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26 October 2009
PRESS RELEASE
Michael Laws
Mayor
Wanganui District Council
Mayor Laws says “Port Company Needs To Tell the Truth”:
Council/Iwi action local parliamentary bill “only option”
Mayor Michael Laws today said that the legal action of River City Port Ltd, to seek an injunction to stop a local parliamentary bill clarifying ownership and responsibilities at the Wanganui Port, “is part of a desperate game of one-upmanship that this thoroughly bad company has been playing since Day One.”
“ Let’s make no mistake about this: Messrs Cashmore and Lambert, the lessee’s principals, are jeopardizing Wanganui jobs, Wanganui businesses and economic investment. If they want me to go public with the underhand ways in which they are treating businesses at the port, I’d be delighted to release that information.”
“ We have talked to them for years and tried to make them see their wider obligations to the Wanganui community. They are directly blocking investment at the port and deliberately jeopardizing existing jobs,” said Mayor Laws.
Mayor Laws said that River City Port Ltd was “playing chicken with Wanganui and Wanganui ratepayers. They want to be bought out of their lease but they wanted fourteen times the price they paid for it in 2004. In addition, they are stopping investment as part of their despicable game.”
“ We have no option: that is why Council made its decisions unanimously. That is why local iwi are so supportive. We are not dealing with reasonable people. I have been approached by one business that stands to lose 140 jobs because of River City Port’s pigheadedness. That’s how serious the consequences are for Wanganui.”
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