Media Response: Northern Advocate

Answers to questions

Why did WMNZ decide to continue with the planned submission period, rather than
waiting until after level 3 and 3 had lifted?

Waste Management has carefully monitored the situation with regards to any impact COVID19 may have had on submissions to Auckland Council. We are pleased that with the
deadline not yet reached, 375 have been received as of Sunday evening. We believe this
reflects the high level of public awareness about the project.

We note that the community has had access to the resource consent application documents
electronically and in Council libraries for a year, since May 2019. This provided an extended
period for people to review the material prior to developing submissions. It has also meant
our team has been able to respond to questions and continue our consultation and
engagement with the community during this period. The Private Plan Change request
documentation also references the same background assessments and expert reports.
Waste Management has discussed the submission period with Auckland Council several
times. This included confirming with Council in January that the submission period would be
doubled from the normal 20 working days to 40 days.

Following commencement of the submission period, we then also confirmed with Council
that we generally wouldn’t oppose any late submissions being accepted by the Hearing
Panel, in case the COVID-19 Level 4 restrictions continued for many months and impacted
anyone being able to submit by the deadline. We maintain this commitment, but are mindful
that both Council and Waste Management need to assess any late submissions, and both
Council and Waste Management will need time to be able to respond to them.

Since the submission period opened, we have monitored daily the number of submissions,
and also provided email updates to the community to encourage and advise on the
deadlines and the process. We have also continued to reach out to iwi, the community and
others to offer and provide more information and answer questions.

It would be great to get some comment from Waste Management NZ regarding these concerns and also why it decided to go ahead with plans despite iwi saying there was no proper consultation?

We were saddened to see the media releases on the weekend and dispute the view that
there has been no proper consultation.
We started reaching out to iwi in October 2018, and have continued to engage widely,
including through hui, site visits at our Redvale Landfill and Energy Park, site visits to the
proposed location at Wayby Valley and individual exchanges.
We would enjoy the opportunity to speak with any iwi who have questions or concerns so we
can listen and consider them as soon as possible.