DOC…just another (expensive) bureaucrat gang

‘A six-year battle for approval to build an inn and spa facility at Mt Cook has been won by a Christchurch couple who recently published a book about their run-ins with the Department of Conservation.
Five years ago, Mary Hobbs joked with a DOC manager that she should write a book about the department’s tactics.
Matagouri And Other Pricks tells the Hobbs’ story of DOC’s alleged bureaucratic tricks over their development plans in the alpine village.
The book appears to be paying dividends for Hobbs and her husband, mountain guide Charlie Hobbs.
On Friday, within a month of the book’s release, they received verbal notification they had won their battle to build at Mt Cook. “But we haven’t seen the conditions,” Charlie Hobbs said.
…..DOC spokesman Chris Pitt, of Wellington, said there were two sides to every story. The department was “not aware” of evidence to back up the first two claims, he said, and the moratorium had disadvantaged other potential developers.
“This has been a long process and there have been delays, on both sides,” he said.
“We don’t think the Hobbs suffered any injustices or an uneven playing field.”
Mary Hobbs said investigations by the Commerce Commission and the Ombudsman backed up their claims and they had two folders of documents, including DOC emails and letters, as evidence.‘
This kind of thing is absolutely typical of these pricks–a bloated bureaucracy which is almost a law unto itself, with a green ideological agenda that’s arrogant, secretive and devious.