My Account
AGAINST
Marja Lubeck,
Labour
AGAINST
Jenny Marcroft,
NZ First
AGAINST
Callan Neylon,
Social Credit
CAN’T SAY
Beth Houlbrooke,
ACT
WON”T SAY
Chris Penk,
National
Candidates confirmed or hoping to stand in the proposed new Helensville electorate at the General Election later this year, have mostly come out firmly against any new landfill in the Dome Valley.
Back in November, the Representation Commission, responsible for reviewing New Zealand’s electoral boundaries, proposed dismantling the Rodney electorate.
If accepted, the proposal would mean parts of Rodney, including the Dome Valley, would move into a rearranged Helensville electorate.
Social Credit has confirmed Callan Neylon, 21, as its candidate for Helensville. Mr Neylon has a strong interest in ecology, having set up an environmental group at Bream Bay College, where he was also a prefect and house captain.
He says Waste Management’s plans to construct a landfill in the Dome do not make sense.
“At a time when the Government is telling us we must reduce waste and emissions, they have allowed the sale of 1000ha of Dome Valley farmland for what would be the country’s largest rubbish dump, in a flood prone area where the potential risk of toxic leachate spilling into the Kaipara Harbour is high,” he says.
“Landfills are an antiquated idea that should remain in the 20th century. We should be embracing technological solutions like waste-to-energy plants.”
Mr Neylon says if he and other Social Credit MPs were elected, they could play a pivotal role in cross-party negotiations to form a new government and could make the case to ban landfill as part of those negotiations.
Mr Neylon’s anti-landfill views are echoed by list MP Marja Lubeck who hopes to be confirmed as Labour candidate for Helensville this week.
Ms Lubeck notes that she presented a 1200 signature petition from Fight the Tip campaigners to Parliament last year urging the Government to ban landfills near waterways.
She says while MPs are not obliged to support the petitions they present, she supported this one.
She says locating a landfill in the Dome Valley is incompatible with the Government’s aim of improving traffic safety in the Dome. The landfill would likely mean an extra 300 trucks a day travelling through the valley on an already treacherous stretch of highway.
Ms Lubeck shares the concern about leachate spilling into the Kaipara Harbour and has alerted Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash, who will be watching Waste Management’s resource consent application to Auckland Council for the landfill closely.
NZ First list MP Jenny Marcroft says NZ First has yet to confirm a candidate for the Helensville electorate, but says the party is vehemently opposed to any new landfills.
She says an anti-landfill remit was passed at the party’s annual meeting last year and it is party policy going into the General Election.
Ms Marcroft says NZ First sees waste-to-energy plants as the way of the future and wants to see them located next to railway lines so waste can be transported to them by rail rather than by road.
She adds that since the Fox River landfill disaster, it is especially clear that landfills should not be located anywhere near waterways.
National MP Chris Penk, and current Helensville MP, declined to give his personal view on the proposed landfill but says he is happy to hear from prospective constituents on the matter.
Mr Penk says the resource consent application process now underway must balance environmental and social factors among others.
“I would encourage anyone with a strong view on the application to make a submission so that all perspectives can be taken into account, particularly local ones,” he says.
ACT party member Beth Houlbrooke says ACT has yet to confirm its candidate for Helensville, though anticipates she would be a likely contender.
Ms Houlbrooke says she is unable to comment on the landfill at this stage as she is still currently a member of the Rodney Local Board. The Board may wish to make a submission on the Waste Management consent application and it would inappropriate for her to make any statement that would pre-judge the issue before reading the resource consent documentation.
The Green Party has also yet to confirm a candidate for Helensville. The party had not responded to enquiries about its position on the Dome Valley landfill before Mahurangi Matters went to press.
However, the decision to grant on Overseas Investment Office consent to allow Waste Management to purchase land in the Dome Valley was made by Green MP and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. Ms Sage has previously expressed scepticism of waste-to-energy as a possible alternative to landfill.
Helensville’s new boundaries will be finalised in April and will be in place for the General Election on September 19.
Is waste-to-energy the answer to the landfill blues? See Mahurangi Matters’ further coverage.
