We Have Submitted. The Answer Is No.
- May 25
- 2 min read
Tāngaro Tuia te Ora has formally submitted in opposition to McCallum Bros Ltd's fast-track application to mine sand from Te Akau Bream Bay — 8.45 million cubic metres over 35 years.
We are calling on the consenting panel to reject this application in full.
The case against it is clear. There is no sand crisis. Research commissioned by Beca, New Zealand's largest engineering consultancy, found that alternative supply capacity already exceeds Auckland demand by 350 percent. Manufactured sand operations, on-land quarrying, and innovative alternatives like Kayasand can more than meet construction needs, without touching the seabed. Leading economist Hayden Green reviewed McCallum Bros' economic analysis and found it manifestly inadequate and demonstrably flawed. This operation would generate $270 million in revenue for a single, privately held company. Local community benefit: zero dollars.
The environmental cost would be permanent. A pair of tara iti — NZ fairy tern, one of the world's rarest seabirds with a total population of fewer than 50 — are known to nest at Waipū Cove within the Te Akau Bream Bay rohe. The proposed extraction zone directly threatens their feeding and roosting habitat. An 82.3 square kilometre regenerating scallop bed, tāmure (snapper) fisheries supporting 14 local commercial boats, and the coastal environments that underpin tourism and community life in Te Tai Tokerau are all at risk. These losses cannot be undone.
McCallum Bros' track record demands scrutiny. At their Mangawhai-Pakiri operations, the company gouged three-metre-deep trenches in the seafloor — a breach not identified through Auckland Council's monitoring. The Mangawhai sandspit has lost over 420,000 tonnes of non-replenishing sand under their watch, and is now expected to collapse in the next significant storm. The end of their Mangawhai-Pakiri operations in 2025 was a hard-won win for tara iti and the communities who fought for it for years. Approving a new fast-track application to begin the same activity at another stretch of their habitat would undo that.
The fast-track process itself is inadequate for a decision of this scale and permanence. Sixty-day timeframes, no formal public participation, and restricted expert evidence cannot deliver the scrutiny that 35 years of irreversible seabed extraction requires.
And the communities of Te Tai Tokerau have already spoken. In March 2025, ESF Co-Chair Tāwera Nikau delivered a 14,000-signature petition to Parliament opposing this project, gathered in just four months. More than a thousand people spelled out SAY NO on Ruakākā beach. Candidate surveys ahead of the 2025 local body elections found overwhelming opposition.
This is not wanted. This is not needed.
