Mining ventures face

Press, 27 December 1980, Page 10

Mining ventures face

By

OLDER RIDDELL

in Wellington.

The Government has been strongly criticised for its ■very, limited support for mining and the almost unmanageable procedures needed to obtain mining privileges, involving delays measured in years. The criticism comes from the Australasian Institute of : Mining and Metallurgy and is bound to influence the review of the Mining Act, 1971, the Government is now undertaking.

Opinion at a seminar held by the Institute was the resource and technical information appropriate to mining interests are almost inaccessible, while access to technological skills within New Zealand was either inadequate or too costly. A reticence within the mining industry to pool its resources in tackling common problems, including the promotion of mining interests, was also noticed.

Many of these themes apply to all scales of mining, but small-scale miners

in particular do not have the resources to overcome what the Institute called “the bureaucratic morass” or to convince a hostile community. Small-scale mining is the rule rather than the exception in New Zealand. The geological history of New Zealand favours the formation of small rather than large mineral deposits. Small deposits are usually mined on a small scale, although this need not be the case. The market in New Zealand therefore has been, still is, and is likely to remain, mainly small - scale even if large-scale mines continue to be developed.

The scale and level of technology practised in New Zealand mining, with the obvious exceptions, are more akin to that of a developing rather than a developed country — with the exception that labour and transport costs are high. However, there has been a decline in small-scale metal

mining here relative to other types of mining over the last 50 years. This may be because of diminishing resources, but a more likely cause is the external pressure placed on small-scale miners.

Many of the problems could be solved, the Institute believes, if the Government broadened and strengthened its mining policy and allocated the necessary re--sources to the Mines Divison of the Ministry of Energy. The Institute found a structural failure within the Mines Divison which was the root of many of the problems.

The Mines Division not only licenses and regulates the production of minerals but is also New Zealand’s largest producer of coal. This dual role of controller and producer fosters the widespread belief that State production of coal has an unfair advantage over the private sector. Perhaps, the