The current coalition Government’s Fast Track Bill actively promotes mining and undermines environmental protection.

Granting consent for underground mining on protected conservation land would set a dangerous precedent for any of Hauraki Coromandel’s protected areas.

Rural land is not protected from mining (Comprehensive Mine Development is a discretionary activity in the TCDC District Plan) which means OceanaGold can apply to mine. Most of the active Exploration licences are on rural zoned land.

Private landowners can refuse access to their land however, effectively locking the gate to the mining companies.

A recent court decision awarding costs against Coromandel Watchdog, who challenged the sale of land to be used by OceanaGold for a toxic tailing dam near Waihi, is a reminder that challenging decisions is not a reliable pathway to success.

Historic court cases have resulted in the protection of the most valuable part of Hauraki Coromandel (mainly Te Moehau) from mining under Schedule 4 of the RMA. A review of management of Schedule 4 land is long overdue. NOTE Schedule 4 doesn't allow open cast mining in the Conservation Estate but if Wharekirauponga goes ahead they will be able to mine under Moehau.

WRONG: THE GOVERNMENT HAS YET TO HONOUR ITS 2017 ELECTION PROMISES. RURAL LAND IS NOT FULLY PROTECTED UNDER THE DISTRICT PLAN – IT CAN HAPPEN THERE.

Tailings dams contain the toxic waste generated from the mining process and are an integral aspect of the mining process. They are designed and built by the mining company without any specific New Zealand construction codes. Essentially, they are a self-regulated component that worldwide is proving less than desirable with repeated failures leading to catastrophic impacts involving loss of life, economic deprivation and environmental destruction.

Vale’s Brumadinho iron ore tailings dam in Brazil was the eleventh serious tailings dam failure in the last decade. Such catastrophic events are becoming more frequent, according to researchers at World Mine Tailings Failures (WMTF).

The mud wave from Brumadinho killed more than 250 people and devastated huge forest and agricultural areas.

In February 2021, the Brazilian government reached an agreement with Vale to repair all environmental damage, and to pay the families of people killed $7bn in compensation

WRONG: FROM 2007–2025 THERE WERE 75 RECORDED TAILINGS DAM FAILURES ACROSS THE GLOBE

Download the UN’s 2017 Summary on Tailings Dams

Underground mining still produces thousands of tonnes of toxic waste to add to tailings dumps and tailing dams are still required. These present a massive, long term and often lethal risk to our environment and communities.

There is significant risk associated with underground mining, especially from blasting, vibrations, subsidence and the toxification of ground water. These risks are not only restricted to when the mine is active but will continue well past the mine's closure.

Underground mining relies on constant blasting beneath forests and communities, which creates extensive vibrations which affect buildings, people and taonga species such as the endangered Archey’s frog.

In an effort to gain resource consent to drill under the Archey's frog, in 2022 OceanaGold funded an ‘eyebrow-raising’ study that increased the estimated number of Archey's frog from 5000 to over 50 million. This study has since been ridiculed by a number of independent experts who called the numbers “wildly inflated” and “ludicrous”, and described the funding of such a study as “problematic”.

The Archey’s frog is still classed as a RED species and critically Endangered on the IUCN international list. This is despite the OceanaGold funding research that lead to a declassification of the frog in New Zealand.

No research has been carried out on the affects of constant, intermittent ground vibrations on nesting kiwi. At the Wharekirauponga Conservation area, this could be up to five blastings per day or night, seven days a week

Underground mining risks polluting our fresh water aquifers with heavy metals, aquifers which connect to surface water including water supplies and rivers.

Subsidence and land collapse due to underground mining is also a problem.

WRONG: THE MAJOR RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MINING STILL APPLY

The bright orange river flowing through the Karangahake Gorge in August 2024 was a stark reminder of the environmental damage mining can do, even 100+ years later. The collapse of an old mine shaft meant that a toxic slurry was belched out into the Ōhinemuri River resulting in elevated arsenic levels and turning the water bright orange.

Toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, are used to separate gold from ore and can leak into the tailings storage. In addition heavy metals and additional toxins are released when the ore is crushed.

Gold mine tailings may contain elevated concentrations of metals such as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), and zinc (Zn).

These are safe when contained within the rock. Once they are released through the mining process however they can continue to leach into the environment long after mine closure, potentially for thousands of years.

The Tui mine (Te Aroha) was abandoned 40 years ago, yet toxic leachates such as lead, copper, cadmium and zinc continued to escape into streams from the tailings dam, poisoning the town’s water supply.

This has cost New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers $22M on remedial work to fix this toxic mess, with no guarantees of success. It could take up to another 70 years for the streams to naturally clean themselves. Monitoring is ongoing to ascertain whether or not the remedial work was successful.
In 2013 after the closure of the Golden Cross mine (Waitekauri), an unforeseen 40m wide sinkhole appeared, allowing 7000m³ (19 school swimming pools) of rock to collapse into the hole which then filled with acid leachate.

The Golden Cross mining company, Couer Gold, suggested to the regulators that rather than the company paying around $500,000 to fix the problem it had created that the sinkhole should remain as a “vital reminder for future generations of what can happen on mine sites” (HDC Agenda, April 2016 p.47).

WRONG: MINING STILL REQUIRES TOXIC CHEMICALS TO PROCESS THE GOLD AND RELEASES MASSES OF TOXIC LEACHATES WHICH ARE STORED IN TAILINGS DAMS

After nearly 40 years of mining, Waihi continues to flounder down the bottom of the Social Deprivation Index, suffering some of the lowest deprivation rankings in the region for education, employment, income and health.

From 2006–2016 the greatest increase in jobs on the Coromandel Peninsula came from Education, Health and Tourism, 33% of all employment (Infometrics). Mining accounted for less than 1% of all employment in the Waikato region.

Between 2013 and 2018 The Social Deprivation Index for the Waikato towns of Waihi and Paeroa, both administered by the Hauraki District Council, have consistently featured deprivation decile ratings of between 9–10 or the most deprived.

Prior to Covid, the domestic market provided 80% of visitor expenditure in Hauraki Coromandel. Kiwi love to come here as tourists for the beaches and the bush – would they really still flock here to spend their money on local businesses when the whenua and moana become marred by the damage that extractive mining wreaks? Mining is incompatible with tourism as it threatens to devalue our ‘Good for Your Soul’ brand - why would we risk this?

The Crown Minerals Act states that the New Zealand Government (the Crown) can impose a Maximum Royaltyof 2% on the gold produced. The final percentage is negotiated, then set in agreement with the mining company. An agreement could be based on 1% or even less!

Even OceanaGold’s own Waihi website says that “Over the past six years we have paid an average of $5.7M in company tax and $1.3M in royalties per year.” Wahihgold.co.nz 2025.

During this time they have taken out gold worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the global market.

If you or your neighbour allow mining on your land, it will negatively impact on the value of your home, land and community, and remains on your property title regardless of onsale.

Since 1991 the New Zealand government has held zero gold reserves as part of its economic strategy. This means that 100% of the gold mined here is exported overseas to Australia, Canada or the United States.

WRONG: NEW ZEALAND MAKES VERY LITTLE FROM THE GOLD AND WE DO NOT KEEP IT. OUR COMMUNITIES ARE NOT MADE WEALTHY FROM MINING.

Gold is infinitely recyclable. Recovery of gold from recycled computers, cellphones or landfill is a growing industry worldwide and there is even a NZ company committed to this process. Mint uses clean biotechnology to extract gold from e-waste, using facilities within NZ for the process. Mint also has facilities now in Australia where ‘scrappers’ take their e-waste to be ‘mined’ using Mint’s clean technology.  Not only does gold recovery through urban or landfill mining have a significantly lower carbon footprint than conventional mining, it is free of the perpetual toxic environmental problems of opencast and underground mining.

At present we reuse about 2% of our e-waste in this country, despite e-waste being the fastest growing waste stream. In fact, according to the NZ Herald, “The 62 billion kg of e-waste generated in 2022 (average 7.8 kg per capita) is like throwing away 1000 laptops every second.” This e-waste contains gold and other metals that could supply all our needs. It’s time we mined cell phones and laptops instead of mountains.

The global use of gold is as follows:
43% Jewellery
41% Bank vault storage
7% Electronics, phones, computers and Industrial manufacture
6% ETFs (Exchange Trading Fund – Gold)
1% Dentistry

WRONG: 84% OF GOLD IS USED FOR JEWELLERY OR SITS IN A VAULT, WE SHOULD BE MINING E WASTE INSTEAD

WRONG: YOUR OPINION MATTERS - IF YOU WANT TO STOP MINING ON THE COROMANDEL ACT NOW!

Most people are not aware that the drill rigs are already here in Hauraki Coromandel, or of the Government’s plans to mine the Coromandel.

We need to raise awareness of this with the public and key stakeholders/influencers.

The time to act is now! Tell people who will be interested and want to act as well.

- Make your opinions known - write to your MP, Local Council, Ministers, etc

- Engage on social media

- Write to the press – local, regional and national.

The more people that do this the harder it is to ignore!

There are now a number of groups around Hauraki Coromandel who are ready to protect their precious homes and the future of the next generation. If you would like to get involved, see details of the groups below and follow them on social media for updates.

Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki (Hauraki Coromandel-wide): info@watchdog.org.nz , Facebook, Instagram

Kūaotunu Anti-Mining Action Group (KAMAG): kamag2012@gmail.com

Thames Hauraki Anti-Mining Group (THAM): thameshauraki.antimining@gmail.com

Whenuakite Anti Mining (WHAM): whenuakite.anti.mining@gmail.com, Facebook, Instagram

Lock the Gate (Hauraki Coromandel-wide): lockthegateNZ@gmail.com, Facebook, Instagram

Earth Watch Whangamatā: earthwatchwhangamata@gmail.com, Facebook, Instagram

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