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 [Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investingnews decom and here today with me is New Zealand resources Minister Shane Jones thank you so much for being here great to have you look it's an overwhelmingly large event and it's important that we discuss not only minerals but why new Z is back at this event I think that's a a great place to start so you're we're here at pdac we're on the second day of the event as you mentioned pretty overwhelming there's a lot going on here

and the first time somebody from the New Zealand government has been here in in over a decade so why was it important to come oh look it's an important sign our government wants to reinvigorate the mineral sector uh New Zealand an English-speaking oecd country we have a GDP about 260 billion us but we have a valuable array of minerals back home obviously the most important one's gold and you still have some coking coal and a raft of um uh Rew worth minals including iron Sands so it's important

that we signal both to fellow Travelers and potential investors we're open for business yeah and I think that leads well into the next question I was going to ask you your key goals at pdac what are you looking to accomplish here well it's it's really important that the various firms that operate out of New Zealand sell Services engaging with the investment community that I stand um in solidarity with them but also to convey uh to the broader investment community and potential mining firms that although

we're a dairy nation and we're the land of um the hobbits uh we are we are also very keen to reinvigorate and grow to at least $3 billion worth of export Revenue our mining sector and you you can conceive the New Zealand economy as being akin to a quiver of arrows and each Arrow has to strike a Target and we recently refined our foreign direct investment rules and we've passed a fast track uh One-Stop shop piece of legislation which will accelerate the pace at which investors and um

inevitable mining firms can gain the necessary permits to do business in New Zealand yeah that all sounds very positive and certainly want to talk about the future of mining in New Zealand before we go into that a little bit more do you mind talking about the the history of mining in the country for those who might not be familiar with the background there yeah so New Zealand has a population of about 5 million that's located near Australia and the South Pacific the original inhabitants were

the Polynesians these uh the various people that spread across the Pacific over thousands of years and then in 1840 not like Canada the British created a colony there and then we grew to a level of full Independence uh historically the original uh miners were attracted by gold we have small deposits of Manganese and copper but it was the Gold Rush and obviously coal because that powered the economy not unlike other parts of the oecd world nowadays we are putting a great Accent on security uh economic resilience

and we're attracting and changing the law to make it a lot more feasible to extract and develop greater resilience through using our own resources and quite frankly our own natural endowment okay really good to get that background information and you know looking forward to the future lots that you're doing to promote the resource industry including launching mineral strategy and critical minerals list we'll look at both of them do you want to share a bit more about the minerals strategy to start yeah other countries

are Tad further ahead than new zealanders we call ourselves kiwis after the national bird but look it's important that we provide a signal to overseas uh experts with their investors from the geology community and we're going to put a lot more effort into creating high quality data that gives you a geographical indication of where the resources are but probably the most significant thing New Zealand has done has passed a FastTrack piece of legislation which um arguably gives the most U permissive regime certainly in

the english- speaking World um to to facilitate and accelerate mining that's not to say there's no guard rails but we have um developed a level of aversion against the weaponization of features and elements of the environment to the point that often projects have been snagged and they've often been ins sneered and endless bureaucratic processes and that's given in the investment Community New Zealand a very difficult reputation and my job is going to turn that around and part of coming

here is to enable people to see someone in the flesh that is promoting the SE sector once again in New Zealand yeah I think that's promting times and just yeah the length of time that it takes to move these things forward that's a huge complaint I think everywhere in the world in terms of the mining industry is there anything more you would say about how you're balancing that with you know putting those guard rails in place well look we have unashamedly passed a statute our system is the British

parliamentary system so we've inherited a system which has some s similarities to Canada but without the federal states look what we've done is clearly and unambiguous unambiguously identified that the purpose of the Fast Track legislation is Economic Development it does give due recognition to the rights of the native tribes it also enables communities of interest to be involved but the overarching purpose of the statute is economic development because we want to take our country into a new

Epoch of wealth and prosperity and we are no longer going to enable these trickle rle processes to hold projects um to redson yeah what has the reaction been so far I imagine from the mining industry quite positive what about outside the mining industry you ask a very good question because we're overturning 20 30 years of Orthodoxy where environmental matters were naturally considered to be of a higher moral purpose than Economic Development it it's had um it's had episodes of Whitewater and as a politician um you

have to front those uh areas of controversy but look vast majority of the New Zealand Public uh they do want to see us move in the context of dealing with climate change dealing with the economic resilience uh taking a new attitude towards uh Mother Nature's endowment which we have and regard as a key part of our country they've got a lot of support they're prepared to give a lot of support to a politician like myself but I wouldn't underestimate that it is a like other Western Nations I'm

sure Canada's got the same thing when when it thinks through how to Fast Track some of the big projects for example in British Columbia but we'll set our objective we pass the legislation and it's important that we consistently transmit the right message to the Border um mining community that is already in Australia and uh showing a great level of interest to come from the city all right yeah thank you for going through that it's clear that's in motion and moving so let's take a look over at the

critical minerals list so it sounds like the big change there was adding gold and metallurgical coal so they account for 80% of New Zealand's mineral exports but you know I can see how gold and metalurgical coal might necessarily not fit with what somebody thinks about as a critical mineral so maybe we go into that and explain the reasoning behind putting them on the left yeah yeah once again a very good question in our Parliament there has been quite a debate as to why cop and coal if I use that

expression uh as not thermal coal I was included but the the reality is it's a key export it uh represents uh important Regional development and Regional jobs it genuinely is highly sought after as a key feature of the steel making process which after all lies at the heart of a lot of the global industrial processing uh with gold gold is often the location where you find antomy and we have uh substantial potential for antinomy obviously this is of great interest to a host of significant investors from other oecd

countries for reasons that are should be evident to your listeners and and Watchers we've also got an iron Sands industry which is Sahara scale in size the challenging thing is that it is located on the bead of the sea so I would say going forward one of the key challenges to manage and uh ensure that the guard rails are fit for purpose is the extraction of iron Sands which are rich with vadium and titanium off the bed of our sea about 20ks about 20 km 12 mil 15 mil off the coast of newa oh that's really that's interesting

so you would want to move toward that that deep sea mining angle yes so it happens obviously in other countries off the coast of South Africa U but it will be a a novel development from New Zealand uh it's been on the cards for a long time large entities such as Rio historically held uh entitlements but in the event that it is capable of being permitted through the fast track once again I say with the necessary guard rails then this certainly will lift mining in New Zealand to a whole new level uh we also

have uh mineral SS uh on land and with a lot of garnet and other such minerals so look there's a there's a rich array of possibilities kiwis are probably regarded as um uh a site of Greg tourism as I said the land of the hobbits and we love our Sports such as rugby and we're very proud of our main industry of an export character which is our dairy industry okay really good to go into that thank you for that as well I want to go back to Coal because I know you've talked about this issue of debank for

those companies where the banks don't necessarily want to do business with them because of their connection to climate change so how how big of a threat is that issue what what are your concerns there well I regard that phase where the banks have swallowed excessively the climate Kool-Aid as a type of economic nihilism uh we are passing legislation uh hopefully prior to the next election but let's just wait and see to ensure that the banks in New Zealand which are largely owned by Australia focus on

genuine commercial criteria and creditworthiness and do not impose their luxury beliefs on God-fearing Garden variety businesses located in the regions of New Zealand we depend on Indonesian Co to keep our likes on and I looked at some unsatisfactory state of a the is because we have so much geothermal we have so much Hydro the majority of our electricity is generated from a clean green Source but you'd be familiar with the concept of firming a contingency fuel historically that fuel has been natural gas uh but that's run

perilously short and we're endeavoring to reinvigorate that so in the short term we do import coal how long that will go I don't know but I'm I'm quite agnostic about it and I do think though that the banks uh need to be called out uh as their job to be the moral Arbiters of how uh businesses regions or investors in US Zealand survive or die their job is to work within the context of what can make money and hopefully uh we will find the right balance in ensuring that such luxury beliefs don't

drive businesses out of existence now I know this is a big issue in a lot of uh oecd countries and this is our locally derived response to such excesses and I think just a small follow up on the note of you mentioned these in courts of call from Indonesia right so you want to increase production of your own Commodities but also is there anything you would add on this issue of supply chain security because this is a huge I think a global issue at this point lots of countries wanting to make sure they have secure Supply

chains yeah uh once again you've gone to the heart of the issue we're a distant Nation uh obviously we were english- speaking would inherited the uh commercial and political traditions of Britain so the law of contract is sact however now with geopolitical pressures growing uh a great deal of accent on Logistics and supply lines it's caused a small country like ours to look closer at Hope and look no one Bard into globalization more than New Zealand no one bought into structural adjustment

championed by the economists of the 1980s including Milton Friedman more than New Zealand but now we're learning a harsh lesson that what worked in the 80s and '90s has to be uh recalibrated and in the face of not only uh dealing with global commitments carbon and whatnot we must ensure that our resources can be used as much as possible within guard rails but at the same time we cannot match our e the price or the volume of Indonesian coal and until such time they've got more Hydro solar and wind investment but we

need to prepare for a time and this is my message to every other modern economy in in the oecd there will be times that you must rely on fossil fuel Because unless you're blessed with enous amounts of nuclear that's not the case in New Zealand yeah I think that's a it's a valuable message for for all of those countries I think we've gone through all the the questions that I had for you but before I let you go out to the the busy pdac any final thoughts you would leave investors companies with Oh look The

organizers the promoters and the hosts at this stupendous event it genuinely is a world leading event and obviously this is where Commerce is done in a face tof face way trading ideas identifying Ro where shared values can turn turn into sustainable profits I'm glad to be here very good well thank you so much for for taking the time to come talk about New Zealand and the mining industry really good to have you of course and once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this

is New Zealand resources Minister Shane Jones [Music]