disasters, Pike River happening in our own lifetimes, is another example of people taking huge risks for a small share of the value of the resource being mined.

      It also seems to me that, in a world preparing for a cyber-revolution, and rethinking the selfish exploitation of the environment we must leave for our descendants, we now have a government prepared to not only take us back several generations, but to expose us all to the exploitation of 'us'.

      • Simbit 1.1.1
        26 May 2024 at 7:15 am

        Wee refresher on colonization: Indigenous Peoples didn't need to be colonized to acquire European innovations. Could've traded on a nation to nation basis (which was happening and was subsequently promised in treaties).

        • ghostwhowalksnz 1.1.1.1
          26 May 2024 at 11:24 am

          Yes thats right. However capital to use to use innovations and the markets for the end product usually followed the colonesians

    • georgecom 1.2
      27 May 2024 at 10:03 am

      some mining yes, mining like coal no. coal has no future and locking in a 10-30 year horizon is no sensical when we need to be carbon neutral by 2050 at the latest. Jones needs to be way more nuanced rather than some crude blustering about mining in total.

  2. Incognito 2
    25 May 2024 at 12:34 pm

    Mineral mining may not be as black & white but it remains a double-edged sword with (too many?) major pros & cons.

    As always, blind bias and prejudice make for polarising conversations.

    It [antimony] was also used in the military for lead bullets and armour.

    […]

    We are ethical operators, we've run mines before, we do everything right.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/516115/reefton-could-hold-5-percent-of-world-s-supply-of-antimony

    There would also be strict health and safety rules for workers during the mining process, as antimony was highly toxic, he [University of Otago emeritus professor of economic geology Dave Craw] said.

    No wonder that some mining jobs pay premium – would you like to mine for asbestos too?

  3. Patricia Bremner 3
    25 May 2024 at 12:38 pm

    As the daughter of a miner who worked in the Benneydale coalmine, I am Labour and I do not cringe Ad.

    The big money made by mines seldom trickled down to those working there. Health issues hard grinding shift work made many old before their time.

    The degradation of the environment, the fear of collapse, and the fear of the Mine siren is well remembered, though I was 13 when we left. Even in modern times this is many people's lives. Those who mine and mine owners do not live in those communities by choice. Fly in Fly out more the case.

    The safety failures, the narrow criteria applied to injury left many miners semi crippled with no pension or compensation.

    Modern mining uses mega machines and waste dams, Mining is a dirty activity, and mine owners seldom fix their mess. The trucking involved would be horrendous, unless we build a port for direct shipping, or admit Rail does have a role.

    As for Freddy Frog and Mother Earth, there well may be room for both Conservation Estate and Mining, but Waihi has reached the point of mining below the town as well as creating a huge crater.

    We need to decide, “When is enough enough?” Never for some people

    • Hunter Thompson II 3.1
      26 May 2024 at 12:31 pm

      " … mine owners seldom fix their mess."

      Too right; it cost the taxpayer $22 million to clean up toxic waste from the Tui mine at Te Aroha.

      Even if a mine does provide jobs it is only for the short term. Mind you, that's all Shane Jones is concerned about.

    • Gareth Wilson 3.2
      26 May 2024 at 3:05 pm

      Where would you prefer the metals in the machine you're reading this with to be mined?

      • Ad 3.2.1
        26 May 2024 at 3:37 pm

        Would be weird imagining life without the mined elements required for cellphones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, flat-screen monitors and televisions, spindle motors and voice coils on desktop computers, electronic displays, lasers, radar and sonar.

        Apple are making the effort to go 100% recyclable in some elements. But for electric car makers, Republic of Congo is the primary source and that's the environmental standard for mining we accept when we buy one. Mining here helps us roll back the worst vulnerabilities of globalisation.

        Speaking of which, in July Labour's regulations will kick in that require that all fuel companies keep a full month stored here. Which is a start.

  4. Darien Fenton 4
    25 May 2024 at 1:45 pm

    I am sickened by Shane Jone's deliberate attempt to undermine Labour History by launching this at Blackball. He couldn't even take a moment to visit the Wheel of Remembrance for the 29 Pike River Miners, still lying in the mine. I heard that bosses gave workers the day off to attend the meeting – don't know from which mines, because there are none in Blackball any more – and I bet if it had been a union meeting, they would have been denied. I visited Blackball on many occasions particularly when the Wheel was unveiled and when Sue Moroney launched her meals and rest breaks Members Bill which eventually became law under Labour. I met many locals, in the pub, at the famous Miners Hall, at the working men's club and at the Blackball Hilton. Not many of them looked like the pics in Shane Jones's pics, who all looked like bosses to me – apart from one old bloke from the United Mine Workers Union – you know that union, eventually smashed through the Nats Employment Contracts Act? And where was the local MP Maureen Pugh?

    • Basileus Dolomedes III 4.1
      25 May 2024 at 9:43 pm

      Going to Blackball was a smart move by Jones, accepting the opportunity offered by Labour's mutation into a woke identity-focused party of the PMC.

      [Fix the typo in your user name in your next comment – Incognito]

    • Tiger Mountain 4.2
      26 May 2024 at 10:47 am

      Well put Darien. There is no excuse for Mr Jones. He has become the worst type of right opportunist.

  5. Incognito 5
    25 May 2024 at 2:54 pm

    From the TS Media section: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2405/S00121/ours-not-mines-blasts-draft-minerals-plan-saying-it-highlights-the-current-government-lacks-economic-understanding.htm

    “It is completely baffling that if the government truly believed minerals were the way to make New Zealand prosperous, why are they happy for 97.9% of the money to disappear off shore? Why not look at putting a real royalty on our minerals? Has the minister already promised his mining mates the royalties will stay low?”

    As usual, the international corporate offices are laughing all the way to the bank, also owned overseas, because of the gullibility, naivety, and the ease by which some people in NZ are all too happy to sell ‘their’ family silver (grandma included) for a few ‘blankets & muskets’. Oh, the irony!

  6. Maurice 6
    25 May 2024 at 3:04 pm

    Shane Jones' position is largely a predictable back-lash to years of 'green' sanctimony where the use of the products of "extractive" industries is perfectly OK …. as long as it is not happening here and we can be smugly "clean and green". To keep the electric transition going ALL these elements are required and that means 'extracting' them from somewhere. At least we do not have child slave labour scheduled for use in our mines …

  7. bwaghorn 7
    25 May 2024 at 4:00 pm

    Wonder if jones had a carpet bag in his carry on , an electorate seat for ghe next leader of nzf?

  8. Mike the Lefty 8
    25 May 2024 at 4:47 pm

    Shane Jones promising riches to be made for everyone and that the mining companies will support the community.

    Except he didn't add that most of the workers will come from overseas because they are cheaper and that most of the profits will go that way too.

    Jones wallows in the irony that he puts on his wizard act in the historical heart of unionised New Zealand but that he and the government will make damned sure that the unions will be shut out completely.

    • Ad 8.2
      26 May 2024 at 3:41 pm

      Like teachers, surgeons, police, soldiers, engineers, and nurses, it's better to train up the workers here. Until we do, we have to import pretty much everyone. The A Grade tunnellers can be attracted to stay if New Zealand companies pay reasonably and provide the consistent pipeline of work. It has been done and it can be done.

  9. AB 9
    26 May 2024 at 9:39 am

    As usual, the only things that matter are sustainability and ownership.

    Sustainability means the extraction and use of minerals etc. is carbon net-zero and has no/minimal effect on biodiversity. That pretty much rules out coal, but will allow other things to be mined.

    Ownership means that everything under the ground is a free gift of nature and belongs equally to everyone. Any benefits/profits that come from its extraction after workers have been paid for their labour, must flow to all citizens.

    Nothing that Shane Jones says suggests to me that either of those conditions will be met.

  10. KJT 10
    26 May 2024 at 11:58 am

    Thames, Paeroa, and Waihi

    Some of the poorest towns in NZ, after the extractive industries finished with them.

    Leaving a mess to clean up.

    So much so that a previous round of regional economic development, in the 60's and 70's, was needed to rescue them.

    As for the West Coast.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 10.1
      26 May 2024 at 12:53 pm

      Rogernomics made these towns poor

      Thames and Waihi had government supported industry after the end of mining. From the 1950s-1980s. Railway and vehicle assembly in Thames and TV plant in Waihi( building still there). Tariffs and government policy for full employment meant local industry was distributed to where the people lived.

      West coast coal mines were very active up till the 1970s this is Greymouth wharf colliers 1950s

      • alwyn 10.1.1
        26 May 2024 at 5:42 pm

        Those were the days.

        We had a TV assembly plant in Waihi. Our own TVs built in New Zealand. What could be better? Well in 1975 a 26 inch TV cost about $840. Converting that with the RBNZ inflation calculator gives us a figure of about $9,900 today. It was about 9 weeks of the average weekly wage at the time.

        We can't get TVs that small today I'm afraid, or at least they aren't readily available. At Noel Leeming at the moment you can get a 32 inch one for about $335. That is a 30th of the real price in 1975. It's not built here of course but do you really want to go back to the dark ages of self reliance for everything?

        • Drowsy M. Kram 10.1.1.1
          26 May 2024 at 8:45 pm

          … but do you really want to go back to the dark ages of self reliance for everything?

          Oh alwyn, you write as if we had a choice. We are each a part of many systems.

          The new age of illusion – Climate Change, Overshoot, and the Future of Civilization [1 May 2024; PDF]
          Overshoot is a terminal condition.

          Too Clever by Half, but Not Nearly Smart Enough
          Do we modern humans, unlike all subsystems of Gaia, get to choose our future? Over 8 modern humans believe they can (ask them).

          My point in all of this?
          “The higher and faster you grow, the further and faster you fall, when you’re building up capital stock in a nonrenewable resource. In the face of exponential growth of extraction or use, a doubling or quadrupling of the nonrenewable resource give little added time to develop alternatives…. The real choice in the management of a nonrenewable resource is whether to get rich very fast or to get less rich but stay that way longer.”

        • Patricia Bremner 10.1.1.2
          26 May 2024 at 10:39 pm

          Alwyn. those TVs had materials that affected people. Cancers were common

        • ghostwhowalksnz 10.1.1.3
          28 May 2024 at 11:29 am

          All electronics have fallen in price since then not just ones 'assembled in NZ' under the import licensing system. So your comparison is grossly misleading

          My first home desktop computer was $990 in 1998- a very basic system even then. It was fully imported .

          Full employment ( they meant it to mean very little unemployment too) and the limits of foreign exchange earnings we had were combined to produce work in local factories from shoes, clothing, whiteware , building supplies, furniture , car assembly, home electrical goods.

          Australia also had protection of local manufacturing so it wasnt just NZ.

          A major reason was export earnings wouldnt cover the cost of imports so that parts and materials were imported instead which were made up to the final product here. The factories were spread around too. I would go to school past a new biscuit factory in Aucklands then outer suburbs, near the source of labour. A student job during university was another suburban factory making dried soup and similar ingredients

          • Belladonna 10.1.1.3.1
            28 May 2024 at 11:38 am

            A major reason was export earnings wouldnt cover the cost of imports so that parts and materials were imported instead which were made up to the final product here.

            So what changed by the 80's when the removal of import tariffs killed off the local manufacturing industry?

            Had we just got better at exports?

            And, while I agree that the OP example wasn't an apples with apples comparison – comparing the prices pre- and post-tariff removal – certainly illustrated that we were paying a premium for 'home manufactured'

            Note – at least in the automotive industry – we weren't importing from countries with low-cost labour – these were imports from Japan, the US and Australia.

        • KJT 10.1.1.4
          30 May 2024 at 2:33 pm

          TV prices would have dropped as technology improved, wherever they were made, so prices then and now is not a valid comparison.

          Even now there are technologically efficient NZ designers and manufacturers successfully competing world wide.

          Now, NZ below median wage earners can afford TV's, but not food!

  11. Jeff 11
    26 May 2024 at 12:01 pm

    Mining, if the profits are nationalised and used to help tackle poverty as well as initiatives to offset the carbon impact could be great for the country. That is the real legacy of the mining labour unions (also look at countries like Norway and their natural resources.)

    Except the NACTNZ coalition isn't interested in that. 98% of profits will go offshore (maybe the remaining 2% will go into Shane Jones's pocket) and it will negatively both the environment and NZs environmental brand. How is that good for NZ?

  12. John 12
    27 May 2024 at 12:50 pm

    Of course Shane Jones is right the evidence is there for all to see.Unfortunately many base their opinion on emotional rubbish as a ploy to garner votes.

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