Solid Energy's former chairman Mr John Palmer has conceded the coal miner may have closed Spring Creek mine much earlier if it had been partly privatized and avoided heavier job cuts.

Mr John Palmer has been a vocal advocate of selling stakes in state owned firms.

He admitted that Solid Energy's board has made mistakes, but said that mining is a risky sector unsuited to state ownership.

Mr Palmer said the coal miner made investment decisions that included benefits to New Zealand as a whole, rather than what was necessarily best for the company.

He said "The company has done a number of very good things during that period and ... has been clear that it was ambitious for New Zealand, which is appropriate for an SOE. That, perhaps, is the difference between a SOE and a listed company. When things turn down - as the market has very dramatically - there are some costs to that ambition and I think the company is feeling some of that. That's not the same as failure. But the question, for example, in relation to Spring Creek is that the mine has been in difficulty for some time. The Treasury and the shareholder have known that for some time, so that's not news. The issue is, could the company have been less patient with the financial situation at Spring Creek. Perhaps in a listed company environment it would have been, and that would have meant significant changes and perhaps the closure of the mine may have occurred much earlier."

The company plans to axe a quarter of its workforce about 460 jobs and has mothballed its Spring Creek mine on the West Coast in response to plunging international coal prices.

Source - Radio New Zealand

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