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10:52 am, November 15th, 2025 - 20 comments
Categories: capitalism, Environment, Mining, national, same old national -
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This government is deliberately enabling private seabed mining in Taranaki to prevent New Zealand’s largest future renewable electricity supply.
For the past 10 years, Trans-Tasman Resources (owned by Manuka Resources from Australia) has been trying and failing to get approval to mine the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight.
Having been rejected by every court including the New Zealand Supreme Court, the new Fast Track Legislation gives Trans-Tasman Resources another chance, and hearings are underway with a decision due early next year.
If this decision is approved it would be a world-first underwater open-cast mine dredging up to 50 million tonnes of ironsand every year for 35 years. This has been opposed successfully by everyone and by every court in the land. This National government has however ensured it was one of the first projects on the list to have most opposition formally stripped away using the Fast Track Approvals process. Alan Eggers is the Executive Director of Manuka Resources and the Director of Trans-Tasman Resources. This undersea mine has been a 20 year project for him.
The dredging would dump tens of millions of leftover sand back into the ocean, creating a sediment plume into a known ground for Pygmy Blue Whales, Little Penguins, Hector’s Dolphins, and Maui Dolphins. It would also cause massive damage to fish and to the New Zealand fishing industry.
But there’s more.
This government has gone a long way to deliberately choosing seabed mining against renewable energy. Back in the previous Labour government, there was a huge surge in serious proposals for massive offshore wind farms in the same areas as the seabed mine. Copenhagen Investment Partners together with NZSuperFund proposing one of them said there was a “really good chance” that a massive $5 billion offshore wind farm would be capable of powering more than a third of New Zealand homes if it were built off the west coast of the lower North Island.
Last year, companies interested in developing offshore wind farms, including Taranaki Offshore Partnership and rival consortium BlueFloat — which has since pulled out of New Zealand — wrote to ministers suggesting they had to make a choice between offshore wind and seabed mining in the area.
Taranaki Offshore Partnership, a joint venture between Danish renewable energy giant Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and the Government-owned NZ Super fund, unveiled plans in 2022 for a $5 billion wind farm in the South Taranaki Bight.
The lead for this consortium has said approval for the seabed mining scheme could take offshore wind off the table anywhere off New Zealand for “many years”.
So this was to be one of the largest investments in New Zealand in decades, with the capacity to strengthen our entire energy security base, now likely to have permanently crushed because of this government’s tipping of the scales in favour of seabed mining in the same area.
Imagine if NZSuperFund actually formed this wind farm: it would be a whole new energy generator entity and of a scale to rival that of Mercury, Genesis, and Meridian. The net effect of the wilful destruction of this energy investment by the Fast Track legislation is that the New Zealand energy consumer will continue to be ruled by an oligopoly that is screwing them and not coincidentally the government has protected the share price of its own energy companies by killing off a massive potential rival. It is a shocking conflict of interest.
National’s choice here, in historical comparison, would be like the state deliberately choosing to stop the entire Maui gas field from coming on stream during the oil crisis of the late 1970s.
Spanish windfarm developer BlueFloat Energy has also walked away from New Zealand as a result of this.
At its base it is also a move by National to shrink NZSuperFund as our sole large remaining independent node of power in New Zealand, just as they have with the Reserve Bank, in favour of some quite venal private interests. National is preferring to pull more power to its centre than provide for our future common good.
Obviously, the Fast Track legislation is also a direct rebuke to the independence of the Supreme Court: raw commercial and parliamentary power, not law, is now in force under this National government.
And do not be fooled by claims of the good that this mine could achieve. Manuka Resources had to backtrack on claims that the proposed Taranaki project would contribute a billion dollars a year to New Zealand’s exports. This included a formal retraction to the Australian Stock Exchange.
This government has claimed that it will clear the way for offshore wind farms, but they are doing the opposite. To be clear, wind farms are not environmentally neutral; they take tonnes of embedded carbon to build, require significant Transpower investment, and last about 30 years at best before needing to be replaced. But they are whole tonne better for us on electricity security, inbound investment by New Zealand sovereign funds, and pension investment security grounds, than destructive offshore seabed mining.
It is a gargantuan one or the other, and this government is not neutral. It is the Manuka Resources seabed mine proposal, not offshore wind farms, that got the invitation for fast track approval.
New Plymouth MP David McLeod who Chaired the Environment Select Committee which drafted the Fast Track Bill, received a $10,000 campaign donation from Phil Brown a businessman with a substantial shareholding in Trans Tasman Resources who are proposing the seabed open cast mine.
If this seabed mine is approved, a winning 2026 Labour-led government should reverse the decision and stop it without compensation.
If National win in 2026, approving the Taranaki seabed mine decision will be seen as a permanent hinge-point in the future destiny of New Zealand to be a destructive extractor of resources for foreign gain and not a gentler constructor of energy investment for our common good.
This seabed mine must be stopped.
The question is also, however, what does Trans Tasman’s shareholders have over this government that National are prepared to roll over the entire NZSuperFund and our common energy future to make this mine happen?
Why? You ask.
From AI Google
"The Atlas Network, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization that coordinates and supports a global network of free-market think tanks, has been linked to efforts that
oppose government climate action and promote market-oriented solutions that favor the fossil fuel industry."
Right Wing NZ is corrupt as hell and onboard with fossil fuel.
Exactly Barfly.
If you're going to use AI here, please post the wording of the question you used and whether using google AI mode or AI assist. That way we can look up the references that google's AI is using. Generic AI is frequently wrong and out of context and posting it randomly turns TS into twitter or FB. Let's not do that.
Question Google
The Atlas Network and climate change
Google AI overview
The Atlas Network has a significant and complex relationship with climate change, primarily through funding and promoting think tanks that actively obstruct climate policy and deny the reality or impacts of climate change
. Research indicates a deep entanglement between the Atlas Network, fossil fuel interests, and a network of conservative and neoliberal think tanks that produce content opposing climate action. The network's activities include funding campaigns against climate treaties and regulations, promoting narratives that defend the fossil fuel industry, and a focus on influencing political discourse to block climate policy at both national and international levels"
I believe this to be correct and frankly bloody obvious. Is the detail of sourcing sufficient for your requirements?
Use your own fucking brain or close your laptop you lazy wanker.
Well, that response is certainly the way to promote contributions and debate!
Thank you Advantage. This Government is totally for Private enterprise, and nothing for the Public good. If the fourth Estate was a functioning body, investigative journalists would be dong what you are. Put in simple terms, they CoC follow riches for themselves and friends, New Zealand is just a chicken to be plucked, and as our "PM" says, "I don't care"
The RSB gone and seabed mining stopped.
No party, but those in this coalition support either.
The Greens have laid down a line in the sand.
Any sea bed mining consent would not last.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360888154/greens-pledge-green-government-would-cancel-seven-fast-track-mining-consents
Good advocacy, no obvious flaw. So the govt is trying to sideline the market by picking a winner ahead of any competition? Has anyone told Seymour about this threat to the free market by his govt? Such a breach of his personal ideology could get him hopping mad. If the media rush to point tv cameras at him they could capture his impressions of a Mexican jumping bean for the headline news.
Also bizarre is the fact Shane Jones' beloved fishing industry is also dead against seabed mining, with Talley's, Seafood NZ and Te Ohu Kaimoana all opposing the TTR bid under the fast-track process, invited to submit, and lodging strong protest.
Strange bedfellows we have in this fight, not least because polling shows NZF and ACT supporters are all dead against it. Manuka Resources are a tinpot little outfit in debt up to their eyeballs run by an idiot from Perth who really doesn't have deep pockets. And our tax and royalties regime mean it's highly unlikely the economics would stack up for Aotearoa either.
Perhaps it's the fact if this project gets consent it would create a precedent for all the black sand off our entire west coast: when I first started opposing this Rio Tinto had the permit off my own black sand beach of Piha.
Labour are being so incredibly weak, still stuck in the argument somehow that their fast track process was better (it wasn't much better, tbh: it severely limited public participation, didn't have climate as a bottom line, etc), and are too afraid of their own shadows to promise anything like reversing something like a TTR consent.
Nevertheless, we shall fight them on all of our beaches, for as long as it takes. And we will win.
It may simply be that the coalition sees its window closing and is trying to ram through as much as possible now, hoping that any future Labour-led government will find it too politically risky or procedurally messy to undo later. That kind of “act fast and entrench the change” approach isn’t new. Governments often rely on the fact that reversals cost political capital.
And it’s important to remember that what’s driving this government isn’t just policy, but coalition politics. ACT has already managed to extract far more influence than its size would normally allow, and NZ First will absolutely have noticed. For them, latching onto a high-profile regional issue like the Taranaki seabed mine is strategically useful.
In fact, for NZ First it’s a win-win.
If the mine is approved, they can claim a major policy victory and enjoy the goodwill (and donations) of the industries that benefit. If it isn’t, they still get to play the heroic defenders of the regions “blocked by Wellington,” which is exactly the narrative they like to run on. Either outcome is politically profitable.
So what looks like a coherent strategic push toward seabed mining may actually be something more familiar: coalition bargaining, short-term opportunism, and each party trying to secure a visible win before the political cycle turns.
That would be my pick as well. What I find intriguing, and completely annoying is the lack of interest in the longer-term economics, and the opaqueness of restitution. Not to mention the complete bullshit about estimates of returns.
For instance, what is the royalty amount? Is it on profit? Or just revenue?
The only real world experience of the long-term suck-it and drop seafloor mining is from 1970. 55 years later, it looks even worse than on-land mining in terms of screwing up the landscape and ecology – making it nonviable for other uses. Plus this is old and quite stupid strip-mining technology.
They're extracting reasonably concentrated nodules from sediment from just the surface meters of the seabed. Why are they using 50 years old highly destructive techniques rather using semi-autonomous underwater drones? Way less destructive, probably considerably cheaper to operate long term. Doesn't preclude other uses of the area because it doesn't destroy the sea bed in vast areas and doesn't kill seafood catches.
Why is there such a rush? Not using it now with stupidly destructive techniques, just means that it is there for the future when there is actually a real shortage of the materials – and a local industry that is capable of using them. As it is, this is extraction and export with little to no added value or extremely limited employment.
But with Shane Jones involved, nothing new. I guess that we still have too many fools just have a mentality of a short-term extractive industry with no long-term planning worth mentioning.
Look at Sealord with its long-term pattern of very low returns on revenue/capital and the slow overall deterioration in profits and jobs to where it is now. TTR looks the same. Not to mention previous disasters like most of the Provincial Growth Fund projects. Over-hyped and piss-poor actual returns.
Honestly, maybe the simplest explanation is that the coalition just isn’t very good at business. They talk a big game about economic management but their decisions usually look more like short-term PR wins than anything grounded in commercial reality.
And with NZ First, it’s hard not to see the donor influence. They’ll shill almost anything if it keeps them politically afloat and the money flowing.
There’s something almost quaint and refreshingly mercenary about it. They’ve given up pretending there’s any principles behind their policies and are now just saying the quiet parts out loud.
Sustained stupidity is an option but Bishop is the primary ringleader not NZF and he is no mug, having command of the Transport, Housing, Infrastructure, RMA Reform, and Leader of the House. Well and truly the new Joyce.
In previous similar iterations, like Think Big (Birch), Major Regional Initiatives (Anderton), and Provincial Growth Fund projects (Jones), there were whole departments that carefully tracked each concept and evaluated them against competing concepts to ensure taxpayer funding was not used wastefully and where possible enabled broader benefits.
I'm not privy to the mechanics of this Fast Track scheme other than the ones I deal with directly. But it would be extraordinary if Treasury and the MBIE economic development team were not tracking the success or otherwise of all of the 150+ projects now in play. At minimum those that require further state investment to work such as $$ from rail, road, health, police, education, ports, etc would need to be closely tracked for budget 2026 and 2027 implications.
It is also not thinkable that Willis and Bishop and Luxon are not already taking heat from NZSuper guardians on this particular Taranaki one. As well as from every iwi from the Mokau to Wellington.
Not even Luxon could fuck up our political economy that badly.
The problem for Labour should it get in, is the nearly built expectation that every dickhead with a concept will think they can just apply and steamroller the natives.
Policy evaluation is always part art, part science. And even when governments try to do it properly, ministries are under constant pressure to “shape” the numbers. We’ve seen it for years: BCRs massaged past credibility to make absolutely bonkers RONS projects look sort-of defensible.
That’s not new.
What is new is a government that doesn’t seem especially interested in listening to official advice at all. Even if Treasury or MBIE were keeping an honest ledger of Fast Track risks, costs, and dependencies, there’s nothing to suggest Bishop, Willis, or anyone in Cabinet would pay attention to it. For example, the smoking-ban reversal and Simeon Brown’s blanket speed-limit “fix” imposed on a non-blanket policy, show exactly how little weight evidence carries with this government.
Nothing about Fast Track feels policy-led. It feels politics-led: quick wins, loud announcements, donor-pleasing headlines, and a quiet hope that the consequences land on the next government.
So yes, we should expect proper evaluation. We should expect sequencing, prioritisation, and ministers willing to use the machinery of government to weed out the duds. But what we’re getting instead looks much more like pure opportunism than anything resembling evidence-based decision-making.
And all of this is happening in a hollowed-out public sector that’s lost its moral courage and intellectual backbone: a system with less capacity, and far less willingness to push back.
Click to Edit –
I see your point and sincerely for the sake of New Zealand hope you are wrong.
Probably the Christchurch rebuild was the height of development interdepartmental cohesion.
It sure ain't too coherent on ground in Queenstown.
Labour and the Greens need to issue a joint statement stating categorically that any permits issued by the CoC regarding ANY mining will be revoked. (if its legal to do so.)
It’s absolutely legal. That’s one of the core features of Parliamentary sovereignty. No Parliament can bind its successors.
So if Labour and the Greens make it crystal clear that any permits issued under this government will be revoked, then any mining company that proceeds is doing so fully aware of the political risk. The liability sits squarely with them, not the incoming government.
If a company knowingly invests in a permit that could be overturned after the next election, that’s a commercial gamble. Not a legal barrier.
This has begun.
But RSB first (legal reasons)
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360888154/greens-pledge-green-government-would-cancel-seven-fast-track-mining-consents