The Save Aramoana Campaign was formed in 1974 to oppose a proposed aluminium

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

Aramoana Aramoana is a small coastal settlement north of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. The settlement's permanent population in the 2001 Census was 261. Supplementing this are seasonal visitors from the city who occupy cribs. The name '' ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. In the late 1970s Aramoana was proposed as the site of a major

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

by a consortium of New Zealand-based Fletcher-Challenge, Australia's

CSR Limited CSR may refer to: Biology * Central serous retinopathy, a visual impairment * Cheyne–Stokes respiration, an abnormal respiration pattern * Child sex ratio, ratio between female and male births * Class switch recombination, a process that chan ...

and Swiss firm

Alusuisse Alusuisse was a Swiss industrial group founded as ''Aluminium Industrie Aktien'' in 1898 in Zurich, Switzerland. The organisation was named ''Schweizerische Aluminium AG'' from 1963, ''Alusuisse-Lonza Holding AG'' from 1990, and ''Algroup'' from 19 ...

. An aluminium smelter was already operating at

Tiwai Point Tiwai Point lies at the entrance to Bluff Harbour on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. A spit which extends from the western end of the Awarua Plain, it lies between Awarua Bay to the north and Foveaux Strait to the south. ...

when the smelter at Aramoana was proposed.

Background

From its inception, the Otago Harbour Board had vested in it for harbour purposes, land on the northern side of the Otago Harbour entrance. This included a quarry for rock to build the mole that protected the entrance; the village, originally housing workers on the mole, and later leased out for holiday homes; a large area of

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

; and adjacent dry-land leased out for rough grazing. After the

Comalco Rio Tinto Aluminium (previously known as Comalco) is now known as Rio Tinto Alcan after Rio's takeover of Alcan. It was the world's eighth largest aluminium company. It mines and manufactures bauxite, alumina and primary aluminium. Rio Tinto Al ...

Aluminium Smelter was opened at

Bluff Bluff or The Bluff may refer to: Places Australia * Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town * The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich * The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality * Bluff River (New So ...

's Tiwai Point in 1971, Otago interests sought a similar project in 1974 on the OHB land at Aramoana. It was not well founded, and was withdrawn in the face of modest opposition. That opposition remained alert to any unusual activity on the OHB land, and when surveyors were seen on the flats over the summer of 1979-80 conservation interests began to organize what became the Save Aramoana Campaign. At the time the site was included in the

Waikouaiti Waikouaiti is a small town in East Otago, New Zealand, within the city limits of Dunedin. The town is close to the coast and the mouth of the Waikouaiti River. Today, Waikouaiti is a retail trade and servicing centre for the surrounding district ...

District Scheme, under zoning provisions of dubious legality and which a planner/economist with the campaign took to court for a

declaratory judgment A declaratory judgment, also called a declaration, is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal mat ...

as to their legality. This had the effect of placing the whole project ''

sub judice In law, ''sub judice'', Latin for "under a judge", means that a particular case or matter is under trial or being considered by a judge or court. The term may be used synonymously with "the present case" or "the case at bar" by some lawyers. I ...

'', and therefore unable to proceed. It cost $50.00 to lodge that action with the court, and when it became clear that the project would not be able to quietly proceed under the existing rules, the entire campaign for and against the smelter was thrust into the public arena. The Government, keen to use the smelter to justify the

Clyde Dam The Clyde Dam, New Zealand's third-largest hydroelectric dam, is built on the Clutha River / Mata-Au near the town of Clyde. It is owned and operated by Contact Energy. History There was considerable controversy when the dam was planned because i ...

as part of its "

Think Big In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...

" programme, passed the National Development Act. Waikouaiti, now combined with Taieri to become

the Silverpeaks The Silverpeaks (sometimes spelt Silver Peaks) is an area of rough forest and tussock and scrub covered hill country inland and to the northwest of Dunedin, New Zealand. The area is largely uninhabited; the main indication of human activity is ...

, brought out its own district scheme with much more legally sound provisions for industrial land use, specifically a smelter, at Aramoana. Those provisions were fought by the campaign's planner at the council level and on to the Planning Tribunal as Appeal no. 733/82, upheld by that court in decision C51/83 J.Todd and the Careys Bay Assn. v Silver Peaks County Council. The Court directed that " ... all reference to industrial development at Aramoana is to be deleted ... ". While the planning and legal battles were being fought the broader field saw the campaign kept on the public stage : the declaration of the Independent State of Aramoana allowed that notional entity to issue a collector's set of stamps. with original art work donated by leading New Zealand artists for the purpose, and these raised nearly

NZ$ The New Zealand dollar ( mi, tāra o Aotearoa; sign: $, NZ$; code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New Zea ...

500,000 in 1982 terms. The campaign was remarkably well funded. Several New Zealand artists were involved in the campaign in other ways, most notably

Ralph Hotere Hone Papita Raukura "Ralph" Hotere (11 August 1931 – 24 February 2013) was a New Zealand artist. He was born in Mitimiti, Northland and is widely regarded as one of New Zealand's most important artists. In 1994 he was awarded an honorary do ...

, who produced the ''Aramoana'' series of paintings in response to the smelter issue. The public campaign also ensured that Government could not lightly face the serious political risk of bringing down a special Empowering Act to force the smelter through, as it had done with the Clyde High Dam. The tide had turned against Think Big, and the smelter was left to sink without trace. Pechiney had left,

went off to look for a more congenial site in Zaire, and Aramoana saw the village made freehold and the saltmarsh gazetted as a reserve.

Independent State of Aramoana

The smelter plan called for the destruction of the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

s of Aramoana and Te Ngaru, and also threatened a local wildlife reserve. In response residents of the area announced their secession from New Zealand on 23 December 1980, established a "border post" and "travelling embassy", printed

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

s, citizenship certificates and

postage stamps A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

, and set about using the resultant publicity to build a national

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

campaign in opposition to the smelter. The campaign attracted the attention of artists such as

, as well as conservationists and heritage researchers such as

Peter Entwisle Peter Malcolm William Entwisle (20 September 1948 – 14 March 2018) was a New Zealand art historian and writer, notably on the history of Dunedin and of New Zealand art. Early life Entwisle's parents both worked within the book industry. H ...

. The consortium was endorsed by the

New Zealand Government , background_color = #012169 , image = New Zealand Government wordmark.svg , image_size=250px , date_established = , country = New Zealand , leader_title = Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern , appointed = Governor-General , main_organ = , ...

, which initially proposed to subsidise the cost of electricity required for the smelter's operation, leading to fears that the wider population of New Zealand would be faced with significant

electricity price Electricity pricing (also referred to as electricity tariffs or the price of electricity) can vary widely by country or by locality within a country. Electricity prices are dependent on many factors, such as the price of power generation, gover ...

hikes in the longer term. However, the campaign waged by the independent state supporters eventually forced a government backdown, calling into question the economic viability of the project. This development combined with declining aluminium prices on world commodity markets, eventually led to the withdrawal of Alusuisse from the consortium in October, 1981. The remaining partners failed to secure additional investment capital, and eventually abandoned the project, paving the way for the peaceful reintegration of the Independent State of Aramoana back into New Zealand. The proposal is still remembered as a divisive issue.

Background

Independent State of Aramoana

See also

References

Further reading