Here's the council's full response (dated 10 July 2025):
"I refer to your request for information contained in your email Monday 16 June, 2025 relating to:
1. The total cost to prepare the first stage report Treaty of Waitangi/Tiriti o Waitangi Review. Please itemise the total to show payments made to Buddle Findlay, other external parties, staff time engaged on this project, and any other costs incurred.
Total payments made to Buddle Findlay to prepare and submit the first stage report to council in 2022 totalled $50,289.59 (excluding GST).
2. The total costs incurred to date and the expected cost to prepare the second stage report Treaty of Waitangi/Tiriti o Waitangi Review. Please itemise the amounts to show payments made to Buddle Findlay, other external parties, staff time engaged on this project and any other costs.
Total costs incurred to date by Buddle Findlay to prepare and finalise the second stage report to council report is $60,100.38 (excluding GST) as at the end of June 2025.
Total contract delivery is expected to be $65,000 (excluding GST and disbursements).
In relation to payments made to ‘other external parties, staff time engaged on this project, and any other costs incurred’, in relation to requests 1 and 2 above, we are able to grant your request. However, due to the significant resources required to process it, we have decided to apply a charge for making this requested information available.
We estimate the maximum charge for processing your request will be $456 (inclusive of GST). This estimate has been calculated on advice from the finance team which anticipates approximately six hours of work due to the historical nature of the request. The time required includes extracting payment records related to non-elected members, committee members, and committee related activities, as well as quantifying staff time and technical expertise involved.
This charge has also been calculated based on the Ministry of Justice’s Charging Guidelines for Information Requests:
‘Time spent by staff searching for relevant material, abstracting and collating, copying, transcribing and supervising access where the total time involved is in excess of one hour should be charged out as follows, after that first hour: - an initial charge of $38 for the first chargeable half hour or part thereof; - and - then $38 for each additional half hour or part thereof.’
Note that staff have already spent in excess of one hour responding to this request.
Before we proceed further with your request, please confirm your agreement to the charge. We will send you the information within 10 working days of your agreement and prepare an invoice based on actual costs.
Please note that this is all the publicly available information (in accordance with the Local Government Information and Meetings Act 1987 and Privacy Act 1993) that can be identified in current information repositories.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or Freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact Bruce Howse, who will be able to assist you should you wish to change or refine your request in order to reduce or remove the need to charge.
NRC is committed to providing a quality service and would welcome your feedback. A short feedback form is accessible via www.nrc.govt.nz/feedback/.
Yours sincerely...."
We are surprised the NRC would seek to charge $456 for information that should have been reported to councillors. Do councillors not want to know how much the "audit" to see how well they are complying with the Treaty has cost?
What the "audit" did not address was this important question: What are the council's legal responsibilities to the Treaty? Surely that is the question that should have been asked before spending +$115,000 of ratepayer money (funded from rate increases) on an audit?
The answer to that question is available at no cost to the council because it has already been done by the Kaipara District Council and offered freely to the NRC. That advice made it clear that local councils are not treaty partners and their only obligations to the Treaty are limited to those required by legislation.