Forest and Bird leader shut out of Shane Jones meeting by police

A West Coast conservation leader is lodging a complaint with Police after an officer barred her from a public meeting in Blackball, called by Resources Minister Shane Jones.

The NZ First politician was in the historic coal-mining town on Thursday to launch the Government’s new draft minerals strategy, promising to relax regulations, improve access to conservation land and double the country’s mineral exports by 2035.  

Striding up to a packed community hall, Jones heralded his arrival via an under-powered megaphone but was drowned-out by a noisy protest from about 30 Forest and Bird and Green Party members denouncing the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill.  

Police mediated to calm angry mining supporters who yelled and swore at the protestors as tension surged.

Inside the hall, it was a different story.  Jones – champion of the minerals industry and persona-deeply-grata on the Coast,  was greeted with loud acclaim by the hundreds gathered to hear him.

As the meeting began, Suzanne Hill, the president of Forest and Bird West Coast approached the door with three other women to enter the hall.

“The front door was open, and the hall was very full, so we went up to the porch, and a constable came up to us and said we couldn’t go in.

“We said we’d just stand on the porch and listen, and he said ‘You clearly don’t want to hear what Mr Jones has to say – go back to your line.’  He was quite aggressive.”

Ms Hills told the protest group’s police liaison person, Andrew Beaumont, what had happened.

“The constable was corrected by a senior officer and told he couldn’t keep us out, but by then it was too late – they’d locked the door from the inside.”

The meeting with Jones had been advertised as a community one, and people intending to go had been asked to RSVP, Hills said.

“I was a registered attendee, and I did very much want to hear what the minister had to say.  The constable had no authority or reason to make that judgment.”

Hills wanted to ask Jones why the usual regulatory impact report was not being done on the fast-track Bill, she says.  

“That’s where the ministries give expert advice on the potential downsides of a new law – we’re hearing all about the benefits of this, which are economic – but nothing about the potential costs.” 

Beaumont, the Green Party’s co-convenor on the West Coast, says the constable overstepped his authority in refusing Hills entry to the meeting.

“The protest had been peaceful, and you’d like to think that in a democracy when a minister is speaking to a community at a public meeting, no-one would be turned away.”

Police had told the protestors they originally planned to send six officers to the meeting to ensure their safety, Beaumont says.

“But last Thursday they told us things had changed because the mining companies were giving their workers a paid day-off to go to the meeting, and they’d be sending 14 cops to keep things under control.”

Jones says he would not have objected and would have answered Hills’ questions had she been allowed in.

“Perhaps she deserves a military medal for trying.  I’ve met with the ladies of Forest and Bird, including (CE) Nicola Toki, and I’d be happy to meet with Ms Hills in person.”

In response, Police have not directly addressed the question of whether the constable overstepped the mark but say the hall was at full capacity and some people were unable to enter for health and safety reasons.

Hill says bigger issues including police neutrality are involved and she still intends to make a complaint.

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For those inside the Blackball meeting, Jones had the answers to a suite of complaints from an industry cast as environmental villain and chafing under a sluggish regulatory regime it sees as hellbent on sinking it.

Former alluvial gold miner Pete Morrison told Jones the Ministry of Business  Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was the biggest spanner in the works.

“Anything you need to get done through MBIE – just doesn’t get done. When I started, you’d put in an application and get it back in three months.

“Now it can be three years …and then you’ve got these flying squads of enforcement officials that go out and attack small alluvial miners  ‘cos they don’t think we’ve got the money to fight them.

“They cause absolute havoc and grief instead of trying to get the best outcome for the community and the country we live in. I don’t know how you’re going to change that.”

Jones – to laughter and applause – told Morrison the first thing he did as minister was tell officials he intended to rid the bureaucracy of its chronic ‘constipation’.

“If you’re asking, will I be requiring a simpler more efficient system for regulating your industry, the answer is yes. “

More details of his plans to deregulate would be revealed as part of the Budget, Jones said.

National Parks are sacrosanct, but he’s intent on freeing up DOC’s stewardship land for mining, he told the happy crowd.

“Stewardship land is not Conservation land –  it is the detritus of Lands and Survey and other ex government departments, parked in DOC in the 80s. “

And as for that four-letter word ‘coal’:

“I’m here to give voice to the fact that coal mines have a legitimate place in our economy. We are burning coal as we speak, to keep the lights on in New Zealand.  We have some of the finest coking coal in the world on the West Coast and you can’t have steel without it. “

And more music to the ears of some West Coasters, SNAs (or Significant Natural Areas) on private land are also in the minister’s sights.

Under the Resource Management Act, the new regulations would prioritise private property rights, he told the Blackball crowd. 

And a certain  West Coast hydro scheme turned down by the Labour-led government in 2019, ( i.e, Westpower’s Waitaha project)  should go ahead as soon as possible. 

The applause was rapturous.  It was, according to a number of old hands in the mining game – the ‘finest political speech’ they’d ever heard. 

Les Neilson, 79 and former president of the United Mine Workers, presented the minister with an old carbide lamp miner’s helmet  – a taonga Jones says he can’t possibly accept  – and they all repaired to the Blackball Workingmen’s Club for a beer.

Should Shane Jones, son of Muriwhenua and scion of  Dalmatian gumdiggers,  ever need a new spiritual home, he appears to have found it.