South Taranaki hapū want the Waitangi Tribunal to halt a fast-track bid to mine the seabed off Pātea.
Trans-Tasman Resources has applied under the new Fast-track Approvals Act to mine in the South Taranaki Bight for 20 years.
The mining and processing ship would churn through 50 million tonnes of the seabed annually, discharging most of it back into the ocean in shallow water just outside the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit.
Hapū and iwi are seeking a tribunal injunction to block processing of Trans-Tasman Resources’ fast track application.
The claimants want an urgent hearing into alleged Crown breaches and are seeking to summon Crown officials they say are responsible.
They say the Crown failed to consult tangata whenua, breaching Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and ignored a Supreme Court ruling against the seabed mine.
To get an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing, applicants must be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant and irreversible prejudice as a result of current or pending Crown actions.
Lead claimant Puawai Hudson of Ngāruahine hapū Ngāti Tū said their moana was rich in taonga species.
“If seabed mining goes ahead, we lose more than biodiversity, we lose the mauri that binds us as Taranaki Mā Tongatonga (people of south Taranaki),” Hudson said.
The area was also subject to applications under the Marine and Coastal Area Act – the law that replaced the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
“This is not consultation – this is colonisation through fast-track.”
The applicants’ legal team, who were also of Ngāruahine, said the Wai 3475 claim broke new ground.
Legal tautoko Alison Anitawaru Cole and Te Wehi Wright said the Court of Appeal proved the Tribunal’s powers to require Crown action, in urgent and prejudicial cases, when it summonsed Oranga Tamariki’s minister Karen Chour.
They argued the tribunal ought also be able to halt other urgent and prejudicial Crown actions – such as processing Trans-Tasman Resources’ application under the Fast-track Approval Act.
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Taranaki claimants
• All hapū of Ngāruahine iwi
• Their school Te Kura o Ngā Ruahine Rangi
• Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui
• Ruanui hapū including Ngāti Tupaea
• Parihaka Papakainga Trust.
Groups outside Taranaki facing Fast-track Approval Act applications have also joined, including Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Porou ki Hauraki.
As opponents pressed their claim, Trans-Tasman Resources was due to argue its case this week at New Plymouth District Council.
Trans-Tasman has said opposition to seabed mining lacked scientific credibility and the waste sediment it discharged would be insignificant given the load already carried by the turbid Tasman Sea.
Trans-Tasman Resources managing director Alan Eggers was expected to lay out his wares to councillors at a public workshop on Wednesday morning.
The company promised an economic boost in Taranaki and Whanganui, creating more than 1350 New Zealand jobs and becoming one of the country’s top exporters.
The only known local shareholder, millionaire Phillip Brown, last week was reported to be lodging a complaint to New Plymouth District Council, alleging bias by its iwi committee Te Huinga Taumatua.
The Taranaki Daily News reported that Brown thought tribal representatives and councillors on the committee talked for too long during a deputation opposed to Trans-Tasman Resources’ mining bid.
Te Huinga Taumatua co-chair Gordon Brown noted after the hour-and-a-quarter discussion that it was was a record extension of the officially-allotted 15 minutes.
The committee, including Mayor Neil Holdom, voted that the full council should consider declaring opposition to Trans-Tasman Resources’ mine when it was due to meet on Tuesday, June 24.
Phillip Brown was reported to believe the meeting was procedurally flawed and predetermined.
Iwi liaison committees in north and south Taranaki typically relaxed debate rules to allow fuller kōrero.
Taranaki Regional Council’s policy and planning committee recently reached a rare accord on dealing with freshwater pollution when its new chair – Māori constituency councillor Bonita Bigham – suspended standing orders in favour of flowing discussion.
Ngāti Ruanui has stood against Trans-Tasman for over a decade, including defeating its application in the Supreme Court.
Rūnanga kaiwhakahaere Rachel Arnott said the Crown should know mana whenua would never give up.
“We are still here because our ancestors never gave up fighting for what is right.
“Tangaroa is not yours to sell: we will never leave, we will be here way beyond Trans-Tasman Resources, they have no future here.”
LDR is local body reporting co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
