Councillor denies privacy breach

Otago Daily Times

20-06-2025

The West Coast Regional Council is alleging a privacy breach involving its former chairman after correspondence from a mining company ended up in the media.
However, Cr Allan Birchfield, who openly admits passing the information on, denies there was any breach.
If the council wanted to take issue with it — "bring it on".
The council released a statement this week, and although it did not directly refer to Cr Birchfield, it took issue with the release of the correspondence from Chinese-owned Westcoast Mining Ltd shared with "some councillors".
The correspondence complained about a two-year delay in their resource consent application, and being ordered by regional council staff to shut down mining operations in the meantime.
Council chairman Peter Haddock said in a statement Westcoast Mining Ltd had "confirmed it did not share" its correspondence to the council with anyone else.
"Nor did it give permission for any of its information to be shared," Cr Haddock said.
Rather, the letter had been shared "confidentially" with some councillors.
"It's very disappointing privacy between [the] council and the company has been breached ... We will be taking measures to deal with this transgression."
Cr Birchfield said yesterday he took "full credit" for passing on the information because it concerned council activities in the public domain.
"They're wrong. That letter was written to all the councillors, and I take full credit for releasing it," he said.
"The public should know the mining community do know what is going on [with the council]."
He said the correspondence would be otherwise discoverable anyway through the Local Government and Official Information and Meetings Act.
The allegations outlined by Westcoast Mining were "symptomatic" of wide disquiet in the West Coast community about the changing council approach to consenting and compliance, Cr Birchfield said.
It not only reflected the growing concern within the West Coast mining fraternity but from other industry sectors seeking routine consents and now being presented with new hurdles.
Cr Birchfield said the information being sought officially now often reflected no West Coast mining knowledge or local knowledge at all.
"I'm being barraged with complaints from the industry and I'm sick of it.
"I released that letter because it's not private," Cr Birchfield said.
Cr Brett Cummings, who chairs the Resource Management Committee, was surprised at the council stance but preferred not to comment publicly.
He was already awaiting further information on "concerns with the consenting process" he had raised.
Cr Peter Ewen, who has regularly sparred with Cr Birchfield, described the release of the correspondence as "grandstanding" and "attention seeking".
He said Cr Birchfield knew "full well" the rules about information disclosure. Given it was apparently yet to be tabled at the council meeting he was "jumping the gun".
"I think attention-seeking councillors are doing it all the time — that's the problem," Cr Ewen said.
"There's a right and a wrong way to do it. He knows that ... there's an election coming."
Cr Ewen said there was also some irony in that Cr Birchfield, a gold miner, had not always declared his own mining activities at the council table.
"He can't even follow the rules himself."
Cr Haddock said Westcoast Mining Ltd had been mining without a resource consent when it was shut down on May 31.
"It was clear the resource consent was yet to be issued as a company representative visited the WCRC office on May 16 ... to request alterations to their [application].
"We will not be commenting further while the matter is under investigation," Cr Haddock said.
— Greymouth Star