Sludgegate Update, Day 17 5:30pm, Wednesday, 13 December 2000

"I have been put on notice by my investors that if one truck load of sludge is dumped on the golf course then I am history." That was Adrian Chisholm speaking in Waiheke's Gulf News in Feb 1998.

As readers of these updates will already know, that phrase is hardly unfamiliar to Michael McQuillan. Nor is he unfamiliar with either the Gulf News, or with Adrian Chisholm. In fact in February 1998 McQuillan had every reason to want Adrian Chisholm to disappear, as he was stopping McQuillan's sludge project on Waiheke. There is every reason to believe he saw this as his chance.

Of course, this entity never admitted to anything from the witness box - indeed at times one wondered whether as a Group Manager he ever actually made a decision himself, or took responsibility for any action; one wonders what he received a salary for. McQuillan is a prime example of what happens to someone who works for council for twenty five years.

Ayn Rand has described the type: "He had spent his life slipping around the necessity of ever making a decision; he had done it by waiting to be told and never being certain of anything."

In McQuillan's cross examination he told the court he didn't know about Waiheke's sludge problem until too late; he didn't make the sludge decision; he never saw the sludge consent application; he never made a decision on his own. In short, he never admitted anything, and never give a straight answer.

When McQuillan left the witness box after eight hours, one was left with the impression that no one had actually been there. Which was appropriate, because later in the day it became apparent that he never actually had the delegated authority to make the sludge decision that his legal team earlier claimed he had made.

The trial continues tomorrow, with McQuillan's assistant Greg Paterson facing cross examination.

ENDS

For further information please contact: Peter Cresswell FREE RADICAL ON-LINE (09) 631 0034 organon@ihug.co.nz www.freeradical.co.nz www.sludgegate.com

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