Trans-Tasman Resources can respond to the draft rejection before the final ruling next month \u2013 and could challenge the outcome in court.<\/p>\n
But Te Runanga o Ng\u0101ti Ruanui kaiwhakahaere (director) Rachel Arnott believed the draft rejection, released on the eve of Waitangi Day, would stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bloody hope so,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ng\u0101ti Ruanui led the opposition to the mine even before the first application in 2013, winning in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and, in 2021, the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Ordered to start again, TTR instead reapplied under the explicitly pro-development Fast-track Approvals Act.<\/p>\n
The Fast-track panel invited the company to submit more evidence of safety but said in its decision that TTR did not provide enough proof.<\/p>\n
Arnott said the panel\u2019s conclusion that TTR\u2019s evidence was lacking left the mining bid dead in the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t actually done the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey continue to use the same experts; they bring in a couple of others … Many haven\u2019t even set foot in Aotearoa.\u201d<\/p>\n
TTR executive chairman Alan Eggers said the company was disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is difficult to reconcile why the expert panel did not accept our FTA [Fast-track Approvals Act] application and evidence provided, including input from many world-leading experts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trans-Tasman Resources wants to suck up 50 million tonnes of seabed sediment a year for at least 20 years to extract iron, titanium and vanadium.<\/p>\n
A factory ship would discharge 45 million tonnes of slurry annually back into the waters of the P\u0101tea Shoals \u2013 170,000 tonnes a day, allowing for downtime.<\/p>\n
The main ecological risks are a drifting plume of sediment smothering thriving reef ecosystems and the impact of underwater noise pollution on protected marine mammals.<\/p>\n
Eggers said he found it \u201cdifficult to accept\u201d the Fast-track panel\u2019s intent to decline the project \u201cwith concerns on almost every aspect\u201d.<\/p>\n
Te Tai Hau\u0101uru MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said TTR\u2019s mining bid had no chance after the panel found that harms far outweighed economic benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extremely confident, probably more confident about this than I\u2019ve ever been,\u201d Ngarewa-Packer, also Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori\u2019s co-leader, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven under Fast-track legislation, designed to push projects through, seabed mining has been found to cause unacceptable harm to the environment, to taonga species [treasured species] and to tikanga M\u0101ori [M\u0101ori customs].\u201d<\/p>\n
Ngarewa-Packer intends this week to lodge a revamped member\u2019s bill in Parliament to outlaw seabed mining, amended to deal with changes including the Fast-track law.<\/p>\n
All eight Taranaki iwi opposed the mine, alongside the region\u2019s four councils and neighbouring Whanganui District Council.<\/p>\n
A predominantly southeast drift from the mine means Ng\u0101 Rauru K\u012btahi reefs could be worst hit by seabed sediment.<\/p>\n
Te K\u0101hui o Rauru tumu whakarae Tahinganui Hina said the iwi opposed TTR from the start because the environmental risk was so massive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re up for things that we can manage,\u201d Hina said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s take renewable energy, it\u2019s a palatable conversation: TTR\u2019s not even a topic we can talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hap\u016b led Ng\u0101ruahine iwi\u2019s response, foregrounding a new generation of leaders like Puawai Hudson of Ngati T\u016b.<\/p>\n
For decades, her grandfather, Rocky Hudson, was central in Ng\u0101ruahine\u2019s battles in courts and at the Waitangi Tribunal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reflect on my koroua [grandfather] who was still around when these fights started and … it\u2019s now fallen to his mokopuna\u2019s [grandchildren\u2019s] generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iwi were forced to spend scarce funds fighting this battle \u201cbut the biggest cost to our people is the emotional tax\u201d, Hudson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur old people are getting tired. They\u2019ve fought for years, for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
She doubted TTR could overturn the draft decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cultural impacts far outweigh any regional benefit, especially when most of that money will be exported overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Taranaki District Council Deputy Mayor Rob Northcott is a councillor for P\u0101tea, the centre of opposition to the mine.<\/p>\n
Northcott agreed the draft decision was likely the death knell for Trans-Tasman\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just saying that nah, nah, we\u2019re not prepared to gamble our environment and that\u2019s the core of it really.\u201d<\/p>\n
P\u0101tea Community Board chair Jacq Dwyer credited mana whenua for leading the whole community in opposition to TTR for 13 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are relieved but we\u2019re cautious,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand they\u2019re determined, they\u2019ve got a lot of money, but we\u2019re never going to back down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re never going to change our stance on the imperative that we protect the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trans-Tasman Resources can respond to the draft rejection before the final ruling next month \u2013 and could challenge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[155157,1040,49063,690,78,26477,440,57537,111,43,139,69,5659,54085,1240,16715,376],"class_list":["post-275216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-australianowned","tag-bid","tag-companys","tag-dead","tag-in","tag-leaders","tag-local","tag-mine","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-say","tag-seabed","tag-south","tag-taranaki","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}