Greens and mining

The HoS reports:

Meanwhile, Greens co-leader Russel Norman said at the party’s national conference yesterday that the party would not scrap all mining if elected because it was an “inescapable” part of the New Zealand economy. Norman said Greens wanted each new mining operation to be considered on a case-by-case basis under a strengthened Resource Management Act.

On the surface, this is a welcome move. It is good they don’t want to turn Taranaki and the West Coast into barren jobless locales. However I do wonder if this is a change of rhetoric, not substance.

Let’s take the last ten years as an example. Can any Green MP point to a significant mining permit granted in the last ten years that the Greens would have allowed?