Requirement For New Report A Step Too Far Says Ngati Whatua

A resource consent has how been issued to fix damage caused by an errant fencing contractor on Maungarei/Mt Wellington but a condition that a full botanical survey is required before any work can proceed has Ngati Whatua fuming.

“Just get on with fixing the problem,” says Ngati Whatua o Orakei spokesperson Ngarimu Blair.

“We don’t need another report, we don’t need further delay. Just get the teams up there as we agreed months ago and get on with repairing the ground before we get further damage.”

Blair says it is bad enough it has taken close to three months to get this far where the Council did the work without a resource consent, then decided to apply to itself to get a consent retrospectively to do the original work and then to fix the damage that original work made. Now to have conditions on the consent that will delay it further is farcical.

Blair says the consent wants the botanical survey to assess the impact of remedial activities on ‘annual ferns’.

“Where have they suddenly come from and does it matter anyway as Council’s cows have feasted on them for decades.

“I am all for good process but there comes a point when the process becomes an ass and we are at that point.

“This nonsense of requiring unnecessary reports is a waste of money when we are hoping to direct what money is available to run the protection of the maunga more appropriately.”

He says what is required is an overall plan for the entire volcanic field of Auckland that changes the focus of management away from seeing these as farms and to managing them like very important archaeological sites. The need is to direct existing funding to that end and find new funding that befits such important identifiers of the city and region.

Blair says this latest incident is just an indicator of a deeper problem.

“If it takes this long to sort out a problem of this size we can see the system is not working effectively. Let’s change the system and let’s change the mindset about how we relate to these maunga or mountains. It is time we had that conversation.”

ENDS

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