Dear Department of Conservation,

In relation to any non-government resource consent application, made between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2022, that DOC had active involvement in, such as making submission or being a participant in any legal action or hearing, please disclose the following:

1. All instances where a proposal in which the applicant would provide something that has monetary value such as any funds, donations (“Property”) and where DOC was a party to any negotiations or initiated the proposal. For clarity, all such instances include whether an agreement was concluded or not.

2. Information on the quantum of value, the intended use of the Property, the identities of named parties who could either manage or direct how any Property was to be used.

3. The position taken by DOC to the application as expressed prior to any agreement being proposed and the position taken post either a concluded agreement or completion of the application.

4. The position held of the person on behalf of DOC who authorised:
a. Generation of each proposal, if by DOC
b. Acceptance of an agreed proposal.

Yours faithfully,

Stella Hart

Dear Mr Deavoll

Thank you kindly for your response. The suggestions regarding clarification are useful. Your suggestions are copied below and each with a response following.

Question

• Whether you are seeking information on a particular consent application or applications, or applications in specific regions or districts where consent applications were made, or types of development activities or types of resource consents applied for, if known. This would likely reduce the research and collation required to fulfil this request.

Response

A consent that has had either of the following notification process applied to it, that is;
1. Public Notified, and/or
2. Limited Notification.
These types of notification as defined by the Resource Management Act 1991, Part 1, Section 2AA(2).

Question

• Provide a clear definition of “Property” you refer to and therefore what is in scope of your request. For example, should this include compensation in the form of planting, pest control, and environmental enhancements or rehabilitation undertaken by the applicant or contractors to address adverse environmental effects (mitigation).

Response

Property as defined by the Property Law Act 2007. To avoid confusion the property is not the property subject to the resource consent application except where some of that property was utilised, for instance, transfer or limitation of legal rights relating to that property such as covenants, title transfer and so forth.
Please use a minimum reasonable value threshold of $125,000 for the property which should substantially reduce the number of instances and weed out instances that are minor or just matter of course.

Question

• Whether the scope of the request is only in situations where DOC is the benefactor of the “property”, or if you seek information on applications where “property” is provided to other parties unrelated to DOC.

Response

Situations, events or instances where;
1. DOC is a benefactor of any property as you have suggested, which would be very surprising.
2. The property is being applied to broad DOC objectives that stem from its core conservation principles whether determined by DOC executives or staff, its Minister or Cabinet. This includes activities internal to DOC such as large-scale pest control, breeding programs, land conservation and, external to DOC, general additional requirement imposed on the development proposed by the applicant which would require the expenditure of cash.
3. DOC has initiated a proposal, has been a facilitator or been part of negotiations but a 3rd party such as a community group, local councils, tangata whenua and so forth may be the recipient of the property, provide paid services or whatever the agreement may specify.

Question

• Define what is meant by DOC active involvement in a process and the particular parts of the consenting process that DOC was involved which are in scope of this request.

Response

Relating to consultation periods, hearings, or meetings as provided for by the Resource Consent Act 1991 or subsequent appeals under that Act or any other Act where DOC:
1. Made a submission to a consent application notified either as public or limited.
2. Was a party, a witness or made a submission to those proceeedings.
3. DOC has initiated a proposal, facilitated it or played a material part in negotiations.

Question

• The reason why this information is requested, and the relevance of the date range given would likely be of assistance to DOC in clarifying the relevance of information held and would likely reduce the amount of research and collation required.

Response

The reason for the request is to gain insight to;
1. Be able to participate in DOC’s decision making more effectively if ever required; and
2. Understand the processes employed by DOC in its activities.
The date range is based on an assumption that such events would be relatively uncommon and so the quantum would be limited. If such events are more common than assumed, then details of the most recent 25 such events would be sufficient at this time.

Question

Please let us know whether you wish to refine your official information request by close-of-business 19 May 2023, so we can continue processing your request in accordance with the timeframes set out in the OIA.

Please note, any clarification or amendment of a request (received within 7 days of the original request) may be considered a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum statutory timeframe for a response, if made within seven days of receiving your request. Please see section 15(1AA) of the OIA: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/publ....

Response

I acknowledge the effect of Section 15(1AA) of the OIA and that, at your discretion, the date used for calculating the maximum statutory timeframe can be the date of the receipt of this response rather than the date of the original request.

To make the search more economical the following suggestion may help; use the minimum value threshold as a reference and match that against delegated authority in the organisation. There must be a relatively limited number of people that can contemplate or sign off agreements worth $125,000 or more. If DOC doesn’t have or require a process for delegation of fiscal nature like this, then please clarify how DOC deals with this type of situation.

END

Yours sincerely,

Stella

1 July 2023

Penny Nelson
Director-General
Department of Conservation

Dear Penny

In accordance with the guidance of the Ombudsman, I am writing to you to request a review of a decision made by Steve Taylor, Director, Office of Regulatory Services, DOC to decline my request, dated the 17th May 2023, for information made under the OIA (Request reference OIAD-3004).

I note that I rreferred to the Resource Consent Act 1991 once in that clarified request in error. That should be corrected to read as the Resource Management Act 1991.

I would also like a review of DOC's use of Section 15(1AA) of the OIA. While DOC did explain the section and its provisions, it never confirmed that it was exercsing its right to treat a clarified request as a new request and hence gaining an effective delay. DOC merely said that it could avial itself of that effect of that section. I believe that DOC should make an election to rely on that section at the time of seeking the clarification.

Yours faithfully,

Stella Hart