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Labour MP Shane Jones has slammed the Green’s environment spokesperson for interfering in the Environmental Protection Authority hearing into Trans Tasman Resources’ plan to mine iron ore from the seabed off the west coast of the North Island.
Hearings started today, and Gareth Hughes has urged commissioners to take on board more than 4000 public submissions opposing the project.
He says the Green Party would impose a moratorium on sea bed mining until it was proved unequivocally safe.
South Taranaki iwi have also come out against the company’s application to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed a year off their coast, for 20 years.
Mr Jones says it’s not appropriate for a member of parliament to shoot down a statutory organisation fulfilling its statutory responsibility.
"What has irked me is not the existence of the process but the perception there are two standards here. I’m being required, after I raised issues to do with the supermarket, to void speaking too much about the role of the commerce commission so they have got clear air to do their job. If it’s good enough for me, in Labour, it’s good enough for the Green mollyhawk to do the same thing with that statutory organisation," he says.
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