A Crown policy adviser and former minister has taken issue with the Government's refusal to release a report on coastal policy and has gone ahead and done it himself.
Former Labour conservation minister Philip Woollaston co-authored a report to the Government on the proposed New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement, which was first drafted in 1994, but said Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson had given the impression she was dismissing it out of hand.
He said he believed the report was not being considered because it carried recommendations that stood in the way of Government-favoured coastal development.
The report advocated for public access to coastal areas, along with preservation and tighter restrictions on development.
Mr Woollaston said that while Ms Wilkinson had a right to accept or reject the report's recommendations, she also had a statutory responsibility towards the protection of coastal values.
"Under the RMA (Resource Management Act) she is obliged to consider the board of inquiry report, to respond to it, and to publish it. The same Act makes it mandatory for her to protect significant features and areas of the coast," Mr Woollaston said.
He said the report was the result of many public submissions, considered in a statutory process over many months and at public expense.
"The public has a right to know the result, not least those who took the time and trouble to write submissions and appear at hearings up and down the country."
Mr Woollaston said the Government had refused Official Information Act requests to release the report and that his decision to do so was his own and had nothing to do with other members of the four-person inquiry team.
Ms Wilkinson said this week the coastal policy statement review was initiated under the Labour government and that there were opposing views between the two parties.
A spokesman from Ms Wilkinson's office said the report was still going through a process and it would be released at some stage in the future.
The report has been with the Government for almost a year.
