John Gilks
(Via open letter published online)

Tuesday 17th September 2019

Dear John

We refer to your opinion piece “Misinformation clouds Wanaka Airport debate” published in yesterday’s (16/09/19) Otago Daily Times, and since shared online in various forums.

We’re sorry if you are “frustrated and disappointed” with what’s going on with Wanaka Airport. As it happens, so are we.

Despite your frustrations with the discussions taking place, please do not accuse Wanaka Stakeholders Group of deceit. We absolutely reject such an allegation. It is not worthy of you, clearly working from memory two years on.

We ourselves are necessarily working from public records as are available to us two years on. We’ve taken the time to analyse them very carefully as to what they appear to show.

We invite you to point specifically to anything WSG has written and published (as we have openly done with all our material) and demonstrate to us specifically what is factually inaccurate and, if you say so, what the correct facts might actually be.  

Your interpretations of what you “understand” from media articles or from what you think unidentified supporters of WSG may have conveyed to you outside a supermarket are an unsatisfactory basis on which to make such a serious allegation as “deceit” against WSG, and we reject it.

We also refer you to our “about us” section of our website, where we clearly outline what we stand for (which has not changed for many months).  We suspect you have not taken the time to read this, nor our page on keeping to facts and issues.

By coincidence, we seem to have reached the point with QLDC and QAC, based on their recent public utterances, where WSG will have to issue judicial review proceedings to have the High Court fully review what has occurred. In that case you and others will have the opportunity to provide in evidence all the relevant facts and related documents to the Court and to us, in a context where they can all be carefully and accurately scrutinised.

Yours sincerely
The Committee, Wanaka Stakeholders Group Incorporated*

* WSG membership as at 16:00 Tuesday 17/09/19 stands at 2,945 people.