A brave Herne Bay couple took the Tupuna Maunga Authority (TMA) and Auckland Council to the High Court for a ‘Judicial Review’ of Owairaka / Mt Albert, citing the lack of consultation.
The manipulative, dishonest way the TMA presented removal of all 'exotic' trees was ‘sold’ to us as a ‘native restoration’ - slowly cloaking the maunga in natives without mentioning the felling of more than 2,500 mature trees across 14 volcanic cones.
Appeal Court decision by three judges, unanimously ruled in favour of the plaintiff -
· The Tupuna Maunga Authority had acted unlawfully in failing to adequately consult as required by the Reserves Act.
· Auckland Council had acted unlawfully in granting a non-notified resource consent.
· The appeal was granted and the resource consent was overturned.
After these findings, the logical decision for Auckland Council would be to withdraw the non-notified resource consents on the other maunga but arrogantly, council’s legal team decided NOT to do so, leaving that decision to the TMA.
TMA’s unelected chair, Paul Majuery has applied to the Supreme Court to overturn the decision, choosing to spend more ratepayer funds rather than consulting.
The blatant disregard from elected officials and public servants towards those who pay their wages is distasteful. Being more intent on increasing and wasting rates, their insufficient consultation has been used to push vanity projects, unused cycleways that destroy businesses, slowing down traffic to create congestion, felling trees, and condensing living arrangements without the amenities or infrastructure to accommodate this intensification.
When did the people give local and central government the right to destroy our way of life and character of our city? Mismanagement of council funds has turned the ‘City of Sails’ into ‘City of Road Cones’.
Logically these Appeal Court and Ombudsman decisions should be a wake-up call to council and ‘council controlled organisations’ and the failure of the TMA co-governance model, to change the consultation process.
“The views presented to the local authority should be received by the local authority with an open mind and should be given by the authority in making decisions, due consideration” - Local Government Act 2002
Further examples of sparse consultation across the city -
· Removal of street parking from most main roads by Auckland Transport.
· Grey Lynn / Westmere cycleway races ahead with urgent consultation during pandemic restrictions.
· Pūtiki Bay, Waiheke penguin habitat against marina developers (represented by environmental lawyer, Paul Majuery).
· Central government’s ‘3 Waters Authority' confiscating council assets.
· Cross-party ‘Enabling Housing Supply Bill’ for housing intensification conflicts with well consulted ‘Unitary Plan’ and removes heritage protections.
· Reserves are being sold by Panuku, its un-elected chair Paul Majuery and ‘rubber stamped’ by local boards.
· Suggestions of selling publicly owned golf courses for housing, losing much needed green spaces.
· Marine reserves put into co-governance without public input.
· 21 of our 28 regional parks into a co-governance under ‘consultation’.
· Ombudsman finding a lack of consultation by Ministry of Culture and Heritage for the Erebus Memorial in Dove Myer Robinson Memorial Park, Parnell.
It's overwhelming! How can anyone keep up? Who’s there to support us?
During the Hauraki Gulf Forum’s consideration of changing the forum into a co-governance authority, comprised of 50% mana whenua membership, Councillor Pippa Coom stated, "We're not here to bring the public along or the 14,000 members of the Gulf Users Group, who've been wound up through a misinformation campaign".
In contrast, former Councillor Mike Lee wrote in the Ponsonby News, “Those politicians fail to understand that the primary role of an elected representative is to represent the public to the council – not the other way round.”(Gael Baldock, Community Advocate)
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