Te Pāti Māori Co-leader, Ngāti Ruanui and Ngā Rauru uri Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is today celebrating that her Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill has been drawn from Parliament’s biscuit tin, while calling on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party to support the Bill.

“I’m beyond thrilled that my bill to ban seabed mining has been drawn from the Ballot. This is the latest win in a long eight-year campaign from mana whenua to protect our moana in Taranaki and across Aotearoa from the greed of international mining companies” said Ngarewa-Packer.

“Deep sea mining is environmental vandalism and would wreak permanent havoc on marine life and coastlines.

“Mining up to 50 million tonnes of ironsands every year for 35 years would be an absolute environmental disaster. At a time when we are facing climate and biodiversity crises, we simply cannot allow this. Parliament now has the opportunity to stop this destruction once and for all.

“This news comes off the back of our hugely successful lobbying trip to the UN Oceans Conference in Portugal as Pacific parliamentarians – by the end of the conference, nations including Palau, Fiji, Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, France, Portugal and Chile had all announced their opposition to deep sea mining. There is a growing global movement to end seabed mining.

“I’m calling on the Labour Party to support my Bill – it has broad support among hapū and iwi, environmental groups and the community.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Government's Assault On Maori

This isn’t news, but the National-led coalition is mounting a sustained assault on Treaty rights and obligations. Audrey Young in the NZ Herald has compiled a useful list of the many ways Christopher Luxon plans to roll back the progress made in race relations over the past forty years. He has described yesterday’s nationwide protests by Maori as “pretty unfair.” Poor thing. More