Complaints and criticisms of the engagement process undertaken among Maori by the Rena owners and insurers in the build up to the resource consent hearings were rebutted this week by Wira Gardiner and Jason Pou.

Wira Gardiner was engaged by Daina Shipping and The Swedish Club as the emissary to help facilitate the establishment of, and to foster relationships between the owner and affected iwi, hapu, and Maori communities.

He refuted claims the process was intended to isolate individual views from their hapu and iwi, or that it was a controlled inflexible process.

'In their 10 visits to Tauranga and the more than 120 meetings and hui Konstantinos Zacharatos and John Owen attended, they made it known that they would meet anyone who wanted to talk to them, at the times and locations that worked best for them.”

Later meetings were also held on marae, but also with smaller groups, and sometimes with chiefs and elders. There was flexibility and commitment to the overarching principle that the applicant would meet with anyone who wanted to meet, and would do what it could to accommodate any request to meet, says Wira.

'From everything I have seen, the only ones alleging a divide and conquer strategy are those who are strongly opposed to the application,” says Wira. 'Those who are supportive have withdrawn, or who hold more moderate views have not criticised others for the position they have decided to take. Most submitters have acknowledged the rights of others to adopt whatever views they wish, respectfully.”

The divide and rule tactic claim was also attacked by Te Arawa counsel Jason Pou who in his closing remarks, told the panel the allegations should be regarded as baseless

The applicant met with forums when asked, it met with individual hapu when it was asked, the oral evidence of Ngarangi Chapman is that it also met with hapu as part of the larger iwi group when required as the various groups organised and reorganised themselves within the process, says Jason.

'What becomes apparent from a reading of the evidence is that the criticisms aren't necessarily about the engagement itself, they are about the amount of resource that the owner would be willing to apply to the engagement, whether in the form of funding of cultural impact assessments, provision of mitigation funding, or the failure of particular groups to achieve a priority within the engagement.

'Many witnesses seek to criticise the applicant for the breadth of and inclusive nature of the engagement, suggesting that the applicant in some way had an obligation to cull the list or develop a priority or ranking in the engagement. The assertion is that the applicant should have dealt with particular groups instead of others.”

The Maori relationship could not necessarily dictate a particular outcome, and to suggest so would usurp the role of the panel, says Jason.

'This would be impossible in any event given the conflicting, argumentative and at times cannibalistic assertions before this Panel of how this ought to be achieved. What is notable is that even united in opposition, there is an argument about who has the right to oppose.”

Te Arawa challenges anyone to point to an engagement process that has been undertaken anywhere else in this country under the auspices of the Resource Management Act, or even within the context of a Treaty of Waitangi negotiation, that has had the depth or been as extensive as the one carried out for and on behalf of the ship owners.

'Dr Grant Young giving evidence for the Crown sought to criticise the way in which the applicant engaged, yet he had no real response when drawn into questioning by the panel as to how the engagement could have been better. Criticisms in an absence of an ability to suggest a viable alternative are pointless,” says Jason.

'Standing back and taking stock of the criticism, it seems that the Crown view is that Maori should expect more meaningful engagement and a higher standard of conduct from a Greek ship owner and his Swedish insurer than they can from their Treaty partner, and this speaks volumes about the criticism itself.”