Investment and jobs are key factors in any decision to allow mining of New Zealand's protected land areas. OceanaGold has been digging in our backyard at the Macraes site in East Otago for 20 years. Sally Rae and Craig Baxter went underground to meet the workers.
You could be forgiven for thinking that Peter Fuller plays video games for a living.
Sitting in a chair, console in his hand, two television screens in front of him - it would be easy to make that assumption.
Except he is deep below the surface in Frasers underground mine - the mine has 17km of roadways and is 580m below surface - and Mr Fuller (29) is operating a Toro 1400 bogger (or loader) which is working at least several hundred metres away.
And, as Mr Fuller succinctly puts it, "at least with PlayStation, you can die [and be instantly brought back to life] - you can't afford to stuff up [down here]".
He knows about close calls. When he first started work in the mining industry in Australia, he was employed at the Bronzewing Gold Mine in Western Australia.
On June 26, 2000, he managed to escape the mine when 18,000cu m of rock and sludge buried three co-workers 400m underground. It took a month to retrieve the bodies.
But Mr Fuller said he did not allow the tragedy to set in his mind and, three days later, he was back underground.
"I love mining, eh."
"Someone's got to do it [underground mining] and you know you're the right man to do the job. It suits me."
Working in the tele-remote camp - driving a loader from the comfort of a chair - was a good job for someone who was lazy, he laughed, and he liked the expressions on people's faces when they saw what he was doing.
The use of tele-remote technology is the sort of technology in the mine that allows underground contract superintendent Geoff Hender to sleep a lot easier at night.
"A safe operation is a productive operation," the burly Australian said, heading deep into the mine, which was commissioned in January 2008.
Understandably, safety is paramount in such an environment and safety drills are done on a regular basis.
Working underground, Mr Hender freely acknowledges, is not everybody's cup of tea. He takes his hat off to those who quickly concede it is not for them.
He has worked in mining operations where people have arrived off the plane, done their induction, gone underground - and then been put on the next plane off the site.
And he would much prefer they did that than to persevered and caused issues for themselves and fellow workmates.
It is 35 years since Mr Hender (53) first went underground and heading deep into the Earth's surface does not bother him. Just don't expect him to ever work in a high-rise building.
"It's not for me," he said.
Mr Hender has worked in copper, zinc, lead, nickel and gold mines in Australia. For those working between the different operations, each of the ores came with its own unique smell, he said.
He did leave mining for about 18 months in the early 1990s and worked in education administration. While the government salary did not compare to the higher income from working in the mines, it did give him the skills to move into management.
It has been a "bit of a sea change" for the Hender family, who moved from Mt Isa to Dunedin last year.
Having spent all his working life in the deserts of Australia, he was enjoying driving to work and the view of the countryside, instead of just red plains. He has also seen snow for the first time and is enjoying the opportunity to work in a "beautiful environment".
For his youngest daughter, who has just turned 15, and was used to wearing shorts, T-shirt and sneakers to school, the kilt, blazer and tie at Otago Girls High School has been an adjustment.
She has taken up competitive ice-skating and would never have had that opportunity living at Mt Isa, while his eldest daughter was one of the models in the iD Dunedin fashion show.
They shifted for lifestyle reasons and one of the driving factors was keeping the family together as a unit, even when eldest daughter Taylor (18) started tertiary education.
He vividly remembered coming through the airport with his family in October last year and the customs staff making comments about a family coming into New Zealand for a change, rather than leaving.
Another import to the Otago area is Shaun "Junior" Thomson, who operates a twin-boom jumbo drill rig underground.
Originally from Picton and previously a fisherman, Mr Thomson (26) said he "chased the coin" and followed in the footsteps of an uncle to work at Macraes, moving from one challenging environment to the next.
He has been working at the mine for the past three and a-half years and has been operating the jumbo for the past eight months.
He and his partner, who have two young children, bought a house in Palmerston several years ago. While shift-work meant it was a strain not seeing the children, he believed the benefits in the end would outweigh anything negative - "financially anyway".
Mr Thomson is proud that he provides a good living for his partner and family, saying that it is a "good feeling".
"Me being here means she [his partner] doesn't have to work. Financially, we're pretty sound. My partner does what's important and that's raising my kids," he said.
His long-term plan was to work another 10 or 15 years in the mining industry - "at least until the mortgage is paid" - then reassess their direction.
There were not many mines in the world in a setting like Macraes and also within 30 minutes' drive of the coast.
On his last break, he went groper fishing and, with good fishing and diving only a stone's-throw away, "what more could you ask for in a mine location?".
Ask Mr Thomson what it's like underground and he says it's "great". The jumbo, or his "office" as he described it, was a fairly complex machine, with a lot of dials and levers, and there were days when he was tested.
He was usually underground by about 7.30am, working through until 5.30pm or 6pm. Although he was on the "front line" by himself, time went quickly when he was busy.
It was imperative to keep aware and to know how to read the ground conditions. "Most things can be controlled. Really the only times when people get injured is by freak accidents. There's a lot of procedures in place . . . If you stick to those rules, there should be no problems," he said.
"It's just another day at the office really," he said.
