Tauranga City Council has hired four legal firms as it responds to several formal inquiries into the deadly Mauao landslide.
By Ayla Yeoman of Local Democracy Reporting
The January 22 slip claimed the lives of six holidaymakers when it hit the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park. It also damaged the Mount Hot Pools.
The council owned and ran the campground, while the pools were run by council-controlled operation Bay Venues, which has engaged its own external legal advice after the slip.
Several inquiries have been opened into the landslide, including by the Coroner, NZ Police, WorkSafe NZ, central Government and the Council.
The council has also published hundreds of documents on a dedicated Mauao landslide website in response to slip-related requests under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA).
It said this was part of its commitment to providing transparent and accessible information to the community.
Last week, Local Democracy Reporting asked the council which legal firms it was using in its response to these processes, and why it needed multiple firms.
The council referred the request to go through a formal LGOIMA process, before providing the information via its communications team the next day.
The council said it had engaged Meredith Connell, Cooney Lees Morgan, and Holland Beckett Law “to support work relating to the Mauao slip”.
Auckland-based Meredith Connell specialises in public interest law. The other two firms are local to Tauranga.
The council said a fourth firm, Auckland-headquartered Molloy Batts, and the two local firms were providing independent legal advice to council staff involved in the formal processes.
Meredith Connell was helping review and collate documents for the formal inquiries and reviews, and for LGOIMA requests.
More than 100,000 potentially relevant documents were initially identified following the slip, the council said.
An “extraordinary” volume of potentially relevant material had to be identified, preserved, reviewed and, “where appropriate”, released to the public or provided to regulators as part of the formal legal processes.
The council said all documents released publicly went through a structured legal review process before publication to ensure the council did not disclose irrelevant, confidential or legally privileged documents, breach privacy or compromise ongoing formal reviews and inquiries.
Documents were collected into a central repository and reviewed by lawyers to assess relevance and any withholding grounds under the LGOIMA, such as legal privilege, privacy issues and risks to ongoing investigations.
Many of the publicly released documents, which range from natural hazard records to meeting minutes, have redactions.
“Managing work of this scale is well beyond what an in-house legal team can reasonably absorb alongside business-as-usual responsibilities,” the council said.
Meredith Connell was engaged because it had the capacity, systems and experience to run a large-scale, event-specific legal response. The other firms were engaged to give staff independent advice.
In a meeting on Tuesday last week, the council retrospectively approved the spending of $500,000 on legal and professional services to date, with a further $850,000 expected over the remainder of the financial year to June.
Legal and technical support costs were expected to run to $2m in the following year.
A council report said a “significant amount” of the forecast spending was for “legal review of past documentation, technical information, interviews and ongoing legal advice”.
“This work will meet the requirements of the various reviews as well as supporting [Tauranga City Council] future decisions and organisation.”
The council was exploring options to help cover the costs, including insurance and tapping into its risk reserve, which had $5m as of mid-2025.
The forecast also included a “placeholder” $6 million budget for capital spending.
The council confirmed to Local Democracy Reporting the $6m was a provisional budget set aside for restoring Mauao, associated tracks and slip-affected facilities the council may choose to reopen.
The hot pools, campground and Pilot Bay boat ramp remain closed, along with Mauao. About 42 landslides hit the maunga’s popular walking tracks.
The council said the $6m was an initial estimate as it was too soon to say how much funding would be needed. Assessments and engineering work were ongoing.
Bay Venues chief executive Chad Hooker said the organisation had also sought legal advice as part of its response after the slip.
“We have sought limited, one-off advice from legal counsel Tompkins Wake at a minimal cost to ensure we are taking an appropriate and considered approach.”
Bay Venues was also reviewing its systems and processes to identify opportunities for improvement, supported by an external health and safety specialist.
It was working with an insurer, broker and the council, which was leading the insurance response, Hooker said.
The council has said it expects the review it commissioned, led by Paul Davison, KC, to be complete by mid-year. The results will be released to the community.
The Government’s inquiry was expected to deliver a final report by December 3. Its scope also includes the landslide into a Welcome Bay Rd property that killed a grandmother and grandson early on January 22.
WorkSafe’s review, announced in February, was expected to take a full year.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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