Councillor holds own meeting

Councillor holds own meeting on miner's plant

An Environment Southland councillor says it would be futile to sit on the committee hearing the case for a briquetting plant at Eastern Southland, and will hold his own public meeting instead.
  Robert Guyton, a member of the council's resource consent hearing committee, said yesterday he would hold an informal meeting to gauge public opinion on Solid Energy's plans to build a $25 million briquetting plant near Mataura, as legislation meant he would be unable to "ask the questions I feel are most important" at tomorrow's hearing.
  A clause in the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill meant councils could not consider climate change and the impact of greenhouse gases when granting consent applications, so the public was unable to question the potential environmental impact of lignite mining at tomorrow's hearing, he said.
  Rules that meant regional councils had to look at conset applications on a case-by-case basis was flawed - as shown recently at the waituna Lagoon, he said.
  "It's death by a thousand cuts" and I'm not happy to sit and allow that to occur." Mr Guyton said.
  That clause made him wonder how much sway industry had on the country's policy-making, and what direction the National-led Government was heading, he said.
  Last month the Gore District Council approved a resource consent application from the Government-owned energy company, and Prime Minister John Key has backed plans to mine Southland's lignite.
  Tomorrow's Environment Southland hearing is for water and discharge permits.
  Mr Guyton said he believed the committee would approve the application, but it was important councillors heard a range of viewpoints and were not close-minded.
"[At meetings organised by stakeholders] I've found they can't really have a say too easily. They're more there to be told, to have the case presented to them, rather than back-and-forth sharing of information," Mr Guyton said.
  He wanted to hear from those in support of mining plans just as much as he wanted to speak with others in opposition, and planned to present the findings of tomorrow's discussion when Environment Southland attended a presentation by Solid Energy later this month, he said.
  Environment Southland chief executive Ciaran Keogh yesterday declined to comment on whether he believed Mr Guyton should be attending the consents hearing, rather than holding his own meeting.
  "It's actually a substantial political argument, and it's not up to me to be involved in that realm," he said.
  However, Mr Guyton and other committee members were under no obligation to attend every single hearing, and what each councillor chose to do as a private individual was their business, he said.
  Mr Guyton will hold his meeting at the Invercargill Public Library from 1:30pm to 3:00pm tomorrow. The resource consent hearing will begin at 1:30pm at Environment Southland.

 alana.dixon@stl.co.nz