Mayor says jobs will suffer after Minister Eugenie Sage cans mining company's land buy

Tuesday, 7 May 2019

OceanaGold's tailings reservoir from its mining operations in Coromandel. Land information minister Eugenie Sage declined an application from the company to purchase 178ha of land to build a similar site.

Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage has been accused of putting her personal opposition to mining ahead of her responsibilities as a Crown minister in blocking OceanaGold purchasing farmland near Waihi.

Hauraki District Mayor John Tregidga said the decision, released on May 3, was biased and showed disregard for the livelihoods of more than 360 local workers who are employed by the company.

Water fowl live on the reservoir created from the tailings from OceanaGold's Martha open pit and underground mines in Coromandel.

OceanaGold's application made under the Overseas Investment Act was to purchase 178 hectares of land to create a new tailings reservoir in a move the company pitched as safeguarding mining's future in the area.

Tregidga said Sage's decision surprised him.

* OceanaGold to start exploratory drilling on Coromandel forestry land**

'I knew where her personal feelings were on mining, but she is a minister, a senior minister of both conservation and land information and she should be able to be above that. If she had a conflict and couldn't make that decision, then she shouldn't have made it, she should have stepped aside.

'But with the decision itself, I thought common sense would prevail - and logic. This is a long term mine, it's been a mining town since the 1800s.'

Sage responded via an emailed statement:

'My judgement as Minister for Land Information was that converting productive farmland to a tailings dam and reservoir to store hazardous mining waste long term would not provide a substantial and identifiable benefit for New Zealand in the context of a sustainable economy.'

Tregidga was also disappointed with the silence from Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones.

'Where is the support from Minister Jones and New Zealand First? It's astounding to me that a government that earmarks three billion dollars for a Provincial Growth Fund designed to help regions like ours facing challenges such as high unemployment, is willing to whistle and look the other way when a minister wipes out hundreds of future jobs with one ill-informed swish of the hand.'

OceanaGold senior community advisor Kit Wilson said the purchase would have future proofed Waihi's mining industry if it had been approved.

'We have been mining here for 150 years. Waihi is a mining town and there is enough gold here for us to continue mining. It is disappointing that one minister has decided that she can determine the future of a town and its economy.'

The company had applied for 80 property purchases through the OIO in OceanaGold's 30 year history of operating in New Zealand and this was the first time it has had an application declined.

He stressed the decision would not immediately affect the company's Martha project, which would continue for 10 years.

But OceanaGold had other projects in the future that required extra tailing storage, which is what this land would have been used for.

Mine tailings are the watery rock sludge left over from the gold extraction process. The impoundments created in New Zealand to store this are different to the tailings dams used in overseas mining which are made of the tailings themselves. In January, a tailings dam burst in Brazil, killing 228 people.

'That is not how our tailings impoundments are built,' Wilson said.

'Tailings impoundments are built out of rock, to the same specifications as the Benmore Dam - like a water reservoir,' he said.

He said the company were weighing up whether to seek a judicial review into the decision.

'It's a possibility and we are investigating our options at this present time.'