12 Pre-hearing Meeting

A pre-hearing meeting, chaired by Tony Willy, took place in Blenheim on 25 January 2006. Those present included representatives of the applicant, Fish and Game, Forest and Bird, DoC, Save the Wairau and the MDC. A minute, signed by all parties present, was issued after the meeting, which detailed the following matters:

• The timetable for response to the s92 further information requests by TPL, the s42A officer’s report, expert reviews of the s92 further information and briefs of expert evidence.
• That part of the hearing would be held in Nelson if there were sufficient parties residing there. ¹³
• That the panel would carry out a site visit accompanied by the s42A reporting officer.
• Procedures for the hearing. ¹⁴

12.1 Views of Respondents

All the participants at the pre-hearing meeting were generally satisfied with the process and its outcomes at that time. While some criticism was voiced, this was generally in regard to what happened after the meeting rather than the meeting itself. An example is that TPL did not meet some of the agreed deadlines for exchange of evidence.

12.2 Lessons Learnt

There are two key lessons for consent authorities generally associated with the process of considering and organising pre-hearing meetings:

• Use of a pre-hearing meeting to determine and agree on procedural matters can be a very useful way to progress the hearing of complex applications such as the TPL Wairau proposal. Such meetings can, for example, determine dates for exchange of evidence and reports, and determine general hearing procedures.

• Council officers and/or hearing panels do not always explicitly consider using such a pre-hearing process in relation to matters such as timelines, pre-circulation of evidence or the like. It is a mechanism that should be used more frequently for complex hearings, particularly as pre-circulation of evidence can considerably reduce the hearing time.