Minister under pressure to save cone

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Conservation Minister Chris Carter is coming under pressure to stop a motorway going through the north face of the Mt Roskill volcanic cone.

Mr Carter, who is at the International Whaling Commission in Germany trying to save whales, is being urged to save another treasure - one of Auckland's remaining 35 volcanic cones.

The calls comes from an Auckland City councillor, Faye Storer, who yesterday said she knew nothing about legislation protecting Auckland volcanic cones when she sat as a planning commissioner on an application by Transit New Zealand to bulldoze part of Mt Roskill for the State Highway 20 extension.

It would have made a difference to have known about the legislation, she said.

Faced with submissions from the Department of Conservation and Auckland Regional Council saying the application was acceptable, the commissioners granted resource consent.

Faye Storer said it was good the issue had come up again in light of the newly discovered 1915 legislation protecting Auckland's volcanic cones.

"If [the cones] are an international treasure, and we are told they are, then I believe the Minister of Conservation has got to take some responsibility."

Another councillor who sat as a commissioner, Juliet Yates, said she could not second-judge what would have happened if the act had been raised at the hearing, but said the application was being processed under the Resource Management Act and not the 1915 act.



The Auckland Volcanic Cones Society has written to the Auckland City Council asking how a vital piece of information - the old act - was not provided by planners to the council commissioners.

"In short, these people have given decisions without a full knowledge of the relevant law," said society chairman John Street.

Mr Carter, who is also the MP for Te Atatu, has refused to discuss the issue on the grounds that he has a statutory role to decide whether to surrender the Mt Roskill land.

A Transit spokeswoman said the national roadbuilder expected to have legal clarification on the 1915 act within three weeks. It would then decide its next move.