{"id":74427,"date":"2025-10-24T10:30:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T21:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=74427"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:42:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:42:46","slug":"a-fast-tracked-farce-trans-tasman-resources-still-hasnt-learned-to-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/a-fast-tracked-farce-trans-tasman-resources-still-hasnt-learned-to-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"A fast-tracked farce: Trans-Tasman Resources still hasn\u2019t learned to listen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve ever wondered what corporate arrogance looks like, spend a day at Trans-Tasman Resources\u2019 (TTR) fast-track application conference*. I did. It was my first out-of-office in my new role at Greenpeace; a road trip south with our Programme Director to support iwi, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM), and the others who\u2019ve spent over a decade fighting this.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

On the drive down, I wondered what the event would look and feel like. Under the fast-track process, we had no precedent to guide us.<\/p>\n\n

After the first day, the event looked like a lot of things, but mostly it looked like an ironic, united front between iwi, communities, boating clubs, fisheries and oil companies<\/em>, standing up against a corporation that thinks it must follow no rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

But as infuriating as it is for us all to be back in this room, by the end of day two, it looked less like a conference and more like a criminal trial \u2014 one in which the evidence against the defendant is so overwhelming, you start to wonder why they even showed up.<\/p>\n\n

The answer, of course, is political confidence. <\/p>\n\n

TTR seems to believe that their friendliness with the coalition government will make up for the fact that they\u2019ve been rejected by everyone else \u2014 iwi, scientists, councils, community groups, even the Supreme Court. They\u2019ve lost badly, and repeatedly. <\/p>\n\n

But nevertheless, they persist. <\/p>\n\n

Here they are again, trying to repackage the same bad science, the same discredited modelling, the same lack of answers, feeding it up to the expert panel as something new. <\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s insulting. Not just to the iwi who have fought them for more than 15 years, but to the community, the courts, and frankly, to the intelligence of everyone in the room.<\/p>\n\n

Over kai with the iwi after the hearing, I heard first-hand how this process had affected people\u2019s lives \u2014 wh\u0101nau who\u2019ve spent years showing up to hearings, writing submissions, explaining over and over why their moana isn\u2019t up for negotiation. It\u2019s not abstract to them. It\u2019s home, ancestry, and livelihood.<\/p>\n\n

The environmental stakes couldn\u2019t be clearer. The proposed mining zone sits in the heart of a biodiversity hotspot \u2014 a feeding ground for pygmy blue whales and M\u0101ui dolphins, a place where the seabed supports life that scientists are only starting to understand. Every tonne of sediment TTR proposes to disturb would send plumes across the South Taranaki Bight, suffocating marine habitats and disrupting ecosystems that have sustained life for millennia.<\/p>\n\n

The arrogance is palpable<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

During breaks, the TTR team huddled together, chuckling as though they hadn\u2019t just been publicly dressed down. One of their staff fetched takeaway coffees for the group; executive chair Alan Eggers didn\u2019t even glance up to thank him. That pretty much sums up the energy of the TTR operation: entitlement in navy suits.<\/p>\n\n

Speaker after speaker, from iwi representatives to local councils, fisheries, and even oil companies, repeated one phrase: \u201cLack of consultation.\u201d<\/strong> Every. Single. One. <\/p>\n\n

Knowing their modus operandi, it\u2019s perhaps less of a surprise that TTR didn\u2019t bother to meaningfully consult with iwi or the local community, but what was perhaps more revealing was their disregard for other commercial interests. It\u2019s as if they were thinking, \u201cFisheries won\u2019t be able to fish? Oh dear, well we\u2019re very sorry to hear that, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Ng\u0101ti Ruanui made it clear, early and often, that the answer has been no <\/em>for more than a decade \u2014 no <\/em>to environmental destruction disguised as innovation, no <\/em>to exploitation without consent, and no <\/em>to having their whakapapa and tikanga treated as a procedural inconvenience.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
The Trans-Tasman Resource team listening to the presentations from Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) and Greenpeace Aotearoa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The fast-track irony<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

But there\u2019s an irony in watching this unfold under the very process designed to make it easier for them. Under the Luxon government\u2019s fast-track process, the expert panel wasn’t remotely required to host this level of consultation. But they chose to anyway \u2013 perhaps a heartening sign that they are leading with their consciences. And the irony is, there were more groups represented in this conference than at the previous EPA hearing, and all of them made the same point: TTR has no social licence.<\/p>\n\n

Seafood NZ, while cautious in tone, still criticised the lack of proper assessment \u2013 economic, environmental, and otherwise. Their view of the moana as a \u201cresource to manage\u201d rather than a living ecosystem was telling, but even they couldn\u2019t defend the indefensible.<\/p>\n\n