Mayor backs jail for bush destruction

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey says he almost wept over photographs of native bush destruction for which one of his ratepayers has been jailed.

Company director and mechanic Andrew Borrett was this week jailed for 20 weeks for destroying bush on a 4ha block of land around his home at Sunnyvale Rd at Red Hills near Massey.

Mr Harvey denied that his council was being draconian in defence of the Waitakere Ranges.

If the bush had been cleared for some good reason, such as to build a family home, "we wouldn't be jumping up and down."

But he could not see the point of the environmental destruction wreaked by Borrett, apart from to turn the affected land into an illegal tip.

"I was stunned at the ruthless devastation," he told the Weekend Herald.

"There were fires burning in the rubble - it was like Apocalypse Now or Bosnia."

Asked if he was surprised by the jail term Judge Fred McElrea imposed on Borrett in the Auckland District Court, Mr Harvey said: "It is about bloody time the environment got a voice."

He said society had got beyond the point where people could do whatever they liked on their land.

"You can't murder people on your land if you want to - we exist in communities where we have to live together."

But Act party rural affairs spokesman Gerry Eckhoff said the jail sentence showed that the law had little regard for individual rights.

He said the Waitakere council should buy Borrett out if it was so desperate to protect his land.

"Anything else is theft," he said.

"Act doesn't condone the wilful ignoring of a court order, but it is difficult to see how turning a property owner into a criminal for exercising rights of ownership can be justified in any way."

A Waitakere City Council spokesman said the Crown Law Office, rather than the council, prosecuted Borrett and his wife, Susan, for breaching an Environment Court order to prevent further illegal clearances after they were fined $18,000 for similar offences in 1999.

Borrett chose a jury trial, and was found guilty of five out of seven charges.

His wife was found guilty on four charges and Judge McElrea ordered the couple to pay $17,500 in fines and costs.

Their lawyer, Marin Hine, said they were not prepared to discuss the sentence as they were likely to challenge it in the Court of Appeal.