{"id":566426,"date":"2026-08-12T05:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/566426\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T05:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:08:09","slug":"judicial-review-sought-over-governments-approval-of-four-of-rocket-labs-mahia-satellite-launches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/566426\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial review sought over Government\u2019s approval of four of Rocket Lab\u2019s Mahia satellite launches"},"content":{"rendered":"

An application for a judicial review is a request for a judge to review the actions or decisions of a public or private administrative body.<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab and Penk have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Penk said the minister wouldn\u2019t comment on court matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a robust process to assess any proposed payloads launched from New Zealand. NZSIS and GCSB [the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau] undertake national security risk assessments for all payload permit applications,\u201d the spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs per international best practice, our approach to assessing remote sensing permits deliberately doesn\u2019t focus on who the customers are, it focuses on how powerful the technology is, noting permit holders are not allowed to sell data to terrorists or sanctioned entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemote sensing providers can have thousands of customers, which change all the time. It\u2019s not practical or realistic to try to identify all customers and downstream users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab\u2019s communications director Murielle Baker told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today earlier this year its launches would not be approved if they contravened New Zealand law<\/a> or its international obligations, including payloads linked to nuclear weapons programmes or those intended to harm other spacecraft or systems on Earth.<\/p>\n

Collins, the Space Minister at the time, said launches of payloads were only authorised by the Government if they aligned with New Zealand\u2019s national interests and international obligations.<\/p>\n

Sam Vincent, one of the lawyers acting for the applicants, said in a statement Collins did not take into consideration New Zealand\u2019s obligations under the Genocide Convention or broader international human rights law when approving the four launches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was despite the likelihood that Israel was using these satellites and would continue to use them for military targeting,\u201d Vincent said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 26 more BlackSky satellites now approved for launch by the new minister \u2013 while Israel continues to strike Gaza. We are seeking an order that will quash the minister\u2019s approval and direct that he inquire into BlackSky\u2019s likely supply of data to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

PSNA said it raised concerns about potential Israeli military use for BlackSky satellites with Collins in 2024.<\/p>\n

PSNA spokeswoman Rinad Tamimi said the decision to approve the launches was \u201cwilful ignorance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sonya Smith, an uri (descendant) of Mahia iwi Rongomaiwahine and nearby N\u016bhaka iwi Ng\u0101ti R\u0101kaipaaka, said mana whenua had \u201creal concerns\u201d about BlackSky and the direction of the New Zealand Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of our ancestral whenua [land] to launch satellites marketed to defence and intelligence agencies \u2013 without meaningful engagement with tangata whenua and regard for w\u0101hi tapu of that whenua \u2013 is a Treaty failure and a moral failure. We support any legal process that brings proper accountability to these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdulaal is an engineer in Christchurch. His family sought refuge in Gaza in 1948<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 85 of my extended family have been killed in multiple air strikes by Israel. My two sisters have had to live in terrible conditions with their families in tents in the Al Mawasi area for more than two years now,\u201d he said in a statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael is still bombing and killing in Gaza. We hope that we will stop these satellite launches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazzal is an information technology professional based in Auckland. His parents were displaced from their homes in 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Te Moke (Ng\u0101ti Rangitihi, Tapuika and Tonga) is a doctor working at Middlemore Hospital and Auckland City Hospital.<\/p>\n

He said he was joining the case because he felt a \u201cstrong affiliation with the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n

Protests were organised around the judicial review in several cities around New Zealand on Wednesday. In Hastings, two people were outside MP Catherine Wedd\u2019s office when Hawke\u2019s Bay Today turned up.<\/p>\n

Protester Warren Brewer said he wanted the Government to take a stronger stance on Gaza and questioned New Zealand\u2019s involvement in launches from Rocket Lab\u2019s Mahia site.<\/p>\n

\"WarrenWarren Brewer (left) and Liz Jones, with her dog Syrus, at a protest against Rocket Lab launches outside MP Catherine Wedd’s Hastings office on Wednesday. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n

Liz Jones said Rocket Lab were \u201cokay when they first started, until they were bought by America\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An application for a judicial review is a request for a judge to review the actions or decisions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[12796,3011,7237,73229,27160,1739,80178,111,139,69,1118,1523,762,13650,4029,147,13911,392],"class_list":["post-566426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-approval","tag-four","tag-governments","tag-judicial","tag-labs","tag-launches","tag-mahia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-review","tag-rocket","tag-satellite","tag-science","tag-sought","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566426","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=566426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}