Rudman's city: Let the battle begin and may the best tree win

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Mayor John Banks is unaccustomedly restrained in his calculations of the costs to the city of the trees, past and future, atop One Tree Hill.

Last Thursday on morning radio he was talking $100,000. By day's end he'd done some homework and got to a total of $557,000 "squandered" over the past five years on the now-dead pine. He also noted that an additional $40,000 a year for the next three was needed to pay for tending the proposed grove of replacements.

What he left out was the incalculable cost of the staff time across the many departments involved since the first chainsaw assault on the tree in October 1994. He also resisted working out the ongoing costs of tending the tree or trees after the first three years are up.

Back in March I took a stab at a total and came up with an eye-watering $1.3 million. And that ignored the staff time. Whatever the true figure, it is too much, as Mr Banks says, particularly when you consider that after all that money spent there's only a slim chance there will be anything left to show for it after 10 or 20 years.

In March it seemed to me that given the marginal nature of the site, a No Tree Hill solution was best, as far as ratepayers were concerned anyway. But the mayor's proposal on the first anniversary of the old tree's demise, to offer the site to the Ngati Whatua to do their best - or worst - opens up some intriguing possibilities.

Why not throw the site open to all comers, and let the best tree win?

In one corner could be a sacred totara, nurtured on a traditional diet of placenta and prayers to Rangi and Papa. Across the way could be one of the seedlings lovingly grown from a pine cone recovered from the fallen 120-year-old Monterey pine by my green-fingered colleague Bernard Orsman. Competing arborists could join in.

The genetic modifiers could be invited to demonstrate their talents, too. How about a pohutukawa, specially adapted to the windswept site with a good dose of polar bear genes?

Meanwhile, the phones have running hot about Friday's Parnell Baths saga. Former Wellingtonians pointed out that this is not the first occasion that Michael Reed, QC, has used the threat of court action to try to persuade a city council to alter its development plans.

In May 1996, Thorndon resident Michael Reed, QC, warned planning commissioners considering Wellington's railyard stadium that residents could call for a High Court review if it went ahead.

In April 1997 he sought better noise controls, saying, "If they offer enough we will not appeal [to the Environment Court]". One report said Mr Reed represented "about eight residents and three businesses".

Back in Parnell, it's hard to ascertain who he speaks for, though his bid to delay the baths' renovations in the hope of forcing the city council to provide better anti-hoon devices in his street - the main access road to the baths - no doubt has some support.

On Friday I named Bernard Clark as a member of Mr Reed's Judges Bay Residents Action Group, which is appealing to the Environment Court against the baths' resource consent. Mr Clark says he is not a member of the action group or a party to the proceedings.

At the resource consent hearing for the baths' renovations and subsequently, Mr Clark has echoed Mr Reed's call for better traffic controls in their street. He refused to reveal his attitude to the group's appeal.

"What my feelings are in the matter I'd prefer to keep to myself." He offered to tell me in confidence. I said I preferred it on the record, but he refused, saying I had "no right to require me to go on record".

Finally, those defamatory signs in the front yard of Water Pressure Group activist Ike Finau's Grey Lynn home. You'll recall how the Water Pressure Group appealed to the Human Rights Commission to protect their freedom of expression rights after Auckland City Council decided to seek a court order to have the signs removed.

Auckland City councillor Penny Sefuiva, who is the victim of much of the signs' political abuse, requested that the commission, if it decided to pursue the group's request, also consider her human rights as a victim.

Ms Sefuiva received a reply saying that, for privacy reasons, "We can neither confirm nor deny that we have received a complaint ... "

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan has told Ms Sefuiva she "sincerely regrets" the "inappropriate response".

She said the commission would keep a "watching brief" on the signs case but "would not get involved ... at this stage".

Feature: Tree on the Hill