Ngāti Ruanui hits back at Resources Minister Shane Jones

14 November 2024

Ngāti Ruanui is again inviting the Mouthpiece of the Mining Industry to front our people, after his latest attack in parliament.

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui Trust Kaiw’aka’aere Rachel Arnott said this morning, in the House, the Minister for Resources and Regional Development removed all doubt the government had sold out to international interests.

“He has chosen to ignore the people, and the three courts who ruled the pollution impacts were too great to allow.

“Instead banking on an industry that will be gone in 30 years’, leaving a biodiversity disaster in its wake.

"It is time Shane Jones came to South Taranaki and heard the truth.

“Seabed mining will kill virtually all living organisms in the area being mined, and full recovery will take years.

“While toxic discharges to the air and seafloor will spread its footprint well beyond the mined area.

“These are the facts this Government and seabed-miners don’t want you to know when they wax lyrical about its hypothetical benefits to the economy.”

This week, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui Trust launched a multi-prong media campaign exposing the toxic truth behind Seabed Mining.

The campaign includes advertisements in several national newspapers as well as social media platforms.

The ads detail fourteen inconvenient truths the Government and seabed-miners don’t want the public to know.

“All New Zealanders deserve the truth about what this proposal will subject our moana to,” Arnott said.

“For over a decade we have watched Trans-Tasman Resources promise the world, and literally fall down at every environmental safeguard.”

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui Trust taiao Graham Young said, “We have stopped them before; we will stop them again”.

“We need to ensure this government cannot ignore unquestionable evidence in favour of junk-science.

“We will use all options available to us to oppose, impede and halt this devastating activity.

“And at the forefront of our campaign will be the truth.”