MP
Warns of Doc Dominance
By Steve
Hepburn
This article was originally
published in the Otago Daily Times 18 June 2005
Nugget Point
The approval of a marine reserve in the North Island was
a warning to the South Otago community of how the Department of
Conservation dominated the process, an MP warned yesterday.
But the accusation from
New Zealand First list MP Jim Peters has been rejected by the
conservator who oversaw the creation of the 50,100ha Aotea marine
reserve, off Great Barrier Island.
Minister of Conservation
Chris Carter gave approval to the reserve this week, though it
still has to be approved by the Minister of Transport and Minister
of Fisheries.
Mr Peters said the final
decision for a marine area should always be made by an independent
objective authority rather than by the Minister of Conservation.
He said the decision resulted from a process whereby Doc developed
the proposal, considered the submissions and made all the decisions.
An application for the
Nugget Point marine reserve had not yet been lodged with the Minister
of Conservation.
Otago conservator Jeff
Connell could not be contacted yesterday but Doc spokeswoman Nicola
Vallance said a couple of requests under the Official Information
Act had slowed the process down. The department was working through
the requests.
She said the application
would be lodged very soon but declined to nominate a date.
When contacted, acting
Auckland conservator Warwick Murray said the Aotea reserve application
had had a long process of consultation before the application
was lodged. The application attracted 3500 submissions.
Mr Murray said once the
application was lodged, Doc no longer had any say and the decision
was left to the minister. The application was lodged in October
last year and there were no public hearings, There was informal
consultation from 2002, he said.
Mr Murray said people
had to remember making a submission was not a vote. The department
did not make a recommendation to the minister but just summarised
the submissions, he said.
Once the proposal was
approved, there was a right to a judicial review but he doubted
there would be one for the Aotea marine reserve.
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