How to lose a fast-track consent application: Trans Tasman Resources' Taranaki Bight project

How to lose a fast-track consent application: Trans Tasman Resources' Taranaki Bight project
The proposed Taranaki Bight seabed mining area. (Image: TTR)
Pattrick Smellie
Would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources is fast becoming the poster child for the worst aspects of the government’s otherwise laudable desire to speed up resource consents for nationally and economically significant projects.Having tried and repeatedly failed since the early 2010s to gain a resource consent to suck ironsand off the seafloor in the Taranaki Bight, the company is coming off as way too cocky by half about its prospects under the fast-track scheme.The proof is as simple as infrastructure minister Chris Bishop’s blu...

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