For months Cr Birchfield has been alleging West Coast iwi are charging to give affected parties cultural information for resource consent applications.
Cr Birchfield, a gold miner, was sacked as chairman by his council in April last year.
Cr Birchfield said he believed Te Rununga o Ngati Waewae was charging applicants "for consultation and written approval for a consent application".
He wanted to know if council had legitimised the practice.
Cr Birchfield in the email sought discussion "in a polite and professional manner".
However, the debate became heated on Tuesday.
Te Rununga o Ngati Waewae chairman Francois Tumahai called on Cr Birchfield to "cut to the chase" about what really concerned him about iwi involvement.
Cr Birchfield said he was concerned at the extra cost for applicants.
Mr Tumahai said the rūnanga’s Arahura Holdings administration arm would continue to do business as normal by invoicing applicants seeking information from them.
He said they had an interest in facilitating the mining industry in particular.
Cr Birchfield repeated his opposition to any extra cost on West Coasters "trying to create jobs".
Cr Frank Dooley accused Cr Birchfield of operating a double standard.
He said Cr Birchfield’s mining company still owed over $180,000 to council’s business arm VCS for consent fees it sought back in 2016-17 on behalf of Cr Birchfield’s controversial Grey Valley Dredge.
VCS undertook the consent on condition it would claw back the fee once the dredge was sold.
However, Cr Birchfield said he did not owe the council any money.
"Let’s be quite clear, when you go back to the agreement: there was no agreement to pay the council."
On Tuesday, council staff tabled 20 consent applications dating back to 2019 awaiting affected party sign off involving West Coast iwi.
Iwi had signed off 18 but the rest were still awaiting "other affected parties".
Council chief executive Darryl Lew said consent applicants were directed to various affected parties on a case-by-case basis.
Cr Birchfield said he believed "quite a number of invoices" were going out.
Mr Lew said they were not from council.
However, acting chairman Brett Cummings said ratepayers could ask councillors for information "and hand it back".
Mr Lew pointed out Cr Birchfield had previously raised "that consents have been held up by iwi".
"That is not the case ... The 20 consents in the table clearly demonstrate 18 are not being held up by iwi," he said.
By Brendon McMahon
