‘Our land, our decision’
The iwi owners of Shelly Bay argue Sir Peter Jackson has long lost the right to have any say over what happens at the Wellington site.
On Saturday, the Miramar film-maker published a lengthy missive against Wellington Mayor Justin Lester and Wellington City Council to his Facebook page, which is followed by more than two million people.
As well as posting a series of emails between himself and Lester, Jackson warned the fight was only going to get ‘‘more ugly’’.
But to Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust (PNBST) trustee Neville Baker, the whole argument missed one crucial point – the land in question belonged to iwi and it was up to them to do with it as they wanted.
Taranaki Wha¯ nui – of which PNBST is part of – settled its Treaty of Waitangi case with the Crown in 2009 and, almost to the day of settlement, used money it got to buy the Shelly Bay land.
Baker said the land was purchased because it was historically used by iwi and ‘‘we felt we should buy it back’’.
Soon after, it emerged Jackson had been in talks to build a film museum there but the deal turned sour after then-PNBST chairman Nga¯ tata Love’s partner sought $750,000 in consultancy fees to help secure the land.
Jackson has since said he has no plans to do anything at Shelly Bay. Baker yesterday said Jackson then gave up his rights to influence what happened there.
‘‘The point really is, we have the right to develop what we own and it is no-one else’s decision.’’
However, Jackson hit back at Baker, telling Stuff he ‘‘had every right to comment on local property development as a resident and ratepayer’’.
He also believed that the manner in which Baker and his colleagues on the PNBST executive had sold iwi land to a property developer merited further investigation.
Lester, who bore much of the brunt of Jackson’s Facebook
serve, backed Baker’s sentiment. ‘‘No one individual has the right to tell them what they can do with the land.’’
The Court of Appeal ruled the council had wrongly applied the law when granting consent for the Shelly Bay development.
This sent the development back to go through the resource consent process. It would be the ‘‘independent [and] objective’’ commissioners deciding on the consent, Lester said.
Meanwhile, the mayor ruled out taking legal action against Jackson and said he would advise the council to do the same. ‘‘I get colourful emails every day . . . you have to have thick skin.’’
Most of the claims made by Jackson were factually incorrect, as demonstrated in both the High Court and Court of Appeal, Lester said. Despite council staff being tarred as biased and acting with a conflict of interest, Lester said defending their reputations in court would be a ‘‘distraction’’.
A December Court of Appeal decision found none of the council bias or conflict of interest that Jackson had alleged.
Development director Earl Hope-Pearson earlier said Jackson’s letter was ‘‘dangerously factually incorrect’’ but he would not say yesterday if legal action was being considered.
Jackson said he had ‘‘no desire to have frivolous legal action distract from the serious questions surrounding the legitimacy’’ of the Shelly Bay development.