Shane Jones’ undeclared meeting with mining companies about the Fast-Track Approvals Bill w/ Communities Against the Fast-Track’s Augusta Macassey-Pickard: 22nd July, 2024

An Official Information Act request reported on last week by Newsroom revealed Minister for Resources Shane Jones obscured the nature of an undeclared meeting with multiple mining companies about the Fast-Track Approvals process in February. 

Initially, Jones told Newsroom the dinner was a “last minute thing”, however he corrected the record the following day saying the dinner was arranged in advance with two other participants. 

In response, Communities Against the Fast-Track, a coalition of communities, groups and other individual community organisers, have called for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to remove Jones from his portfolio.

Wire host Sofia Roger Williams spoke to spokesperson for Communities Against the Fast-Track, Augusta Macassey-Pickard, about this, starting the interview asking her how concerned she and the Communities Against the Fast-Track groups were about this behaviour.