The quiet part out loud
Shane Jones has never been accused of subtlety, but his message to the mining sector in recent months amounts to something unusual: a cabinet minister telling investors that the rules he wrote might not survive the next election. His “meet me at the ballot box” challenge to fast-track critics is also, read from the other side, an admission that the ballot box is exactly where this regime could die.
The Fast-track Approvals Act became law on 23 December 2024 after attracting almost 27,000 public submissions. It combines resource consents, Crown Minerals Act approvals, Conservation Act approvals, and Fisheries Act authorisations into a single process. Of 384 applications assessed, 149 projects were listed in Schedule 2. Jones described the scheme in 2025 as “arguably the most permissive in Australasia.” That is a selling point and a vulnerability in the same breath.
The pipeline is surging
The market heard the message. NZP&M received 551 mineral permit applications in 2025, up from 450 in 2024 and 288 in 2023, a 91% increase over two years. Of 178 new permits granted, 163 targeted gold, concentrated heavily on the South Island’s West Coast, Otago, Tasman, and Southland.
The flagship approval so far is OceanaGold’s Waihi North extension, cleared in 112 working days versus an estimated five-plus years under standard consenting. The project promises $5.2 billion in additional exports over 18 years, around 800 jobs in Hauraki District, and $425 million in government revenues. OceanaGold plans to invest around $1 billion, with $240 million directed at Hauraki. The underground Wharekirauponga component alone could generate over $8 billion in export revenue at current gold prices.
Australian explorer Siren Gold has resumed drilling at Sams Creek in Golden Bay, running two rigs around the clock across 24 drill pads, calling New Zealand a “tier-1 jurisdiction with a progressive government committed to developing a modern, responsible mining industry.” That confidence is real. It is also conditional.
November’s power grab
In November 2025, the government pushed through dozens of amendments under urgency, allowing just 11 days for public submissions. The changes increased ministerial power to direct the EPA, condensed decision timeframes, and restricted appeal rights to those directly affected.
Jones was blunt about the intent: the amendments would “constrict the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to read unintended meanings into the legislation” and “stop people who don’t have a genuine third party interest joining the fray, thus getting appeal rights to ruin the prospects of mining.”
Forest and Bird’s Richard Capie said the changes “strip away public participation, concentrate power, and weaken independent oversight.” Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton called the substantive provisions “alarming.” The Minerals Council’s Josie Vidal described them as “appropriate technical tweaks” to counter frivolous appeals. Reasonable people disagree. But the speed and scale of the changes made the regime look less like durable reform and more like a political project with an expiry date.
The sovereign risk nobody is pricing
The Green Party has pledged to revoke fast-track consents for seabed mining, hardrock gold, and coal if it enters government, naming seven specific projects including Waihi North. Labour’s Chris Hipkins has not endorsed that pledge but pointed to the precedent of honouring existing permits rather than extending the regime.
There is a small concession from the other side. In January 2026, Environmental Defence Society CEO Gary Taylor acknowledged that the Trans-Tasman Resources seabed mining panel’s 400-page draft decision showed projects are “not going to get an automatic pass card”. The process, he conceded, can work.
But that is precisely the problem. If the process can deliver rigorous outcomes, the political case for ripping it up weakens. If it cannot, the environmental case for ripping it up strengthens. Either way, the regime’s survival depends on an election result, not on its merits.
What investors should actually hear
The government’s Minerals Strategy targets doubling mineral exports to $3 billion by 2035. That is a decade-long goal attached to a policy framework that may not last three years. For companies committing hundreds of millions to 18-year mine lives, a minister saying “move now” is not a confidence signal. It is a concession that New Zealand’s investment certainty is only as durable as the current parliamentary term. That is not a regulatory environment. It is a window, and everyone in the room knows it is closing.
Sources
- Fast-track Approvals Act (2025-11-13)
- First mining project gains fast-track approval (2025-12-19)
- Preparations for fast-tracked Waihi mine expansion to begin ‘straight away’ (2025-12-19)
- Minerals permitting data for 2025 shows growing momentum (2026-02-11)
- Fast-track changes restrict panels and increase ministerial powers (2025-11-05)
- Fast-track changes may speed up ministers’ pet projects, critic warns (2025-11-17)
- Greens vow to scrap mining consents as fast-track changes rushed through (2025-11-18)
- Labour’s fast-track track record shows new model’s preference for mining (2025-03-04)
- Taranaki VTM decision shows the Fast-track Act can, surprisingly, work (2026-01-01)
- Regulator’s Update – March 2025 (2025-04-01)
- Fast-track fears coalesce at proposed Golden Bay mine (2025-11-12)