Claims by a founder of the Upland Protection Society about being steamrolled and insulted were long on large-word rhetoric, and selectively short on facts.
The ULP is in liquidation because it is insolvent.
Its last Incorporated Society return revealed $40,000 of debts, with its secretary recording concern about the society's position given a failed attempt to get members to stump up with cash.
This was long before the High Court ordered the ULP to pay nearly $50,000 costs for its futile and failed attempt to have two separate wind farm resource consent processes restarted.
That an organisation, which has boasted a membership of "more than 500", could not raise money to pay its bills begs questions regarding whether those membership numbers were ever real, or if they were, the commitment of those members to their cause.
The ULP's arguments about "wind factories", the need for more generation, climate change, visual pollution, and environmental issues, all unsupported by any credible evidence, have now been utterly rejected on five separate occasions.
There were three separate wind farm resource consent hearing processes - Mahinerangi, Project Hayes, and Kaiwera Downs - for two separate companies, heard by three completely different panels of commissioners, and involving six different councils.
An Environment Court appeal of TrustPower's Mahinerangi Wind Farm, where the ULP had no legal representation and absolutely no expert witnesses or evidence, was also rejected.
Judge Smith decreed that although the Mahinerangi resource consent allowed the development envelope approach, he was not prepared to establish Environment Court legal precedent by approving it.
He directed TrustPower to specify the exact number and location of turbines, and we did.
Interestingly, the Mahinerangi resource consent already required that TrustPower submit exactly that, to the issuing authority, prior to construction.
Already this year, Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has announced two new turbine models that could potentially be better suited to the Mahinerangi site than those previously available.
Optimum technology relies upon optimum location - the rationale behind the development envelope approach.
The ULP did not score some fabulous victory here.
All that was achieved was the placing of less than optimum dots on a map - dots that are still able, subject to further application, to be altered anyway.
Interestingly, the development envelope approach has since been comprehensively approved elsewhere.
To the High Court, reference to Judge Fogarty's "in orbiter" remarks about risks of future supply and demand for electricity conveniently overlooks the judge's actual determinations - that the ULP case had "no chance of succeeding", and had he allowed it to continue, he would have required a $30,000 deposit for costs.
Portraying TrustPower as a corporate villain in terms of the ULP's liquidation is far from the truth.
The High Court decreed that the ULP owed money to TrustPower, Meridian, but more importantly to the ratepayers of the Otago Regional Council, the Clutha District Council and the Central Otago District Council.
Those "costs", awarded according to "scale", represented only a small fraction of the actual costs involved.
How many times must one organisation be told that its arguments do not stack up? And how many times should an organisation be given the opportunity to bleed money, not only from companies, but more importantly, from the public purse?TrustPower has paid no "bribe" money to Doc.
Rather, we agreed to fund better access to a Doc reserve, and an information kiosk to better inform the public about that reserve and other environmental features of the area - should the wind farm get built.
I am surprised that conservationists consider better public access to and better access to information about conservation reserves is a bad thing.
Finally, TrustPower's profit of $119 million last financial year was an increase of 28% on the previous year, reflecting $24.2 million revenue from a new Australian wind farm, $17 million from a new telecommunications business, and $8.4 million from a one-off sale of carbon credits.
In other words, in a "global contracting economy", TrustPower grew - something the world needs more, not less, of.
Finally, a $119 million net profit represents a return of 4.83% on assets and 5.03% on shareholders' funds. Some rip-off, huh!
• Graeme Purches is community relations manager for TrustPower.
