Right of response: our standing offer

For immediate release

Subject: Standing right of response and corrections policy

Spokesperson: [Name and title to be confirmed]

Media contact: [Awaiting client evidence] — until it is published, reach the press office through Have Your Say.

Supporting documents: [Media pack available on request]

Ridgeburn Press publishes a standing right of response. This release states the policy. It is not a notification, and it should not be read as one: no party has been written to, no response has been sought, and no response is outstanding. The offer simply stands, from today, for anyone it may ever apply to.

Who it applies to

Any person or organisation named anywhere on this site. That includes Ridgeburn Limited and Morven Ferry Limited; Queenstown Lakes District Council and its elected members; any Minister or official named in a process description; any expert whose work we discuss; and any individual who considers themselves identifiable from something we have published, whether or not we have used their name.

The terms

• Unedited. A response is published as sent. We may publish a reply of our own; we do not trim theirs to make room for it.
• In the same place. A response appears with the material it answers, not in a separate archive nobody reads.
• Free, and without formality. No fee, no lawyer, no particular form of words. An email will do.
• Unconditional. The offer stands whether or not we agree with the response, and whether or not the response is polite about us.
• Durable. It does not expire, and it applies to material published before this release as much as after it.

Corrections

A response is not the same as a correction, and we deal with both. Where we have got something wrong — a figure misquoted, a document reference incorrect, a classification that overstates what the source supports, a process described in a way that does not match the statute, or an implication a reasonable reader drew that we did not intend — we correct it on the public register at Corrections & Right of Response, with what it said, what it says now, and why it changed.

We do not edit silently. Silent editing is how a publication stops being believable, and it is a far greater risk to this campaign than any single error.

The register currently contains nothing, because nothing has yet been corrected. That is a statement about the site's age, not about its accuracy, and we would rather say so than let an empty page imply a record we have not earned.

Why a campaign publishes this

Because the case against this development is a case about evidence, and evidence that cannot be challenged is not evidence — it is assertion with footnotes.

There is a narrower reason too, and it is worth being blunt about. The easiest way to defeat a campaign like this one is to find a single unsourced claim about a named person and use it to discredit everything careful that was said around it. Two rules close that door: no adverse statement about a named person or company ships without a source link, and motive is never asserted, inferred or implied. Both are published in full at How We Classify Evidence.

What we ask in return

Nothing, except documents. If a party believes the record is incomplete, the fastest correction available to them is the document itself. We will publish it with its classification attached, including a document that does not help us — and several of the gaps currently marked on this site are gaps precisely because we would rather show an absence than fill it with an assumption.

Responses and documents may be sent through Have Your Say.

Evidence statement

Classification: Public Statement

Status: A statement of Ridgeburn Press policy, framed as a standing offer. It is not a notification, no party has been approached, and it makes no finding about any person or organisation.

Author: Ridgeburn Press Office

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

Sources

1. Ridgeburn Press corrections and right-of-response policy, published at Corrections & Right of Response
2. Ridgeburn Press editorial standards and classification vocabulary, published at How We Classify Evidence

Assumptions

• This offer binds Ridgeburn Press only and imposes no obligation on any other party.

What is not established

• Any conduct, intention or position of any named person or organisation.
• That any party has been contacted, has responded, or has declined to respond.

Right of response

Ridgeburn Limited, Queenstown Lakes District Council and any person named here may respond in full. How to respond.