Labour MP David Parker yesterday said “senior” mining industry sources had told him they planned to seek an increase in the size of pockets of Schedule Four land, which may be used for mining related activities.

Under current law, miners could obtain permits to allow “interference” on Schedule Four land restricted to areas 10m by 10m.

That was to allow mining vents or tracks to emergency exits, said Mr Parker.

“It’s not intended to facilitate mining in Schedule Four land. That’s why what the industry would like to do is have that changed to 30m by 30m which would then allow them to have drilling rigs for prospecting purposes.”

Mr Parker understood the industry’s objective was “to prove whether there’s a valuable resource there, and then you would cause a large amount of pressure to remove an area from Schedule Four protection”.

Less than a year ago, public opinion – including a march down Queen St by 20,000 to 40,000 people led by actors Robyn Malcolm and Lucy Lawless – forced the Government into an embarrassing u-turn over its plans to remove Schedule Four protection from 7058ha of the Department of Conservation estate.

That included conservation land in Coromandel, Great Barrier Island and Paparoa National Park North Westland.

Appearing before Parliament’s commerce committee yesterday, acting Energy and Resources Minister Hekia Parata and her officials told Mr Parker they were not aware of any approach from the industry to change the Schedule Four regime.

Later, she told the Herald she would not be receptive to any such request.

“Last year, we consulted with New Zealanders on mining and Schedule Four and the answer was resoundingly clear – New Zealanders do not want mining on Schedule Four lands and the outcomes of that review will be incorporated into the Crown Minerals regime.”

Chief executive of the Minerals Industry Association Doug Gordon said he was not aware of any specific approach by the industry over the issue but he would support such a move.

He said the intent of legislation and regulations allowing an area 10m by 10m to be cleared of vegetation for low-impact activity was always intended to allow for exploration. However, that area was too small for that, while 400 square metres (10m x 20m) would allow comfortable operation of a drilling rig.

“If you were to prove something up and want to mine there, for example Pike River was on Schedule four, you’ve got access to the ore body from outside.”

Green Party mining spokeswoman Catherine Delahunty said that her party “would be very opposed to any weakening of Schedule Four”. “The mining industry are determined to mine within Schedule Four, whether it’s going underneath with underground mining or by pushing the rules … it’s basically mining by hook or by crook.”

SCHEDULE FOUR

* Was added to the Crown Minerals Act in 1997 and restricts mineral-related activity in specified conservation areas.
* Schedule Four land areas total about 40 per cent of public conservation land including national parks or 13 per cent of New Zealand’s total land area.

* Only “minimum impact” activities are permissible in Schedule Four, including geological, geochemical and geophysical surveying, taking samples by hand-held methods, and aerial and land surveying.

* An area of vegetation 10m by 10m or 100sq m might be cleared to allow for such activity.

* Labour says miners are seeking to have that increased to 30m by 30m or 900sq m.

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10731291

Golden Bay iwi are alarmed at the plans by Sydney-based Greywolf Goldmining NL. It is proposing drilling the seabed for oil and gas, as well as prospecting for coal in Golden Bay and developing Port Tarakohe.

The news comes on the heels of a controversial oil exploration project by South American company Petrobras off the North Island’s East Coast, which has sparked high-profile protests by environmentalists and iwi.

Speaking from Sydney, Greywolf chief executive Edward Lancaster said the company hoped to start explorations and eventual mining operations once approval was granted from Crown Minerals – and if its Chinese partners considered it worthwhile.

“We know there’s oil and gas out there [in Golden Bay] from previous drilling in the 60s and 70s. It was not considered economical [to drill] at the time but now the price of oil is going up it could well become economical,” Lancaster said.

The company has also applied to Crown Minerals for two exploration permits to look for coal in the Puponga and Collingwood areas, where coal was mined in the 1890s. The Puponga Coal Mine operated from 1900 to the 1930s and again from 1953 until 1974.

Lancaster plans to visit the region within the next month to assess the potential for developing the area. Golden Bay was potentially a mineral-rich area and if coal and oil were found, Port Tarakohe could be developed to service those industries, he said.

Company representatives have already spoken to Tasman District Council chief executive officer Paul Wylie about their plans, including the possible development of Port Tarakohe.

“The job prospects for the region would be very good and I know he [Wylie] is anxious to develop the area,” he said.

The company would also be considering the potential of Port Nelson for its operations, he said.

However, Lancaster said he was aware of a “strong anti-mining lobby in New Zealand” and if there was considerable objections, the company could be tempted to develop its interests in South America instead.

Due to the company’s rapidly expanding interests in minerals other than gold and in preparation of it being listed on the Australian stock exchange, it has applied to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to change its name to Greywolf Resources NL.

The Greywolf Resources website says the company is in a joint venture agreement with the giant Chinese energy company the Qinghua Group, which is assessing possible sites in the South Island for a “multibillion-dollar investment” in a port purchase and a steel mill construction, as well as a lignite conversion project.

Under the Crown Minerals Act, iwi have to be consulted before any prospecting, exploration or mining permits are granted but there is no requirement to consult the general public for prospecting or exploration permits.

Manawhenua Ki Mohua, comprising three Golden Bay iwi (Ngati Tama, Te Ati Awa and Ngati Rarua), received the company’s petroleum application from the Crown Minerals department last week.

Their representative, John Ward-Holmes, said iwi were “totally opposed to any exploration or drilling of the seabed for oil on cultural and environmental grounds”.

“Everyone is alarmed about it. We don’t want this and we want to let people know what’s in the pipeline.”

He said iwi had not been informed about the company’s applications to prospect for coal.

In November 2006, Perth-based Bonaparte Diamond Mines NL abandoned its plans to prospect for gold and other minerals in the Golden Bay seabed, following widespread opposition from environmental and fishing groups as well as local iwi.

Companies granted an exploration permit for petroleum are permitted to undertake well drilling once they have acquired seismic data aimed at defining the subsurface structure of an area. Their activities are strictly controlled under the Resource Management Act.

According to Crown Minerals, “the effects of these activities are generally minor in nature and are restricted to a limited time span over a limited area”.

Crown Minerals spokeswoman Tracy Dillimore said applications could take up to six months to process, but she declined to comment further.

- The Nelson Mail

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/4955253/Abel-Tasman-oil-coal-and-gas-proposal-alarms

Petrol Alley Services (GAS), URS New Zealand and Brown Bros (NZ) were found guilty in the Auckland District Court over a fuel leak from a petrol station in Line Rd, Glen Innes.

The companies have been ordered to pay a fine of $160,000, as well as court costs of $80,000.

The court has also demanded an investigation of the fuel which remained in the ground, and the companies could be forced to pay a further $200,000 for a clean-up.

Prosecutor Auckland Regional Council said the charges and fine sent a strong message to large companies to be tighter in their procedures.

“The fines were due to the seriousness of the incident,” said lawyer Janet Whiteside. “The whole industry needs to take a message from this sort of incident so it can’t happen again.”

The three companies had claimed they were not at fault and had done everything reasonable to stop the petrol escaping.

Engineering consultancy URS hired contractors Brown Bros to test the site for contamination by former owner Caltex.

Brown Bros accidentally drilled a hole the size of a 50c piece in a fuel line used to carry 91 octane.

The spill occurred when new owners GAS reopened the petrol station with the help of another company, Fuelquip.

Fuelquip – which had already pleaded guilty – tested the fuel lines, unaware of the hole. The petrol leaked into the Ruapatoka Stream, 75m away, killing some wildlife.

GAS had argued that the chance of a company such as URS or Brown Bros drilling a hole in a fuel line and not repairing it was extraordinary, and the company could not have foreseen it.

URS and GAS each argued they could not have been expected to predict mistakes by the other.

Judge Fred McElrea ruled that URS and Brown Bros did not take necessary precautions to prevent a fuel leak, and that GAS failed to order the testing of the fuel lines.

GAS paid about $205,000 in cleaning up the site after the spill in December 2007. The judge ruled that this cost should be shared by the other companies.

GAS lawyers said 200,000 litres of petrol and oil had been sucked from the stream and the service station, and experts had said there was no need for further cleaning-up.

But the ARC believed there were still pollutants in the soil, and successfully called for further remedial work.

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10661748&ref=rss

Online environmental compliance company CS-VUE has been named New Zealand’s 28th fastest growing company in the annual Deloitte/NBR Fast 50 competition. Having achieved growth of 217.77% across the last 12 months, CS-VUE’s innovative technology is catering to a niche market and providing clients with an online system that enables organisations to track and manage and report on consent compliance, saving significant time and money.

Launched in 2004, CS-VUE works by providing a system to store environmental permits, action the requirements of specific conditions and provide an audit trail to demonstrate compliance when required.

CS-VUE Chief Executive, Adrian Bullen said, “We’re thrilled to be recognised as one of New Zealand’s fastest growing Companies. The Award is also a great accolade for our clients. Complying with environmental permits isn’t exactly sexy, but it is essential for any organisation that is serious about sustainability and risk management. Our clients can absolutely say they are ahead of the pack.”
“We’ve had a solid year of substantial growth due to a string of successful corporate sales in New Zealand and Australia. We work hard on maintaining our innovation edge over competitors and we recently released an upgraded product version 3.0 which includes a new look and feel, improved dashboard reporting and a series of optional modules,” added Bullen.

Bullen believes the company will continue to see significant growth, particularly targeting the local Government sector.

“We estimate that outside of our customer base, local Government complies with less than 30% of the resource consents it holds for its own activities. It is disingenuous for Councils to require total compliance from ratepayers, but fail to consider their own statutory obligations.” says Bullen, “If Joe Public were to write to the local Mayor and ask how compliant his or her Council is, the response in most cases would likely be a nervous shrug of the shoulders.”

Bullen anticipates there will be some tricky digital integration issues ahead for the Transition Board of the Auckland Super City; “But fortunately CS-VUE is already used by several of the existing Auckland Councils, and we also operate the largest integrated resource consent database in New Zealand, so the Super City can readily choose to meet its RMA obligations if that was considered a priority,” said Bullen.

The award is the second for environmental consultants and parent company Andrew.Stewart Limited, which also placed amongst the Deloitte/NBR Fast 50 in 2007.

The NZ Post deal, which was engineered by Google’s New Zealand agent for its corporate products, Fronde, kicks in during September.

Google spokeswoman Annie Baxter says it is her company’s largest commercial deal yet across Australia or New Zealand, although it is eclipsed in number of users by several education deals.

It covers email and document collaboration. Staff at the SOE will also begin using Google Apps for desktop video conferencing.

Although Google Apps is available in a freebie standard version, the Premiere edition – which adds an up-time guarantee (introduced after a recent failure) and more online storage, among other perks, costs $US50 per user per year – implying the three-year deal will cost around $US315,000 ($NZ460,000).

NZ Post says most of its anticipated $2 million gain will come from savings in infrastructure. Storing data in the cloud – that is, Google data centres in the US – will mean less need for the state-owned enterprise to buy its own hardware. And a lot of storage comes with the deal. As with any Google Apps Premiere account, employees will get 25GB of mailbox space each (compared to a 50MB limit under NZ Posts current, inhouse Microsoft Exchange and Outlook set-up).

Last year, NZ Post R&D manager Joe Bourque told NBR he was running limited trials with multiple software-as-a-service platforms, and examining the merits of Google’s cloud platform versus Amazon’s (also represented in New Zealand by Fronde).

As well as Google Apps, Mr Bourque had installed Zoho, Thinkfree and HyperOffice, and was also looking ahead to Microsoft’s coming free online version of Office, and its “cloud” version of Windows, Azure (whose pricing was recently announced).

However, a full-blown cloud implementation was likely five to 10 years away, said Mr Bourque. His chief concern was security; not so much whether Google’s systems could be hacked, but whether enough safeguards could be put in place to stop chump managers clicking the wrong setting and inadvertently sharing their calendar, or sensitive NZ Post files, with the world (as ironically recently happened to Twitter in the past week, with a blogger at TechCrunch gaining access to some of its most sensitive planning files, snippets of which he has published. All of Twitter’s files are stored on Google Apps).

CIOs NBR spoke to around that time, to a man, expressed similar fears. For others, including the University of Auckland, fears about Google Apps’ ability to keep in compliance with the Public Records Act, which kicks in next year, kept them largely in the Microsoft fold.

However, a 10-week proof-of-concept trial, involving both IT staff and a legal team, saw NZ Post both overcome its qualms about cloud computing, and narrow its choice to one provider: Google.

Other big organisations considering cloud roll-outs will run their own trials. But now that NZ Post has broken the ice, Microsoft’s nightmare has to be that others will follow.

So far, Google Apps business has been slow for Fronde. But in announcing its recent turnaround results, the integrator predicted more cloud business. It could be a much, much more.

To read the original article online, click here.

Global Career Link CEO Simon Swallow is intent on moving his company’s ICT operations “into the cloud” as quickly as practical.

“I’m an entire convert to doing business in the cloud,” he says. “All I want is an internet connection and a computer to run my business.”

The recruitment consultancy’s head office is in Wellington, with branches in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne and London, and it is also active in the Middle East. The company helps people who are seeking new opportunities get jobs in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, through its relationship with recruitment agencies.

Its areas of recruitment range from finance and IT through to marketing and human resources.

Global Career Link’s original CRM system was built on Access 2000 and SQL Server 2000. The infrastructure had severe shortcomings, says Swallow. Applications did not smoothly interoperate, meaning the company and its clients could not take full advantage of the information the system provided. There were severe bandwidth constraints too.

The various offices typically had different versions of the same software and did not have access to identical databases, which made it difficult for staff to move between offices.

The Access/SQL system couldn’t record most of the data needed to manage the business and drive referral growth he claims.

The company ran both an in-house CRM system and an IT recruitment system, which were essentially separate with no consolidated tools or processes. It required database engineers to create new reports and the system was too complex for management to use.

“It was getting creakier and creakier,” says Swallow. “We were in a real hole. I looked around at [conventional] recruitment solutions and there was nothing really suitable.”

Swallow decided that taking the operation “in the cloud” was the logical solution. He says Salesforce.com was able to provide a single, consistent database and applications suite, which would be available to everyone.

“If we want an update it’s done once, in one place. Salesforce is able to deliver new services to us quickly. It all makes sense and we don’t feel like we’re encumbered by the technology.”

Now staff can work anywhere, even on the road or from home, he says.

For Swallow, the distributed technology of the company’s ICT is in sympathy with the decentralised nature of ICT in an organisational sense. There is no CIO or IT manager at Global Career Link; anyone is entitled to come up with an idea and attempt to implement it.

“We have a saying: ‘I’ve just had a Salesforce moment’,” he says. That means someone has had an idea for a new way to use the Salesforce.com applications’ capabilities.

Staff make use of the Salesforce Ideas electronic forum to share, comment on and even vote on new ideas.

The intention from the beginning of the re-think was “to build something bespoke”, suited closely to the company’s particular way of operating, says Swallow.

The process of tailoring the Salesforce.com applications took about two months, he says, but it needed no coding skills; “it was all a matter of drag and drop”.

The company’s hardware is also outsourced, so the responsibility for maintaining the ICT infrastructure and applications is taken off the shoulders of in-house staff and the company does not have to maintain an ICT team.

Feelings of resentment against the new technology have largely disappeared.

“We have turned from a technology-dragged company to a technology-led company,” Swallow says.

By using Salesforce.com’s dashboard capability referrals have been driven up significantly.

Global Career Link now has a consolidated view of all activity across the whole company.

A big advantage was the large number of workflow tools and processes included with the platform, which could be customised to the needs of the company

Scarcity of bandwidth still presents a problem for software-as-a-service users in New Zealand, he acknowledges. “In the UK, 10 Mbit/s is pretty much standard on DSL; here 7Mbit/s is about the best you’ll get.”

At present, data the company maintains on Salesforce.com has click-through links to documents on a dedicated server and that’s awkward, he says. “We have a plan to migrate all of that to Google Docs, then we’ll be close to truly doing business in the cloud.”

More and more applications are becoming available in cloud mode. Swallow’s company already uses Skype in close association with Salesforce.com. “A Skype message can be integrated with the CRM record,” he says.

Global Career Link currently has independent financials, based on Mind Your Own Business (MYOB), and a major task for the near future is to transfer these to something that can be more closely integrated with Salesforce.com.

Swallow says Xero founder Rod Drury, whose accounting applications already run in SaaS mode, proposes to integrate these with the Salesforce suite. Xero may therefore be particularly appropriate as the future basis of Global Career Link’s financial applications, he says.

Another promising link is with the FaceBook social network, through a utility inelegantly known as FaceForce. FaceForce is produced by a company of the same name, based in San Francisco.

There are obvious privacy considerations associated with using such an interface, but it’s the client’s decision whether to allow the company to access their FaceBook profile, says Swallow.

Salesforce.com runs its own “AppExchange” where users can promote and distribute other associated and linking applications and he keeps an eye on this.

To read the original article onliine, click here.

Spending on SaaS (software as a service) enterprise applications will top US$6.4 billion this year, a 27 percent jump over 2007, and will catapult to $14.8 billion by 2012, according to the research firm Gartner.

SaaS adoption is being driven by businesses’ pursuit of cost savings and quicker implementations, as well as wider availability of high-speed Internet connections, Gartner said. Also, initial concerns regarding the SaaS applications’ security and reliability have faded somewhat as the model has matured, Gartner added.

Content, communications and collaboration products constitute the biggest share of the SaaS market, with more than $2.1 billion in 2008 and $4.7 billion by 2012.

Those applications are followed by CRM (customer relationship management), which Gartner estimates will generate $1.7 billion this year and $3.2 billion by 2012.

Gartner’s forecast only refers to business applications like CRM, not areas such as infrastructure software.

Meanwhile, IDC recently predicted that overall cloud computing services spending would grow from $16.2 billion this year to $42.3 billion by 2012, with business applications representing 52 percent of the latter figure, followed by infrastructure software with 18 percent and storage with 13 percent.

To read the original article online, click here.

Many large companies have long avoided hosted services because of concerns about security, customisation, integration and long-term costs.

But in recent interviews, IT managers at some organisations say they are turning to, or at least evaluating, hosted products as a way to offload management of some non-mission-critical applications. Further, some say the subscription-based pricing model can keep IT budget costs consistent and often lower than packaged or homegrown software.

In a report released in March, Forrester Research said that the use of hosted software products in companies with more than 1,000 employees grew by 33% from 2006 to 2007. The survey of 1,017 IT professionals found that the most popular hosted services are human resources, CRM and collaboration tools.

Ben Pring, an analyst at Gartner, says that despite IT managers’ interest in hosted systems, many of them are “conflicted”, in some cases because business units are signing contracts on their own. “[IT managers] see this as a threat,” he says. “It’s loosening their control and introducing security, vulnerability and integration headaches.”

Nonetheless, managers are starting to realise that at some point, IT will become responsible for hosted products, whether it oversees implementation or not.

“They know at some stage, the business people who’ve gone out and bought this stuff will throw it at them,” Pring says.

Basil Blume, executive vice president and CIO of Colorado Capital Bank, says his organisation uses more than 30 hosted applications, which account for 60%-70% of its software library.

He agrees that the thought of hosted systems can be “very disconcerting” because of fears that IT could lose control of applications and data. “They’re concerned about their data,” Blume says. “I am as well”.

Still, the benefits of using hosted software have allowed the bank’s systems to keep up with its rapid growth, Blume says.

About five years after its founding in 1998, the bank turned to hosted software to quickly add several new programs for customers. At the time, “we were a $50 million bank,” Blume said. “Today, we’re a $700 million bank, and many of those [first hosted] solutions are still the same.”

The bank’s IT managers have concluded that “the ability to scale without having to reinvent that infrastructure is a huge benefit,” he says.

The hosted systems that Colorado Capital used include a key internet banking system hosted by Intuit’s Digital Insight.

To internally implement that system, Blume says, the company would have had to spend significant amounts of money to bolster firewalls, hire a chief security officer, buy new servers and backup systems, and establish off-site disaster recovery facilities.

Mark Buzby, human resource information systems director at The Pep Boys, an auto parts supplier, says he is “optimistic” about the firm’s plan to use a new hosted compensation system from Xactly.

“Obviously, with the economy the way it is, we’re looking to cut costs just like any other retailer,” he says. “[But] to be honest, there is a little caution going into this.”

The company was set to start evaluating the service at 60 stores late last month to calculate the sales commissions of service desk workers. If that goes smoothly, Pep Boys will deploy the hosted software to 1,500 employees at its 500 remaining stores over a six-month period, Buzby says.

The company also hopes to use the software as a password-protected reporting tool for employees, managers and executives.

Buzby noted that Xactly has already successfully tweaked the application for Pep Boys in response to a change in its needs.

Xactly chief operating officer Evan Ellis says that vendors of hosted software are under growing pressure from corporate customers to provide applications that can be easily tweaked to fit IT and business needs.

IT demands are also forcing vendors to link internal legacy software and hosted systems and to offer corporate users improved service-level agreements.

Pricing scheme and SLA policies can vary among vendors, and IT managers should take a close look at each, analysts say.

“If you’re looking at years three, four and five, is there a crossover at some point?” asks Forrester analyst Liz Herbert. “Some corporations believe that in the long run, software as a service is more expensive.”

Gartner estimates that more than 60% of hosted software users today lack an SLA, despite the potential for service delivery interruptions, performance problems or changes in ownership.

Tom Lockwood, director of IS and logistics at Car Toys, says an outage at PivotLink Corp., the company’s provider of hosted business intelligence software, convinced him of the value of a strong SLA.

Lockwood says the outage came when PivotLink opted to move Car Toys’ data to new hardware late on a Saturday night without advance warning. PivotLink thought that installing new hardware on the last day of the month would cause little disruption, he says.

But it disrupted the creation of Car Toys’ monthly reports. “That happened once, and never again,” Lockwood says.

After the incident, the two firms signed an SLA that requires PivotLink to notify Car Toys about any planned upgrades, maintenance or outages.

Since then, Car Toys has become a believer in SaaS, Lockwood says, and it is now evaluating a hosted payroll application from Automatic Data Processing.

Gartner predicts that corporate adoption of hosted software will grow by 22.1% annually through 2011, more than double the projected growth rate for packaged applications.

But IT managers using hosted business applications warn that potential adopters should proceed carefully when selecting a vendor and conduct background checks, contact referees and perform due-diligence assessments of service-delivery track records.

“When you get past that honeymoon period,” Lockwood noted, “things can sour in a hurry if you don’t have the right people and the right relationship in place.”