KEY POINTS:
Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey has accused the company that runs Auckland International Airport of using "foul" and dishonest tactics in a bid to help opponents of a second city airport.
Mr Harvey said he was staggered that Auckland International Airport Limited (AIAL) had given $19,000 to the Whenuapai Airport Action Group, which he called a small ginger group opposed to having a commercial airport at the Whenuapai air base when the air force moved out.
Mr Harvey, whose council formed a commercial venture with international airport operator Infratil and other local councils to promote Whenuapai as a second commercial airport, said they had long suspected the action group was being funded by "foul means rather than fair".
He said the airport company was "the business equivalent of the Exclusive Brethren".
It was "a major listed New Zealand company hiding behind a supposed community group, acting out of total self interest, and trying to keep it all secret".
He said his group was taking legal advice and considering a complaint to the Commerce Commission.
"AIAL has clearly been working in an anti-competitive way to undermine our project and protect its monopoly."
But AIAL chief executive Don Huse said his company wanted to promote debate on the issue and give a voice to public concern.
There was nothing secret about the financial or advisory support AIAL had given to the action group or any community group.
He said the debate on the future of Whenuapai was of national and regional importance, and his company had absolutely and utterly complied with the "very clear legislative and regulatory obligations" and had done nothing wrong.
He said the action group wanted to represent a local view, and did not have the resources of Waitakere City Council and Infratil, which had spent enormous sums of money on the due process.
"We are happy to help the debate be as informed and as open as possible."
The council was promoting an outcome, and the challenge was for community voices which opposed the plan to be heard.
"I would be very concerned as a matter of principle if the voice of community interest was in any way to be stifled," Mr Huse said.
"They [Waitakere City Council] have a commercial interest in what is being promoted here and it strikes me they also have to listen to the community.
"It seems to me to be telling that they are critical of any assistance being given, small as it may be, to community interests to register their concerns.
"Is that really democracy?"
- NZPA
