Australian Company Applies To Mine Taranaki Seabed Under Fast-Track Law

Friday, 18 April 2025, 2:45 pm
Article: Craig Ashworth - Local Democracy Reporting

The Australian company wanting to mine the South Taranaki seabed has asked New Zealand’s Government for a green light under its new Fast-track Approvals Act.

Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), now fully-owned by Australian gold and silver miners Manuka Resources, pulled out of an environmental hearing last year to instead seek permission to mine under the Government's pro-development fast-track law.

The company already has the go-ahead to suck up 50 million tonnes of sand every year from the South Taranaki seabed for 35 years, to extract valuable vanadium along with titanium and iron.

It would vacuum up some 180,000 tonnes of sand a day during its predicted 40 weeks a year of mining, digging 11 metres deep into the sands beneath shallow waters off Pātea.

But TTR can’t proceed without consents to dump back into the sea 45 million tonnes of unwanted “process sand” – 160,000 tonnes daily – in what it said through the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) would be “controlled process”.

Manuka Resources told the Australian Stock Exchange it expects to earn US$312 million a year before tax, giving a near 40 percent rate of return on investment of US$602 million.

The company said it would provide a huge economic boost in Taranaki and Whanganui, create more than 1350 jobs and become one of New Zealand's top exporters.

Opponents fear the discharge – especially a superfine sediment plume – will drift uncontrollably, settling on and choking sea life on the many reefs of the Pātea Banks.

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Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has led the campaign against TTR since before she became Te Tai Hauāuru’s MP, when she was heading Ngāti Ruanui’s iwi agency.

She wants seabed mining applications removed from the Fast-track Approvals process, saying there’s a lack of scientific evidence about environmental harm.

“The attempt to bypass environmental scrutiny through the Fast-track Approvals Act is a direct affront to the integrity of our legal system which has repeatedly rejected this destructive proposal through the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court,” said Ngarewa-Packer

Eleven parties joined the court fight: two iwi, the Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board, environmental activists and commercial fishing lobby groups and companies.

“It is deeply disturbing that Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) continues to push for seabed mining in South Taranaki despite overwhelming opposition from local iwi and hapū, including Ngāti Ruanui and Ngāruahine, and a series of legal rulings that have upheld the Treaty rights of mana whenua and the protection of our moana.”

She said there were no credible safeguards for marine life, customary fisheries, and coastal ecosystems.

“There is no proven way to contain or monitor the sediment plume, and no guarantee it won’t devastate our ocean and food sources for generations.”

Two years ago South Taranaki District Council said seabed mining should be banned in New Zealand as any economic benefits won’t outweigh the effect of “environmental vandalism”.

TTR was told its mining would be harmful before it quit the Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA) hearing a year ago.

Supreme Court judges had unanimously rejected the application over lack of environmental caution and sent it back to the EPA for a fresh look.

The Court instructed the Authority to block the mining if consent conditions couldn’t prevent pollution.

The EPA decision-making committee chair, retired Court of Appeal judge Lyn Stevens, pleaded with TTR lawyers to get to the point.

“It’s inevitable that there will be findings in this case of material harm in various respects and that’s been admitted,” he said.

“How might [consent] conditions mitigate those. Or can they?”

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining chairperson Cindy Baxter said TTR hasn’t done any new modelling of the sediment plume since 2017 and the EPA hearing committee had been considering doing its own modelling to fill the gap.

Baxter said in 2014 the EPA told the company to do a marine mammal survey, but TTR didn’t do so for its second application, nor the re-hearing, and still hadn’t.

“They see the Fast-track as a shortcut and are acting like it's a fait accompli.”

Greenpeace spokesperson Juressa Lee said more than 53,000 people signed a petition to stop seabed mining.

"Now these wannabe seabed miners are grasping at the lifeline thrown by the Luxon Government’s Fast-track process to revive their zombie project.”

“The EPA must… allow these thousands of supporters some representation in an otherwise non-transparent process."

Two weeks ago, TTR released via the ASX an economic impact assessment by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, saying it would generate more than 1350 jobs including more than 300 direct jobs in Taranaki and Whanganui.

TTR estimated it would generate export earnings of more than $850 million annually, making it one of New Zealand’s top 12 exporters.

Manuka Resources director and TTR executive chairman Alan Eggers said it was an outstanding opportunity for investors and a huge economic boost in Taranaki and Whanganui, with flow-on benefits for all of New Zealand.

“We now looked forward to working with the Environmental Protection Agency and an expert panel facilitated by the EPA, in completing the final stages of the approval process.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

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