Shane Jones: Rhetoric rumbles on

On the face of it, the potential of mining to boost New Zealand's economy has appeal, well certainly in areas like job poor Northland.

The anti development din however driven by a minority of cross pollinating Greenies and hapus has twisted the public perception that the North is hostile to investment and jobs.

Their rhetoric is inversely related to the severity of our economic challenges. We are surrounded by daunting financial figures which makes their narrow approach unsustainable. The date on which we are supposed to be balancing the books keeps slipping into the future and we know that by 2016, our net international liabilities will increase to more than $200 billion.

The only thing the experts seem to agree on is the fact that the global economy is in for a rough ride, for at least the next decade. New Zealand might be better off than some, but the cushion effect of our dairy exports into China can't last forever.

Our regions need diverse sources of revenue. Some new sources of earnings can come from clean green technologies. This however will happen significantly when it makes good business sense and is treated as an organic part of the industrial process of improvement and change. Of course there will always be the option demanded by the Green politburo of political fiat and State subsidy.

The approach within Maoridom has to change. We have to move away from the instinctive shots of hostility towards the extractive sector and stop allowing ourselves to be misrepresented by green zealotry. Inevitably we hear criticism that new mining investment will enrich foreign investors. Smart investment in the natural resource sector will increasingly be joint Maori investment. Rather than feed an appetite for anti-establishment verbiage Maori leadership needs to show how international investment can serve both local and global interests.

As the settlement process draws to a close the need for large Maori investments bodies working with the Kiwi saver institutions and the Cullen fund will be obvious. Given our advantage as a protein capital there is a case for the promotion of the extractive sector to diversify Maori economic interests. There is a contest between green pessimism and Maori optimism. Unfortunately the extreme language used in mining debates scares most politicians and we wait for the latest polling results.

All investors need optimism but they also look for a fair process which is not compromised by timid statutory decision-makers. The Maori agenda carries the obligation of guardianship. This is dynamic however and cannot be confined to some static view of our way of life. Maori run the risk of continuing the grievance process despite settlements through opposing regional developments on the basis of green sloganeering. A blood sport perhaps but the result is diminished Maori confidence at home and more Maori digging in Aussie.

In my own rohe, for example, we know Northland has potential mineral resources (excluding aggregate, limestone and sand) of about $47 billion. That's certainly on the scale that we would be looking for, and it's about seven times the potential return of the current sale of State Assets.

Estimates in 2007 of the value of 14 non-metallic mineral types come to a total of $28 billion, and 16 metallic mineral deposits totalled $5 billion.

The 2007 report from NZIER projected that 1123 jobs could be created through mining and a further 1595 jobs could be created in the Northland region as a flow-on from the increase in mining. Northland's GDP was $5.9 billion for the year to March, 2011. An increase in mining could add $279 million a year to that figure.

Socially, we know the unemployment rate for Maori in Northland aged 15 years and over is about 14 per cent, compared with about 8.7 per cent for Northland overall and 11 per cent for New Zealand's Maori population. It is perverse that increasing number of young whanau are going to dig up Australia while their leaders hold lengthy hui to reject development in our own areas. Marae complain about how few people are available to assist, school rolls decline, rugby clubs diminish but still the rhetoric rumbles like thunder after the rain.