Fast-track breakdown reveals all that glitters is not gold

Analysis: West Coasters’ hopes to mine gold and the critical mineral antimony near Reefton have been unexpectedly panned; by contrast, the fast-tracking of a contentious hydro project two hours down the highway has underscored the variability in ministers’ responses to advice.
The ‘run-of-river’ Waitaha River project doesn’t require a dam or flooding, but it would divert some of the natural flow of the ecologically significant river through a tunnel and a powerhouse before being returned to the flow.
Greymouth-based electricity company Westpower first applied for concessions from the Minister of Conservation in 2014, saying it would generate enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of 12,000 homes. The 20MW iwi-backed project was  declined in 2019 by then environment minister David Parker, who said it posed too much of a threat to the character of the near-pristine area, and people’s enjoyment of it.
But the hydro scheme has now been green-lit despite being rated a fairly low priority A-4 by the Fast-track Projects Advisory Group.
By the numbers, the 149 projects selected for the fast-track show an uneven success rate across five listed sectors.
The housing and land development sector dominated the list, with infrastructure not far behind. All renewable energy projects passed if they were listed as high-priority, and low-priority projects in the mining and quarrying sector had a unique chance of redemption.
Overall, the different sectors’ variable success rates, and the projects that were an exception to the rule, reflect decisions made by ministers as they determined which of the advisory group’s 342 recommended projects were selected.
A project’s initial grade was a very good indicator of eventual success across all ministerial portfolios except that of Regional Development Minister Shane Jones, whose final choices sometimes bucked the trend.
In total 342 projects were recommended for listing in the fast-track bill. Of these, three ministers selected 149 for this first round of listing – though listing in the bill does not mean a given project has the capital to support it, or whether its backers even own the land on which they seek to build.
Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop handled housing and land development as well as infrastructure projects, excluding transport and energy, which were fielded by Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. Minister of Regional Development Shane Jones handled the mining and quarrying as well as aquaculture and farming projects.
Where conflicts of interest were declared, the ministers passed the application to another within the group. Minister of Conservation Tama Potaka acted as Minister of Regional Development if Jones had a conflict. This arrangement was made on September 1.
The advisory group’s report gave eight possible grades to a given project, barring a result of “not recommended”. Projects were graded either for Schedule 2A or 2B: shovel-ready versus shovel-worthy. Essentially, a project was put in A rather than B if the group had higher certainty in its ability to succeed.
A-listed projects were scored from priority A-1 to A-5, and B-listed projects were scored B-High, B-Medium or B-Low. A B-High project was not necessarily less significant than an A-5; it may have simply been lacking essential documents or other factors the group felt provided certainty. 
The group also noted that a project would not be granted A-list status unless it proved it could obtain legal interest in the relevant land, or already held it, meaning projects could be included in the legislation without actually owning the land on which they sought to build.
In the end, Bishop announced the A/B differential would be dissolved because of a high volume of suitable projects. Nonetheless, Newsroom used all eight rankings to observe trends across the results.
The Government’s stated commitment to renewable energy consenting was clear, with all of the recommended renewable energy projects passing through the first three tiers of priority. This fell off steeply through the fourth and fifth tiers, and to zero in schedule B. Renewables had the highest initial pass rate and the lowest tail-end pass rate, with the only acceptances beyond A-3 being re-consenting applications rather than new builds. The lone exception to this is the Waitaha Hydro Project.
Mining and quarrying had the highest tail-end pass rate, with 50 percent of the lowest-possible priority projects making the cut. Three of the six in B-Low were signed off by Jones or Potaka. But mining was also one of the only sectors to see an A-1 listing not pass the test, in the case of the Reefton Gold and Antimony Project.
Bishop said mining and quarrying were key consents to grant, as they underpinned the rest of the projects on the list. At an announcement on October 6, Bishop lamented that despite quarry materials being “a basic requirement of a modern country”, quarries remained particularly difficult to consent, which may explain the tail-end boost given to some of these projects.
An emphasis on housing and land development was clear, as this sector dominated the report. Its success rate held a consistent pattern across all grades, with a few of the highest-priority B-listings getting bumped up to the main bill by Bishop and three outliers being turned away by Bishop after seeing initial success with the advisory group.
Aquaculture presented the most linear graph, and also the fewest listings. One or two projects were picked from nearly every category, giving it an unusual rate of acceptance that almost ran independent of listed priority.
Infrastructure had a low representation in A-1 listings, but still held a passing rate of 100 or near-100 percent through the first three tiers of priority. By the numbers, it played second fiddle to housing and land development, just ahead of renewable energy. 
Some individual projects stood as outliers. 
Only two projects listed as A-1 priorities were declined: the Reefton Gold and Antimony Project and Oruku Landing. The latter is a proposed conference centre in Whangārei from which the Government pulled financial support in 2023, and has now doubled down on its decision to stay away.
The Reefton project would have resulted in the construction of a “predominantly underground” gold and antimony mine on public conservation land on the West Coast. Siren Gold Limited, the applicant, was not one of the six conflicts of interest declared by Regional Development, Oceans and Resources Minister Shane Jones, so its exclusion from the fast-track was his decision. 
Similarly, the Te Kuha Coal Project – applied for by Stevenson Mining Limited – did not make the cut: also Jones’ decision. It was listed as an A-3 priority. Jones previously told Newsroom the 149 projects were “just the first cut”, and to expect future projects to apply – including some that didn’t get the green light this time around.
One of the exceptional successes in the mining and quarrying sector was that of Katikati Quarries (2001) Limited, which applied for a quarry expansion in the Bay of Plenty. It was listed as a B-Low priority, the lowest possible, and was one of three projects in this sector with such a priority to be green-lit alongside projects as highly ranked as A-1. 
Katikati Quarries was one of Jones’ six declared conflicts of interest, so this decision would have been made by Acting Minister of Regional Development Tama Potaka. The other two projects lifted from B-Low to success were the Bream Bay Sand Extraction Project and a quarry extension at Southern Screenworks, not on Jones’ list.
Taharoa Ironsands Limited applied for three projects: the Pit 1 Mining Project, the Central and Southern Block Mining Project and the Northern Block Mining Project, graded A-3, A-4 and A-5 respectively. All passed. An application by Te Aupouri Fisheries Management Limited for nine marine farms in Northland, with a combined footprint of 25,000 hectares, also passed, with a grade of B-High. Both companies were on Jones’ register.
Jones’ conflict of interest projects were not always successful. Neither the advisory group nor the final list favoured Matamata Metal Supplies’ application for a quarry expansion, and though an application by James Murray Aquaculture Limited got a B-High grade from the advisory group, it was not seen on the final list. 
Jones also had sign-off power on the aquaculture and farming sector, which was so one-sided in terms of applicants that the advisory group dropped ‘and farming’ from some of its descriptions. The only A-1 listing for this sector, the Hananui Aquaculture Project, was one of a handful of what Forest & Bird’s Richard Capie dubbed ‘zombie projects’: those that have previously been denied a consent. 
In the case of Hananui, the Covid-19 fast-track denied the application on the grounds of environmental risk. It is not the only zombie to be given A-1 status; the Waitaha Hydro Project made it, as did Trans-Tasman Resources Limited Taranaki vanadium titano magnetite seabed mining project, which has a decade-long history of rejections in the Supreme Court. 
All renewable energy projects were accepted at levels one through three, and the Waitaha was one of only five renewable applications accepted below the A-3 cutoff by Brown. 
However, the other acceptances past this point were all for re-consenting, meaning the zombie hydro project was the lowest-priority renewable energy scheme to get the ministerial shoulder-tap.
At the top end once more, a total of three housing and land development projects were denied a final listing after passing with a grade of A-1, 2 or 3; the aforementioned Oruku Landing was one. Another, in A-3, was Global Contracting Solutions Limited’s Paewira waste-to-energy project, a first-of-its-kind facility in New Zealand. The final exception was an application by Auckland Thoroughbred Racing Incorporated for Pukekohe Park, graded A-2, though the details of this were redacted. 
Overall, the distribution of projects by sector and by success paints a picture of the Government’s priorities alongside the assessment of their advisory group. The group tended to put renewable electricity and aquaculture projects in the low-priority fields, with housing and land development and infrastructure listings taking up the lion’s share of grades A-1 through A-3. 
The renewable electricity projects that received high listings were all but guaranteed to pass through to the final bill. A separate piece of legislation for offshore wind has not yet been presented despite election promises, and such projects were barred from this fast-track. 
Though wind made up the bulk of the renewable success rates, a page written by the New Zealand Wind Energy Association lists 11 onshore wind projects that already have consent and have yet to be built, suggesting the problem may not lie entirely with a sluggish consenting process.
Mining and quarrying projects had a relatively even distribution with results that differed from the mean on both the high and low ends. Infrastructure, like renewable electricity, had a 100 percent success rate in the top two tiers, before falling off steeply. More infrastructure projects made the cut in A-2 than in every grade below it (13 to 10).
The bigger picture is one of a Government keen to take quick action on passing the highest-priority housing, infrastructure and renewable electricity projects, with less consistency applied to aquaculture and mining and quarrying projects. 
In other words, the final ministerial tick was closely associated with a project’s initial grade in Bishop’s and Brown’s portfolios: a pattern of predictability not followed by Jones.