LGOIMA Request Details

FULL REQUEST

on 27 November 2024 the New Zealand Herald ran a story about the Ministry of Health's newly-constructed nuclear waste storage facility on Wilson Rd, near Ohakea, Manawau ("Secret radioactive waste facility built near Palmerston North", New Zealand Herald, 27 November 2024). The facility had apparently been constructed in secret, with the Ministry seeking secrecy over the resource consent application due to "national security concerns". I would like to request the following information under the OIA:  

* All communications (including emails, whatsapp and signal messages and recollections of phone calls and verbal conversations) between the Manawatu District Council and government agencies (including e.g. the Ministry of Health, NZDF, EPA, ministers, or their offices) relating to the need for secrecy. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not interested in communications with members of the public, only from government agencies, and I'm not interested in general communications about the facility, only in those relating to the need for secrecy. You may be able to identify these by grepping for terms such as "secret", "confidentiality", "discretion", "publicity", "scrutiny", "communication", "opposition". 

In anticipation of the use of s6(a), I note that there is no national security interest in information which is already publicly available. This includes information such as the location of the facility, speculative risks of terrorism or natural disaster, risks of public opposition, and the fact that the council was asked to keep things quiet - these are all well-covered in the media reports, or immediately obvious. Obviously, actual security plans and real, immediate, identified risks would be covered - but I doubt these are going to be discussed in detail in requests to keep something quiet. 

A response to this request is due as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any case no later than 10 February 2025. I expect you will need to consult other government agencies about this, so in order to minimise the need for an extension you could do a quick scoping exercise to see which agencies are affected, and ask them to identify any likely issues in advance.  

 

I would prefer an electronic response to this address. If you have any queries about this request, feel free to email me, or call on (06) 359-4841. Please note that my contact information is provided for the purpose of processing this request only, and I do not consent to its use for any other purpose, its release to any third party, or its retention after this request is complete. 

RESPONSE: 

Dear Malcolm, 

​​LG  2324 - Information about any communications relating to the need for secrecy for the Wilson Road storage facility​ 

We have found no documents relating to the Wilson Road storage facility mentioning the following "secret", "confidentiality", "discretion", "publicity", "scrutiny", "communication", "opposition". 

Please see below for a statement from Mayor Helen Worboys regarding her recollection relating to the Wilson Road storage facility. Attached also is a copy of handwritten meeting notes taken by the GM Corporate and Regulatory from a pre-application discussion on the 18th of November 2020. 

Statement from Mayor Helen Worboys: 

The communication I had with the Ministry was a phone call from Ashley Bloomfield during covid lockdown. He told me that due to an earthquake damaged building in Christchurch they were "looking for a new remote site to store some radioactive material such as old Xray film" and the site ideally needed to be on existing government land, meaning Defence Force land was ideal. 

Ashley said they were considering the defence land on Wilson Road Sanson, which currently has the Ohakea defence communications base sited on it. 

I explained several points to him as follows: 

- I live in the suggested area and know this site well. 

- this site is not remote. It has adjoined farms and a growing number of lifestyle blocks around it. 

- the road on front of the site is also on the national Te Araroa Trail 

- I asked that they reconsider this site as it is certainly not 'remote' due to the above points. 

- I suggested a site on the Waiouru defence land would be more suitable, being far more remote than Wilson Road.  

I do not recall any request to keep our conversation confidential. I did however after the phone call from Ashley, advise our MDC CE of the conversation and voiced my concern that what I had said, would have little impact in their decision”.  

My diary shows a meeting for MDC consenting team, CE, and myself with four Ministry representatives at 10.00am on the 18/11/2020 in the Manawatu Room.  However, I have no recollection of attending this meeting nor do I have any meeting notes in my workbook for that period. 

  

Regards 

Helen Worboys 

Mayor 

 

Manawatū District Council publishes responses to Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA).  We will publish the LGIOIMA response along with a summary of the request on our website.  Requests and responses may be paraphrased.  

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If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact the LGOIMA Response Team on 06 323 0000 or by replying to this email.