Guidelines ‘hopeless’

Press, 28 November 1987, Page 4

Guidelines ‘hopeless’

Greymouth reporter

The draft mining guidelines issued by the Minister of Conservation, Ms Clark, yesterday were “hopeless,” said the president of the West Coast Gold Miners Association, Mr Tony Jury.

“For a start, the department did not even bother to consult the industry before drawing up the guidelines. Obviously this means that there is no such thing as balance,” he said.

The stages applied to the granting of even

prospecting licences would prove to be too time consuming and too costly for most companies to entertain, he said. “What you are left with amounts to a licence worth nothing. As I see it, if the guidelines are adopted, it would kill the industry on the Coast”

The association would be making submissions seeking to change the guidelines, but “we are already in trouble. Since the department emerged in April it hasn’t granted one mining consent on

the Coast” said Mr Jury. Plants were “parked up” because operations could not get consents and this meant people out of work.

The department he said, through the Conservation Act ignored the potential value of mineral resources within reserve areas. It did not have an expertise in mining matters and it was “quite inappropriate that it should be calling the shots. The’ industry should be left to those who know Something about it”