First brothels, now booze - two subjects the Queenstown Lakes District Council considers sensitive enough to warrant anonymous submissions in a public process.
Five of the nine submitters on the council's proposed Alcohol Ban Bylaw 2014 had their names ''withheld by request'' on the public consultation documents posted on the QLDC website last week.
Council spokeswoman Meaghan Miller said it was an approach the QLDC would not normally adopt but one which ''proved appropriate'' in the case of the alcohol ban bylaw.
''The option to have name details treated in confidence in this case was to allow potential victims of alcohol-related incidents to be candid in their feedback,'' Ms Miller said.
''There is no requirement for us to include the name of submitters but in general we consider it to be in the public interest and we generally advise that the name and content of submissions will be made public ... we considered it appropriate to make an exception in this case.''
Ms Miller said the only other occasion she could recall the council making such an exception was for public submissions on its brothel bylaw in 2010.
Local Government New Zealand's principal policy adviser Dr Mike Reid confirmed there was no legal requirement for councils to make submitters' names public and officials used their judgement according to specific circumstances.
Councils had to balance the provisions of the Local Government Official Information Act, which ensured public access to information, with the provisions of the Privacy Act, which ensured information about individual persons was not made public without their permission.
''It tends to be common practice to release the names of submitters unless they indicate that they do not wish their names released. It is uncommon for contact details, such as a person's home address, to be released,'' Dr Reid said.
Withholding personal information could include blanking out or removing particular details in a document.
LGNZ president Lawrence Yule said most councils ''probably wouldn't'' withhold names in a public submissions process.
''Normal practice would be that the names of the submitters would be attached ... if you're going to make a public submission then you should be identified in the public as the person making that submission ... it's a public process.''
The Dunedin City Council's draft local alcohol policy attracted more than 4500 submissions, all with names attached. However, some names were shortened, illegible or obvious aliases.
