From top to bottom, Robert Schofield, Trevor Robinson, Jane Black, David McMahon, Heike Lutz, Rawiri Faulkner, Liz Burge and Lindsay Daysh, the independent hearings panellists for Wellington’s District Plan

PoliticsMarch 1, 2024

Who are the members of Wellington’s independent hearings panel?

Joel MacManus

Wellington editor

The independent hearings panel for Wellington’s new District Plan has attracted criticism from all sides for its controversial decisions to reduce housing capacity. But who are they?

What is an independent hearings panel?

First of all, the independent hearings panel is not elected. They are not councillors, nor are they council staff. That’s why they are “independent”.

IHPs are a specific requirement set out in the Resource Management Act when councils are making District Plan changes. It’s their job to listen to all the submitters, weigh up all the evidence presented, and make recommendations to the council based on that evidence.

Effectively, everyone who wants to have input on the District Plan presents to the IHP, who weigh up the evidence and act as judge and jury.

This is a good idea for a number of reasons. District Plan hearings take ages, and councillors simply don’t have enough time to sit through the whole thing. Many of the issues are really technical and require specific background knowledge. And, in theory, IHPs should be less biased than elected officials, who are elected with specific agendas and mandates.

What qualifications do you need to be on an independent hearings panel?

At a bare minimum, you need to be accredited as a commissioner under the Resource Management Act. To do that, you need to complete a course called “Making Good Decisions“. It takes two days, and costs $2,400+GST. Chairs need to need to take an additional one-day course that costs $1,768+GST. Most commissioners also have extensive experience in planning, architecture, law, or a similar field.

There are 1138 accredited commissioners in New Zealand. Commissioners don’t just act on IHPs, they can adjudicate pretty much any controversial land or water-related issue a council might face. Several of the IHP members have made decisions on behalf of Wellington City Council before.

How was the Wellington IHP hired?

Wellington City Council listed the job ad on the Government Electronic Tendering Service, GETS. The application asked for commissioners with expertise in resource management, urban design, heritage, with knowledge of tikanga Māori, and “a high degree of empathy and professionalism”.

The council received eight applications through the GETS process and hired six of them. Councillors appointed the panel in a public-excluded meeting on December 8, 2022. The council did not specify how it hired the other two members of the eight-person panel.

There were three factors that were meant to be considered for hiring the IHP: capability (based on their CV), availability (they needed to commit to a 12-month process) and price (panellists had to provide an hourly or daily rate). The Spinoff asked Wellington City Council what the panel’s rate was, but the council was not able to confirm that information before publication.

What rules did the panel have to follow?

The council required the IHP to follow five principles:

Act in a fair and transparent manner.
Avoid unnecessary formality and allow all parties the opportunity to be heard, whether they are presenting written or verbal evidence.
Be efficient, to minimise time and costs.
Recognise tikanga Māori.
Recognise New Zealand sign language.

Members of the IHP were also required to disclose any actual or perceived conflict of interest, including:

If they have previously advocated for any position that would be affected by the District Plan.
If they have previously represented anyone who has submitted on the District Plan or would be affected by it.
If they have any personal financial interest, “including but not limited to an interest in property,
which may result in an actual or perceived conflict of interest and/or bias”.

Who are the panellists?

Trevor Robinson, chair

Robinson is the trustee of a $2.13m house in central Kelburn, right on the edge of the walkable catchment. It is listed on the conflict of interest register.

A lawyer in the environment field focused mostly on resource management, he was previously partner at Buddle Finlay, and is now a barrister at Shakespeare Chambers.

He listed two other conflicts of interest: Waka Kotahi, which he has acted both for and against, and the NZ Deerstalkers Association. He was also a member of IHPs for decisions by the Waikato Regional Council and the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

Robert Schofield, deputy chair

Schofield owns a property in Brooklyn with an estimated value $1.57m. He did not list it on the conflict of interest register. He is employed by Boffa Miskel, the consulting firm which wrote the council’s main report on character areas. He recused himself from several hearings involving character areas and other clients of Boffa Miskel.

He has 40 years of experience in planning, mostly in the Wellington area. He chaired the IHP for the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council.

Heike Lutz

Lutz is a director of Building Conservation Consultants Ltd, which provides expert advice on heritage buildings. She holds a master’s degree in architecture. She listed conflicts of interest due to previous professional relationships with Wellington Heritage Professionals and property developer Argosy.

Liz Burge

Burge is employed by Tomlinson and Carruthers Surveyors in Masterton. She listed a conflict of interest to Muaūpoko Tribal Authority Inc, because she is a whāngai of Rangitāne o Wairarapa. She also listed a conflict to the NZ Motor Caravan Association, which she has represented previously.

Lindsay Daysh

Daysh owns a property in Island Bay with an estimated value $1.29m. He did not list it on the conflict of interest register.

He is a director of Incite, a resource management consultancy. He is accredited as a chair and acted as a commissioner for several other decisions in Wellington. He listed conflicts of interest with Wellington City Council, Centreport, Wellington International Airport, Meridian Energy, Vodafone, Chorus, KiwiRail, Waka Kotahi, and the developers of the former Mount Crawford prison site.

His brother and sister-in-law, Stephen and Lisa Daysh, are trustees of the same $2.13m Kelburn property as Trevor Robinson.

Jane Black

Black owns a property in Mount Victoria with an estimated value of $1m. She did not list it on the conflict of interest register. The property is on a street where the panel recommended expanding character areas, though she was not directly involved in the decision.

Black has 30 years’ experience in urban planning and design, is on the board of Wellington Waterfront Limited, and chairs the Community Reference Group for Kāinga Ora, a forum for neighbours to raise complaints or concerns about Kāinga Ora developments.

Rawiri Faulkner

Faulkner is a director of Tū Taiao Limited which specialises in project and relationship management, planning, policy, strategy and facilitation.

He listed conflicts of interest to Kāinga Ora, which he had worked for previously, and Ngāti Toa, through whakapapa, though he had no involvement with the iwi’s submissions.

David McMahon

McMahon owns a property in Island Bay worth $870k and an apartment in Te Aro (Victoria Lane). He did not list either of them on the conflict of interest register.

He is a director of RMG, a resource and environmental management consultancy.

He listed conflicts of interest with the Wellington City Council, the Wellington Waterfront, Gordon Wilson flats, and Go Media. He is the deputy chair of the Christchurch IHP.

What will happen next?

The recommendations of the independent hearings panel are not final. Wellington city councillors still have the chance to make changes to the District Plan in a meeting on March 14, as long as they can get a majority vote for their amendments. Any changes the council makes will need to be signed off by housing minister Chris Bishop.

How to follow along

If you want to stay on top of everything that happens throughout this process, subscribe to The Spinoff’s War for Wellington newsletter. Every week, we’ll send a roundup of the most important stories about the District Plan process and the future of housing in Wellington. It will include highlights from our own coverage, perspectives from experts and activists, and the best reporting from other media around Wellington.

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’

Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor

Keep going!

Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONĀteaFebruary 29, 2024

Te Aka Whai Ora deserved so much more than its rushed death

Gabrielle Baker

Guest writer

Image: Tina Tiller

The Māori Health Authority was disestablished just 18 months after it was launched. Gabrielle Baker reflects on what could have been.

Yesterday afternoon I watched Parliament TV as the bill disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority) was passed, rapidly, under urgency. The whole thing took less than 24 hours.

Te Aka Whai Ora was the result of decades of dreaming about (and hard work labouring over) how the health system in Aotearoa could be configured to better serve Māori and give expression to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The exact shape and functions of Te Aka Whai Ora were never exactly what was advocated for in forums like the Waitangi Tribunal (when it was raised by claimants in the primary health care claims in 2018), as the dream was always something truly independent, away from government control. But it was a step forward.

Yet, after only a little more than 18 months as a real-life entity, Te Aka Whai Ora has reached the end of its road. Staff will be transferred to Te Whatu Ora / Health New Zealand (the organisation that replaced DHBs 18-ish months ago), and Te Aka Whai Ora won’t exist after June 30, 2024.

Health minister Shane Reti (Photo: Lynn Grieveson – Newsroom via Getty Images)

All three political parties in the coalition government stated their intentions to get rid of Te Aka Whai Ora during their election campaigns (and before). So, it was not a surprise that this common ground was part of the coalition agreements, nor that introducing legislation to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora was on the new government’s 100-day plan (meaning that legislation would have to be introduced by March 8, 2024).

The fact that it lacked the element of surprise didn’t make it any less objectionable to the Māori individuals and groups who had been advocating for greater prominence for Māori health. Within days of the 100-day plan being announced, the first claim was filed with the Waitangi Tribunal (by Lady Tureiti Moxon and Janice Kuka, who were two of the six named claimants in the primary health care claims to the Tribunal), saying that closing Te Aka Whai Ora was a breach of the principles of the Treaty (which is what the Waitangi Tribunal is set up to consider).

The claimants sought urgency, making a case that looking into the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora should take priority over the Tribunal’s other business and should be heard as soon as possible.

The Tribunal acted quickly on the request, and by January 19 this year had agreed that there were grounds for urgency. There were two components to this Tribunal decision:

There was no consultation with Māori on disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora (electioneering not being appropriate consultation), raising questions about whether the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi had been complied with, and;
The Crown wouldn’t say what would be replacing Te Aka Whai Ora, and so there were concerns that Māori would be “irreversibly prejudiced” by the change.

Throughout January and February there have been several exchanges between the Tribunal, claimants, and the Crown, but the upshot was that a hearing was set out for February 29 and March 1 so that the Tribunal would be able to report on its inquiry before the 100-day plan deadline. This was pretty extraordinary, truncating a whole inquiry process into a few days, but reflected the level of Māori interest in the issue. It was also a signal that the Tribunal wanted to be as helpful as possible to the government by giving it a report that could strengthen the legislation.

As evidence was being submitted to the Tribunal and claimants were preparing their opening submissions to the Tribunal, the Crown threw a spanner in the works on the evening of February 22, when it announced (to paraphrase), “actually, the government could introduce the legislation at any point before 8 March, it could even do it next Tuesday”.

And, just like that, they did.

Parliament went into urgency on Tuesday afternoon, the Pae Ora (Disestablishment of Māori Health Authority) Amendment Bill introduced by minister of health Shane Reti, and then taken through all stages of the parliamentary process. At which time, the Tribunal lost the ability to look into the legislation, so the Tribunal cancelled its urgent hearing.

While the loss of Te Aka Whai Ora is a step away from valuing Māori and prioritising Māori health aspirations, the fact it was always on the cards means that its disestablishment is not the only story here.

One of the real impacts of today’s legislation is that it looks like the parliamentary process was used to prevent a Tribunal inquiry. As was stated many times by opposition MPs during the various stages of the bill’s debate in parliament, the government could have waited until next week to introduce the legislation. Or it could have said earlier that it was introducing legislation before March 8 (and at least cut short the intensive work to prepare evidence and legal cases). Neither happened. The Tribunal jurisdiction kicks in again once the Bill comes into force (June 30, 2024), but by then the opportunity to improve the bill has – obviously – gone.

The decision to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora was always a political one. There were loose arguments presented during the parliamentary debate about how the agency wasn’t seeing results (after 18months – an impossible standard that no government agency would ever reach, frankly), how it was overly Wellington-centric (not one that stands up to much scrutiny since it is also Auckland-based), and how Māori health needed to be “matrixed” in to be the responsibility of the wider health system (as if somehow it wasn’t already). However, within the health system there has been a great deal of support for Te Aka Whai Ora, and good will from those hoping it could achieve the lofty aims it carried with it from Māori.

Reti said in his media statement on the legislation that “the narrow focus on disestablishment doesn’t mean an end to our focus on Māori health for those who need it…[w]e are committed to finding more efficient ways to work together to deliver those solutions, as well as savings which can go back into better health outcomes.” The challenge now is making good on this and translating the commitment to better health outcomes for all, into doing things that work for Māori, are Māori-led and -driven, and ideally create efficiencies (avoiding duplication, that kind of thing). Sort of like a Māori health authority…

‘Like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, each member is vital to the whole picture. Join today.’

Calum Henderson
— Production editor