The council has engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to provide advice on the "merits of the transaction", with the information to be made public in a discussion document, expected to be approved for consideration at a council meeting on Friday.
If approved, the council hoped to start public consultation early next year.
Mr Thompson told the Otago Daily Times it was a "very positive move by the council" to get independent advice on the controversial alliance, announced publicly in July.
"They have got to get some good independent advice and that might be in favour of the QAC. There are significant issues to get tidied up, but the fact they have got that independent advice, and are not using advice from QAC lawyers, does give them that degree of independence."
Council corporate and regulatory services general manager Roger Taylor told the ODT the council engaged the international consultancy firm "quite a long time ago".
"We came to the view ... we needed to get some independent commercial advice about what had gone on. There was nobody inside council that was a corporate finance expert ... we needed to get independent advice to the community."
Mr Taylor said there were several reasons there had been "a long gestation period" to get PricewaterhouseCoopers access to the required information, but its subsequent report would form the basis of the consultation.
Council chief executive Debra Lawson said the item to be considered by the council was to provide information to the council and outline a process for community consultation.
"It is good to be on the brink of having a conversation with the wider community, in the public arena, about the options before us all," she said.
Mr Taylor said the consultation would be likely to continue until at least the end of February, but it would not capture the second tranche option.
Queenstown Airport Corporation announced it had created and sold 24.99% new shareholding to Auckland in July for $27.7 million - Auckland has until June 30, 2011 to increase its interest to between 30% and 35%, however, the council is yet to receive a request from Queenstown Airport to approve the second share issue.
Air NZ and the Queenstown Community Strategic Asset Group lodged applications with the High Court in August against both airports and the council, seeking a judicial review and an injunction to stop the issue of any further shares.
In September, the council gave a formal undertaking it would not make any final decision with respect to issuing further shares or entering into a shareholders' agreement, while proceedings were before the court.
Mr Taylor said at that time the council "carved out" an opportunity to engage in community consultation "up to the point where it could make a final decision, but is not able to make a final decision about anything regarding the second tranche".
"Our requirement under the Local Government Act is to undertake a strategic consultation," Mr Taylor said.
"We will be consulting widely with the community ... about the issues that are before the community and the options for dealing with those issues."
Ms Lawson said the proposed consultation would take a "multi-faceted approach" to ensure the net was thrown wide on the "exceedingly important issue".
"We need to ensure all the different voices have the opportunity to be heard and that the community has been able to access information to help them reach an informed view."
Qualitative research through an independent phone survey; an online survey; and a "special edition newsletter" would all be used to seek feedback.
However, Mr Thompson questioned how community consultation could be carried out properly when documents were tied up in the High Court process.
He had "informally" had discussions with the council and suggested if any public consultation were to take place "they have to be in a position to be able to provide all of the information that the other parties have got".
