Fast-track Approvals Bill clears House: Why mining expansion could benefit Māori – Patrick Phelps

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Fast-track Approvals Bill passed, prompting Te Pati Māori to warn mining companies about “exploitation”.
• Māori participation in mining is high, with earnings significantly above the national median for Māori.
• Māori and iwi-owned entities have substantial investments in New Zealand’s mining sector, benefiting from lucrative opportunities.

As the political year of 2024 drew its dying breaths, the Fast-track Approvals Bill cleared its final reading in our House of Representatives. The same day, Te Pāti Māori’s leadership sent a letter to some companies on the list for fast-tracking. The letter – addressed specifically to “mining interests” – is summed up in the press release title: “Exploit the whenua, face the consequences”.

One line warns mining companies against “taking advantage of the indigenous people of Aotearoa”. If mining were to expand here in God’s Own, the data would suggest Māori, more than other New Zealanders, would take advantage of any opportunities arising as a result.

Stats NZ online figures show over the past 16 years, an average of one in four people working in New Zealand’s mining industry have identified as Māori. Some years, this has been as high as one in three.

In addition to high rates of participation in the sector, Māori who worked in mining took home a median weekly income of about $2300 in 2024. This was almost double the median for Māori earnings across all industries – $1224 per week. Māori in mining earned more on average than Pākehā working in the sector, who had median weekly earnings of $1726. Put simply, for every dollar Pākehā earned in mining, Māori earned $1.33.

A high level of Māori participation in mining is not confined to Aotearoa. Māori make up just under a fifth of New Zealand’s population, but account for a quarter of the 670,000 New Zealand citizens living in Australia, where mining accounts for a much larger share of the economy.

The visualisations below suggest that the concentration of Māori throughout Australia is greatest where mining is a key economic driver.

Māori and miners in Australia.

In 2013, a University of Waikato study found in addition to high rates of participation in mining among Māori living in Australia, it was noted Māori working in mining also out-earned the average Australian in similar roles in the sector.

Back here in Aotearoa, Māori and iwi-owned entities have investments in mining throughout the country.

One of New Zealand’s two major iron sand mines, Taharoa Ironsands, sits on the coastline of the King Country northwest of Te Kūiti. The land from which the iron ore is mined (and a large shareholding of the mining operation itself) is owned by The Proprietors of Taharoa C Block. The entity’s beneficiaries are 2000 shareholders who descend from Ngāti Mahuta ki Te Hauauru. Several million tonnes of ore per year are exported from this iron sand mining operation.

On the west coast of the South Island, large areas of productive exotic forests comprise Ngāi Tahu Forestry-owned land (covering almost 50,000ha). Where possible and permitted, gold is mined by third-party operators between the harvesting and replanting of timber. As the landowner, Ngāi Tahu Forestry collects tribute payments for the gold mined. According to Poutini Ngāi Tahu (mana whenua of the west coast), 90% of the iwi’s pounamu is sourced as a byproduct of third-party mining operations, which occur on Ngāi Tahu Forestry land and elsewhere in Te Tai Poutini.

East coast-based Wi Pere Holdings is a joint venture partner with Stevenson Holdings on a project to develop a coal mining operation on Mt Te Kuha, near Westport. If developed, the mine would produce about four million tonnes of coal for the export steel-manufacturing market over a 16-year period.

To date, the mine’s proponents have been unsuccessful in obtaining access to a 12ha area of public conservation land needed as part of the proposed 144ha mine.

If you are of a view any investment or development is inherently predatory and exploitative, I can understand why you would oppose the expansion of any industry, including mining. But if you believe there are ways in which an expanded mining industry would precipitate an inflow of capital in the form of knowledge and productive machinery, and that this would in turn increase the range and offering of opportunities in this country, then such development can be viewed positively.

It is hard to imagine ever having universal agreement on an issue as visceral as mining, nor its perceived sins and virtues. But it’s clear the offering of work and investment opportunities in a high-tech, highly skilled and highly paid sector is something many people are drawn to, especially Māori. More mining in Aotearoa can only lead to a greater abundance of opportunities – opportunities people are already taking advantage of, wherever they are able to do so.