A four-day hearing kicked off in the Wellington High Court challenging the Environmental Protection Authority-appointed committee's decision to grant a marine consent to Trans-Tasman Resources' offshore iron mining project with the first appellant arguing it misunderstood and misapplied the statute.
TTR has sought permission to extract 50 million tonnes of seabed material a year to export up to 5 million tonnes of iron sand per year from the ocean floor in the South Taranaki Bight.
It was initially rejected in 2014 when a committee ruled the environmental impacts of the proposal were too difficult to gauge on the evidence available.
The company went back to the drawing board and a second hearing was held between February and May last year. Consent was granted last August, under a series of conditions.
Francis Cooke, QC, who represents Maori and fishing interests in the hearing, said the EPA's decision-making committee committed a series of errors and consent should never have been granted.