Clark: Mayors too scared to question iwi's cultural requests

“We all know the huge costs to our ratepayers, yet we dance around the 'iwi relationship at any cost' process."

In a September 11 email to other council mayors at CEOs Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark questioned them why he was the only mayor only Mayor prepared to challenge mana whenua.

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Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark says he “loses plenty of sleep” and continues to be labelled racist as he pushes back on iwi’s opposition to Bluff’s current wastewater discharging.

But he adds the motivation is about reducing the long-term financial impact on ratepayers.

In a strongly worded September 11 email to other Southland council mayors and CEOs, Clark asked why he was the only Mayor prepared to challenge mana whenua.

“We all know the huge costs to our ratepayers, yet we dance around the 'iwi relationship at any cost' process,” he wrote in an email that has been released to The Tribune following an LGOIMA request.

Bluff wastewater is currently treated and then released into Foveaux Strait through a 50m pipe.

However, the consent for that set-up expires in December 2025, which has prompted the Invercargill City Council to prepare to apply for a new consent.

Iwi is opposed to the status quo on cultural grounds. It wants an extra step added to the process which would see the wastewater pass through a wetland area before heading out to sea.

Mayor Clark is concerned about the added financial cost to ratepayers and has raised questions.

If Mayor Clark had his choice, the council would stick with the status quo in Bluff which he said met health and environmental standards, but did not cater to iwi’s cultural request.

Advice has suggested the quest to gain a resource consent without iwi’s backing would prove difficult, and there could also be risks to future council projects that might need mana whenua support.

Clark went as far as labelling the process a “farce”.

The Invercargill Mayor was involved in a Local Government New Zealand conference last week, which included a host of South Island mayors.

Mayor Clark said at that meeting he raised the issue of iwi’s role in the wasterwater discharge consent process.

“A significant number of Mayors, and other senior players that were there, got up afterwards and said; ‘thanks for raising the elephant in the room, and I know you get a lot of flack for this’, which I do,” Clark told The Tribune.

“I’m deemed to be racist and anti-Māori, which is not the case. At the end of the day the big picture is at what stage do I stop representing the overall ratepayers of my city and I become focused on purely cultural values?”

Despite Clark saying that other mayors had agreed with him privately, he felt they were too scared to indicate that publicly, given the flack that comes with questioning Maoridom.

He also wasn’t sure if the wider public was aware just how big the matter was, in terms of the long-term financial impact it could have on the council.

Clark suggested if the council was to accept iwi, and also the Bluff Community Board’s preferred option, to send the water to land, it could set a precedent when the same consent process for the much larger Clifton Wastewater Treatment Plant played out.

He said they would need to find land for the wastewater to go to after being treated and he estimated it could treble council’s debt and add an extra $1000 to ratepayer’s annual bill.

The Bluff wastewater consent topic will again be discussed at an Invercargill City Council meeting today (Tuesday).

The council has requested that Te Ao Marama Inc - which represents iwi Ngāi Tahu in resource management and local government - a long with runaka representatives, provide some more detail around the cultural reasonings.

Mayor Clark will ask that any recommendations be left on the table and the council have another workshop to explore further options and clarify advice.

Earlier this month Invercargill City Councillor Alex Crackett raised concerns that a divisive argument may be sparked by questioning iwi’s cultural reasonings for its Bluff wastewater preference.

“I think this is going to cause a really divisive cultural argument. It’s going to blow up and create a Māori wards type scenario… I just see this being horrific and creating a giant cultural divide,” Crackett said.

In a report as part of Tuesday’s meeting agenda Clark somewhat fired back.

“Before anybody suggests again that challenging the support for 1F [option] is akin to creating a racial divide, we are elected members to provide our ratepayers many things, but in particular, affordable management of the council deliverables and its impact on rate increases,” Clark says in the report.