Who are the Fast-track advisers?

Tuesday, 28 May 2024

They’ll be paid $1600 a day from the government purse, at least one is on record voicing strong concerns about the environment, but none of them appear to have any experience of mining.

Meet, from a distance at least, the six people the Government has appointed to the expert advisory group that would provide advice to ministers on what projects should be eligible for inclusion in its controversial fast-track consenting regime.

Some suggest that they — and not ministers Chris Bishop, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown — should have the final say on whether major infrastructure and mining developments should get the green light.

So who are they and what are they experts in, exactly?

They all appear highly successful in their fields, but none could quite be described as household identities.

So their names — David Tapsell, Mark Davey, David Hunt, Rosie Mercer, Murray Parrish and Vaughan Wilkinson — may not necessarily mean much to most Kiwis.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop introduced them as “collectively bringing many years’ experience working on infrastructure and economic development projects and environment and conservation initiatives”.

They all have experience in the broader infrastructure sector and each have agreed to be part of the group before its role and the final shape of the fast-track regime have been confirmed by Parliament.

Perhaps a notable gap in their collective experience is that while Rosie Mercer is a civil engineer none appear to have a background in the hard sciences or direct experience in the mining industry — certainly not any experience evaluating the pros or cons of mining operations.

All bar one of the six, Hamilton city planning manager Mark Davey, might best be described as businesspeople, four with extensive experience in specific industry sectors — fishing, forestry, electricity generation and port infrastructure.

That may leave their status as experts open to question with regard to some of the most controversial projects that may be considered under the fast-track regime, such as coal and gold mining, and coastal and offshore mineral sands extraction.

The Post attempted to ask some questions directly of the advisory group members, to get insights that went beyond their CVs.

That included asking them if there was anything they would point to in their careers or personal life that they believed might reassure people concerned about the fast-track regime that they were able to take a balanced view on development decisions.

Any past decisions they had made, or any involvement they had with any environmental or conservation groups, for example?

However, three advised that any questions to them needed to be directed through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), which is acting as their gatekeeper, and all simply responded — via the ministry — by supplying potted summaries of their careers.

At a time when the squeeze is on government departments and many public servants are losing their jobs, MBIE appears understandably defensive about their $1600 daily rate, which will only be paid on days when they are engaged with fast-track business.

“This takes into consideration the specialist skills, knowledge and experience needed for these roles,” a spokesperson says, noting the rate was approved by the Minister for the Public Service, Nicola Willis.

Of concern to Greenpeace spokesperson Nick Young is that none appear to have worked for organisations whose main or sole focus is the environment or conservation.

Neither do any of them appear to have been particularly controversial on environmental issues in public forums or on social media (The Post used an artificial intelligence tool to assist in that conclusion).

That said, Mercer has attracted attention for her environmental initiatives, including her support for green hydrogen, as general manager of sustainability at Ports of Auckland, a role she held for three years until 2022.

Davey has made comments critical of the former government’s housing densification laws and his role has on occasions involved opposing resource consents.

Most intriguingly perhaps, Parrish, a former manager at Carter Holt Harvey, described New Zealand’s rivers as “munted” in an essay published by the Institute of Forestry in 2017, questioning what he described as “the unregulated expansion of the dairy sector“.

In comments that might seem to sit uneasily alongside the pro-development slant of the fast-track legislation, Parrish queried whether New Zealanders were “addicted to consumption” and warned “infinite economic expansion based on borrowing from a finite planet doesn’t compute”.

Arguably, the highest-profile job previously held by any one of the six was held by Hunt, who is a former chief executive of Contact Energy and a current ACC board member.

He resigned his role as a director of specialist economic consultant Concept Consulting, whose clients have included large electricity generators, subsequent to his appointment to the advisory group.

The advisory group won’t be the first ministerial appointment for veteran Ministry of Fisheries official turned fishing industry executive Vaughan Wilkinson.

He was previously appointed by Resources Minister Shane Jones to a working group set up to examine the future of Auckland’s port when Jones was a minister in the 2017 Labour government.

David Tapsell, understood to be set to chair the group, is a chairperson of the development-focused Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust, and brings Māori representation to the group.

He is a son of Sir Peter Tapsell, a surgeon who later became a Labour Party minister and then Parliament’s first Māori speaker.

To even up the political connections, he is also the uncle of Rotorua mayor and former National Party parliamentary candidate Tania Tapsell.

The Electricity Sector Environment Group, whose members include Contact, Mercury, Meridian, Genesis, Trustpower and the Wind Energy Association, is among those that have argued that experts — rather than ministers — that should make the final call on fast-track consents.

Questions asked by members of the Environment select committee suggest some MPs on that committee are giving that at least some consideration.

Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking has made clear that would not satisfy the Opposition’s objections to the legislation.

Jones has made the point that, whatever peoples’ point of view on the fast-track regime, one of its features as it is currently designed is that the big decisions would be made by politicians who are elected and accountable to the public.

Not a group that can use an MBIE secretariat as an airlock for its incoming and outgoing communications.

David Tapsell

Tapsell is of Ngāti Whakaue/Waikato Tainui descent. He is a lawyer, who spent much of his career in Wellington working for firms including Bell Gully, until 2017 when he became a professional director and adviser to corporate, iwi and Crown clients.

Tapsell is also a chief Crown negotiator on historical treaty settlements. He is chairperson of the Pukeroa Oruawhata Group and deputy chairperson of Lotto.

Rosie Mercer

Mercer is a civil engineer. She served a spell in Afghanistan in 2009 as a reservist army officer.

She has spent much of her career at construction firm Beca and at Ports of Auckland, where she rose to the role of general manager of sustainability.

She is currently chief executive of Marsden Maritime Holdings, which develops land near the former Marsden Point oil refinery.

Vaughan Wilkinson

Wilkinson is a seafood industry veteran. He was an official at the Ministry of Fisheries, before going on work for Simunovich Fisheries and then Sanford.

Sanford has listed his interests outside work as including involvement in the redevelopment of the Viaduct and Wynyard Quarter on the Auckland waterfront.

He has been described by political journalist Richard Harman as a friend of Resources Minister Shane Jones, who in 2018 appointed him alongside Auckland mayor Wayne Brown to a working group that considered and ultimately recommended closing the port in Auckland and shifting its traffic to Tauranga and Whangarei.

David Hunt

Hunt is a former Treasury manager who went on to work for Contact Energy in a number of roles, including a brief stint as chief executive, and then as a consultant with Wellington’s Concept Consulting Group .

He is on the board of ACC, where he is deputy chairperson, and until a couple of weeks’ ago was a director of Christchurch City Holdings.

He was described by the NZ Herald at the time of his appointment as Contact’s chief executive as a “politically savvy and politically well-connected Kiwi who knows the New Zealand electricity game intimately, though he keeps a low profile”.

Murray Parrish

Parrish was a regulatory manager at pulp and paper company Oji Fibre Solutions between 2010 and 2022, and before that worked as an environment manager at forestry giant Carter Holt Harvey.

He has been involved in a number of industry associations, including the NZ Institute of Forestry, NZ Forest Certification Association, and Packaging New Zealand, whose president Harry Burkhardt in 2022 described him as articulate and principled, and a seasoned lobbyist, “who loves the art of debate”.

Mark Davey

Davey is the director of urban and spatial planning at Hamilton City Council. He holds a doctorate in planning from the University of Auckland and lists his expertise as including “integrated land use planning”, funding and investment and economic analysis.

He is an accomplished alpine skier and has been an entrepreneur, founding Confitex, a business that makes incontinence underwear.