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NZ Herald
05-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Sweetwater Project: Far North councillor Mate Radich wants judicial review
But the project has been dogged with problems, and it has now soaked up more than $17 million of ratepayer money, with council insiders saying the final cost is likely to top $20m, but the council denies it will reach that level. It missed two deadlines over the past two years, but water was finally delivered into the public water supply in February. Radich has been critical of the rising costs of the project for several years and says he still does not know the full cost of the project. Radich said he will speak to the rationale of the motion at Thursday's meeting and hopes to get the support of his fellow councillors for a judicial review. 'This has been dogged by problems from the very start. It's just going to add even more costs to this. And I still have not been able to get the full costs of this from the council, despite asking several times,' Radich said. Last month the Northland Age revealed that the council and contractor face potentially big fines if they are found guilty of illegally discharging more than 90 million litres of groundwater into the Sweetwater Wetland. The council and Ventia are being prosecuted by the country's top environmental watchdog – the Government's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) under the Resource Management Act (RMA). Each defendant faces a charge each of illegally discharging abstracted groundwater within 100m of the Sweetwater Bore Wetland and two charges each of undertaking earthworks or vegetation clearance within a 10m setback from the same natural wetland. They have entered not guilty pleas to the representative charges – meaning they happened on more than one occasion – and the matter will be back before the court on June 13. The maximum penalties for the offences are a fine of no more than $600,000. Far North District Council's Sweetwater Aquifer project has been dogged with problems since it started. Now a councillor wants a judicial review of the project. Radich was not surprised at the court case, saying it would add yet more costs to the project that he believed were already well out of control. He now needs the majority of councillors to support his notice of motion to start the judicial review process. What is a judicial review? A judicial review is where a judge is asked to review an action or a decision that has been made under a legal power. The judge looks at whether the way the decision was made was in accordance with the law. The judge won't usually decide whether the decision was the 'right' decision. Judicial reviews are important in New Zealand law to make sure the Government and government agencies act within the law, fairly and reasonably. Judicial reviews are always heard in the High Court. About 180 judicial reviews are heard each year. Only a person affected by a decision can apply for a judicial review. The respondent (the other side) is the person or government agency that made the decision which is being challenged. For a judicial review to be successful for the applicant, the court will need to be persuaded on the evidence that the decision-maker did not lawfully follow the proper decision-making process.
NZ Herald
05-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Far North councillor wants judicial review of Sweetwater project
But the project has been dogged with problems, and it has now soaked up more than $17 million of ratepayer money, with council insiders saying the final cost is likely to top $20m, but the council denies it will reach that level. It missed two deadlines over the past two years, but water was finally delivered into the public water supply in February. Radich has been critical of the rising costs of the project for several years and says he still does not know the full cost of the project. Radich said he will speak to the rationale of the motion at Thursday's meeting and hopes to get the support of his fellow councillors for a judicial review. 'This has been dogged by problems from the very start. It's just going to add even more costs to this. And I still have not been able to get the full costs of this from the council, despite asking several times,' Radich said. Last month the Northland Age revealed that the council and contractor face potentially big fines if they are found guilty of illegally discharging more than 90 million litres of groundwater into the Sweetwater Wetland. The council and Ventia are being prosecuted by the country's top environmental watchdog – the Government's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) under the Resource Management Act (RMA). Each defendant faces a charge each of illegally discharging abstracted groundwater within 100m of the Sweetwater Bore Wetland and two charges each of undertaking earthworks or vegetation clearance within a 10m setback from the same natural wetland. They have entered not guilty pleas to the representative charges – meaning they happened on more than one occasion – and the matter will be back before the court on June 13. The maximum penalties for the offences are a fine of no more than $600,000. Radich was not surprised at the court case, saying it would add yet more costs to the project that he believed were already well out of control. He now needs the majority of councillors to support his notice of motion to start the judicial review process. What is a judicial review? A judicial review is where a judge is asked to review an action or a decision that has been made under a legal power. The judge looks at whether the way the decision was made was in accordance with the law. The judge won't usually decide whether the decision was the 'right' decision. Judicial reviews are important in New Zealand law to make sure the Government and government agencies act within the law, fairly and reasonably. Judicial reviews are always heard in the High Court. About 180 judicial reviews are heard each year. Only a person affected by a decision can apply for a judicial review. The respondent (the other side) is the person or government agency that made the decision which is being challenged. For a judicial review to be successful for the applicant, the court will need to be persuaded on the evidence that the decision-maker did not lawfully follow the proper decision-making process.
NZ Herald
27-04-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Kaitāia fire serviceman of over 50 years David McKenzie QSM remembered
'Dad was a pretty humble man; he didn't think he deserved it,' Cochrane said. McKenzie retired from the Kaitāia Volunteer Fire Brigade in 2017 with more than 51 years of service under his belt, all squeezed between his work at the mill and life as a family man. McKenzie joined the brigade on October 12, 1966, after moving to Northland from Timaru. When he first started, there were just nine members, Cochrane said. The siren would often go off during family dinners, and Cochrane said it was a running joke that it went off at the altar during her parents' wedding. It was in Kaitāia where McKenzie met his wife Patricia, and they married in 1971. In 1992, McKenzie moved into a fire and police and station support role, before moving into a fire education and safety role in 1996. There, he quickly became known as the fire safety man. That role entailed driving hundreds of kilometres around schools in the Far North and educating students about fire safety. She remembered her father as a 'loving and caring' man who 'used to have a good laugh'. While he wasn't born in Northland, Cochrane said it was clear he regarded the region as his home. 'I think he loved all the people, he loved the beaches, he loved his fire station community,' she said. 'I think he just loved to serve. He loved being helpful and educating, and just serving his community.' In a previous Northland Age article on his 50 years in the service, McKenzie shared his passion for making a difference. One example was during a home safety fire check in 2016 when he had asked a young woman what she would do if she woke to a house filled with smoke. 'She said, 'I would get low, get out, stay out, then I would go to my safe place',' McKenzie said. 'I must've looked surprised because she said 'you told me that when you came to my school, that would be 15 years ago'.' Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whangārei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.
