City Counselling w/ Shane Henderson: September 24, 2021

This week, Ilena and Shane talk about what moving into level three means for Auckland, and in particular, how level 3 does not mean ‘level free’. They talk about varying levels of compliance and enforcement in different suburbs and how we can ‘support local’ safely during this time. 

They also addressed the felling of hundreds of non-native trees at Ōtāhuhu, following up on Ilena’s previous conversation with Shirley Waru. Shane outlined the scope of Auckland Council’s influence on the matter, and gave insight into the consultation process.

Disclaimer:

After the interview with Shane, Shirley Waru, the organiser of Protect Mt Richmond/Ōtāhuhu, had some clarifications on some of Cr. Henderson's points:

• Cr. Henderson implied that Auckland Council has no say in Tupuna Maunga Authority’s work. He did not mention that the Authority is a co-governance organisation. It has six iwi representatives and six Auckland Council representatives (who, under the Treaty settlement legislation are there to represent “all the people of Auckland”). The Authority is a ratepayer-funded entity. Every year, Auckland Council’s governing body considers the Authority’s annual operational plan and votes on the budget. In other words, Auckland Council does have some say on what the Authority does.
• He said that the public were consulted about the tree removal in both the Authority’s 2016 integrated management plan consultations and operational plan consultations. The Authority never specifically consulted about its intentions to remove all the exotic trees from all of Auckland’s maunga. The Authority’s chairman admits this in a Māori TV interview earlier this year:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrCMAhL4tk&list=PLvwPLhmfEWgk8wZyFXdCLKV871TFlO1FN&index=4. The Authority has consulted in recent years on its operational plan, but, on the whole, ignored public input. 
• Cr. Henderson said that only some of the exotic trees will be removed from Mt Richmond. Yes, not all exotic trees will be removed under this particular resource consent, but supporting documentation clearly shows they intend to remove all of them in time. Protect Mt Richmond/Ōtāhuhu believes they split the removal process in two so as to get a non-notified resource consent through.
• Cr. Henderson also says that tens of thousands of native plants are being planted in exotic trees' places. However, this is misleading: these are mostly small plants like flaxes, grasses and shrubs and not tree species, meaning that places that previously had tree cover would look very bare, covered with small plants rather than trees.