Submission to Wellington City Council Draft Annual Plan 2010/11 by the WRCC - May 2010
Submission To
The Ministry of Economic Development
Maximising our Mineral Potential
from the
Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce
May 2010
INTRODUCTION
The Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce has membership of 1,000 businesses in Wellington city and represents a regional hub of Chambers of Commerce with a further 4,500 businesses as members. While most of our members are in the Small to Medium Enterprise category we also have as members 15 of the largest 20 companies in New Zealand. The Chamber promotes policies that reflect the interests of the region’s business community and the development of the Wellington economy.
In the Greater Wellington region, the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce is at the forefront of business development and advocacy locally and regionally. In fulfilling this role, the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce works closely with other chambers in the region, with the EMA (Central), Business New Zealand and with council-controlled Economic Development Agencies such as Grow Wellington.
The Chamber is pleased to be able to make this submission on the MED discussion document - Maximising our Mineral Potential.
SUBMISSION
The Chamber supports the proposed removal of land from Schedule Four of the Crown Minerals Act with a view to potentially allowing mining access if the benefits can be shown to outweigh the costs.
New Zealand has a large untapped wealth of minerals which we believe should be further exploited. Better accessing this resource has the potential to improve economic growth and achieve the government’s objectives of closing the income gap with Australia.
We fully support the environmentally responsible development of New
Zealand’s extensive mineral estate. With modern technology we believe it is possible to take better advantage of New Zealand’s rich mineral resource with minimal costs to the environment and we welcome government moves to do so.
We agree with the government’s assessment that the mineral potential of Schedule Four lands could be developed with only a small environmental impact. Only a very small proportion of the land is likely to be directly impacted.
While Schedule Four land makes up 40% of public conservation land, the 7,058 hectares proposed to be removed makes up just 0.2 per cent of Schedule Four land. It is likely that only a small proportion of this would be mined anyway.
It is in New Zealand’s best interests to improve our limited knowledge of the country’s mineral estate. Consequently, we fully support the government’s proposed technical investigation to enhance our knowledge of what and where that wealth is. Decisions can then be taken as to whether the benefits of mining outweigh the environmental and other costs and whether mining should proceed.
In supporting the selective mining of Schedule Four land, we can not emphasise enough the importance of preserving our environment as best as possible in the process.
It is not only the tourism benefits from New Zealand’s 100% pure image that are important. These are only a small part of this benefits arising from this preservation. Environmental preservation is at the heart of New Zealanders’ psyche. Notwithstanding this, we think the debate has become too emotional. Environmental degradation does not need to go hand in hand with mining - least of all the removal of schedule four lands.
Notwithstanding this, we are satisfied that there are large possibilities of extracting wealth without jeopardising the environment and we think we would be foolish to close off the possibility.
At the end of the day, there needs to be a trade-off between environmental costs and economic benefits but we are convinced that the balance is too far prejudiced against extracting the economic benefits and that the pendulum needs to shift the other way.
To this end, we believe that any mining on conservation land must be subject to strict environmental tests. We therefore support the proposal to consider future mining applications on a case-by-case basis.
We complement the Prime Minister, Minister Brownlee and Minister Wilkinson on the strong leadership shown by them in this process.
