PRESS RELEASE

Christopher Dempsey, Eden Albert Community Board.

October 3rd, 2007.

Allegations of impropriety rejected

In an editorial this morning, the NZ Herald stated:

‘The resource consent process is, inevitably, a setting for conflicting priorities and charged emotion. Confidence in it would surely improve, and transparency would be better served, if verdicts were reached on the basis of principles, not political bias. Decisions should be the preserve of independent commissioners, not skewed by men and women hindered, rather than helped, by the pounding of local drums.’

Christopher Dempsey from the Eden Albert Community Board is astounded by allegations that decisions in resource consent hearings have a political bias.

“As an elected representative who has sat on numerous resource consent hearings, I strongly reject the allegations that I made my decisions on the basis of politics rather than on the facts of the matter.

I am bound by law and by the principles of natural justice to make decisions on resource consents with a free and open mind. To do so otherwise renders the verdict unsafe, unsound and in breach of natural justice.”

Mr Dempsey seeks a retraction of the allegations, along with a printed apology and correction by the NZ Herald.

“The NZ Herald has placed every decision I have made as a Planning Commissioner under a baseless cloud of suspicion. This is totally unwarranted and I emphatically reject the suspicion.”

ENDS

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