Sir Sam, a vocal critic of Santana Minerals’ Bendigo-Ophir gold project, will be a guest speaker at the "Wine Not Mine" long-lunch event at high-end Tarras venue The Canyon on January 31.
Tickets are $450 each and all proceeds would go towards "expert fees and legal support to oppose Santana’s controversial fast-track Bendigo-Ophir mine", the event website said.
Mr Jones said there was an "aristocratic, elitist tone to the event".
"The workers, the blue-collar community of New Zealand, should have confidence that I and New Zealand First, as a pro-extraction party, are not going to allow a narrow cast of wannabe kings and queens to behave as if they are the exclusive lords of the Otago manor."
Sir Sam hit back and said Mr Jones "just can’t help himself from his own essential bully nature".
"More sneering abuse from the mini Trump wannabe."
Mr Jones said Sir Sam had deliberately poked his nose into politics "and he should not complain if a politician serves it back".
"If you want to get into the political ring, then you abide, not by Hollywood's rules, but by political rules."
The fundraiser was "evidence of a gaggle of personalities that are tone deaf", he said.
"I have no personal gripe against anyone getting on the piss and raising money.
"God knows, I belong to a political party — we do it on a regular basis."
However, he objected to the event organisers’ "disdain" of the mining industry and its workers.
He also said promotional material for the fundraiser misrepresented the mine’s visual impact by using telescopic photos to present it as "some carbuncle" from Luggate-Cromwell Rd.
People could have their say about the proposal through the fast-track process, he said.
Mr Jones, who is also Regional Development Minister, said Central Otago was "largely empty" and "pregnant with mining potential".
Otago needed to be humble and contribute economic growth to provide "essential infrastructure" — specifically the new Dunedin hospital — which he said was "the most expensive hospital that New Zealand has ever built".
"I then take the view, as New Zealand's pro-mining minister, that if there are natural resources in that rohe ... then we need to open them up.
"We need to be pragmatic because as we seek to boost the resilience and the quality of regional infrastructure, including hospitals, someone has to pay for it."
Sir Sam said fast-track "may be fine for a granny flat out the back", but not a "vast opencast mine spewing toxic chemicals into our waters and air".
"This needs more time, more thought, Shane."
This was not about politics, Sir Sam said.
It was about the "survival of our region" — viticulture, fruit-growing, agriculture and tourism — and keeping people "free from breathing cyanide and arsenic 24/7", Sir Sam said.
"He says I shouldn’t stick my nose into politics.
"I guess really, really smart people like him are the only ones qualified or brainy enough for that."
Central Otago landscape artist and environmentalist Sir Grahame Sydney, also a guest speaker at the event, called the proposed mine an "inescapably ugly and environmentally catastrophic project".
"The group objecting to it were simply people who cared a great deal about their landscape and wished to preserve the distinctive natural character and beauty of Central Otago."
The majority of profits from the project would go offshore, Sir Grahame said.
"The disastrous permanent impacts on our landscape will be a gift from Santana and the government’s fast-track process to the people of Central Otago for generations to come.
"No amount of money will compensate for what will be lost forever."
A spokesperson for organisers of the event said tickets had been selling fast on the back of "huge" community concern about the mine, with local wine growers, tourism operators and well-known local personalities not hesitating to support the dinner.
A Sustainable Tarras spokesperson said funds raised at the event would allow it to fund legal fees and expert reports to provide balance for the panel deciding on the consent application.
