Auckland

Council
Private Bag 92300
Victoria Street West
Auckland 1142

ATTN: The Mayor, Local Board Members, Councillors

Tuesday 3 February 2015


Dear Elected Official,
EMAILS TO ELECTED OFFICIALS BEING BLOCKED
As you may be aware, last year Democracy Action launched a campaign against the PAUPs Mana Whenua
provisions. While the organisation is young we have attracted more than one thousand members and supporters, as
well as a large volunteer base currently working on photographing and describing the 3,600 sites value to Mana
Whenua a task your officials didnt bother to undertake!
In December we launched a tool for our supporters to email you and express their concerns about the Mana
Whenua provisions. More than 900 people did so, sending their messages to the Mayor, councillors and local
boards.
But you never received them. The Councils email servers blocked our supporters individual emails being delivered
to your inbox. We estimate thousands of emails were blocked.
We have spoken at length to our IT contractors and your relevant officials. We are assured that the emails were
delivered to the Councils email servers. No failure to be delivered or similar emails were dispatched to our
supporters and weve had no trouble using the system with other organisations. Other than a suggestion that the
Councils spam filters deleted the emails we do not have an explanation.
We are able to recover some of the emails that were sent. Though many were customised, most drew inspiration
from (or were similar to) the email appended. We are happy to redeliver/resend what we can (we have been able to
recover around 22,900 emails).
The purpose of our efforts (and those of more than 900 others who emailed you) was to seek your serious
consideration of the matters raised in the email appended. Should you wish to send a response to those who
emailed we would gladly forward your message to the database of senders.
Yours faithfully,
Democracy Action

Lee Short
Chairman
lee@democracyaction.org.nz

Dear Mayor Brown, Councillors and Local Board Members,

I am writing to you in support of Democracy Actions campaign to remove the
mana whenua provisions under the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP).

These provisions have been introduced and came into effect:

Without consultation with ratepayers and citizens
Without sufficient oversight from Aucklands elected representatives
Without proper evaluation by Auckland Council
Without sufficient detail such as how much ratepayers will be charged for
a cultural impact assessment (CIA)

I share the concerns of Democracy Action in relation to this campaign, that:

According to the New Zealand Archaeological Association, many of the
3,600 sites of value to mana whenua either no longer exist or are of low to
moderate archaeological significance
Aucklanders must go through the CIA process even though under the
Resource Management Act there is no duty to consult any person about
the application
There is a lack of transparency from Auckland Council as to why and how
these provisions were introduced
Councillors have told Democracy Action that they were not aware of them
or their implications
The Council admits it did not evaluate the 3,600 sites before notification
The Council admits up to 18,041 properties will be affected, but we
understand the number may be much higher
The Council admits they made a mistake in the PAUP by making an
arbitrary 7ha circle around each site

Every Aucklander will tell you that the cost of building houses is too high. Yet
under your watch, the new mana whenua provisions in the PAUP establish an
additional financial burden on both developers and homebuyers. What's the
point of striving for "the worlds most liveable city" if no one can afford to live in
it?

We request that you work now to removing the burdensome and divisive mana
whenua provisions, opt for an evidence-based approach to protecting our
heritage sites and ensure that the private property rights of Aucklanders are not
eroded.

Yours sincerely,