Te Mānuka Tūtahi Marae has come under fire for its lack of neutrality, during a hearing to determine a trial venue for the companies and individuals charged in the wake of the Whakaari-White Island eruption.

Trial participants attended an online hearing yesterday with Judge Evangelos Thomas to give their views on locations put forward in a report by the Ministry of Justice.

The trial is set down for July 2023 and is expected to last four months.

The venues include Te Mānuka Tūtahi Marae in Whakatāne, Sky City Theatre in Auckland, the Vodafone Events Centre in Manukau, the Auckland Pullman hotel and the Tauranga Events Centre.

Prosecutor Kristy McDonald took aim at all the venues suggested, saying none of them reflected the seriousness and solemnity of the occasion, which would be emotional and stressful for the injured parties.

She said her concern over Mānuka Tūtahi Marae was its close connection to one of the defendants.

The marae belonged to Ngāti Awa, which also owned one of the defendant companies, White Island Tours.

She said the trial was one of the most significant fully defended criminal trials to have been held in the New Zealand district court system.

She said although she had no argument with the geographical location of any of the proposed venues, the venues themselves were important.

'The venue must be both independent and impartial.

'It will be of significant public interest, not just locally and nationally, but also internationally.

'The Sky City venue is completely untenable. To have the court proceedings take place on a stage is utterly inappropriate.”

She said the Vodafone Events Centre and Pullman hotel were not well suited to be configured as a court room.

She's not sure of the configuration of the Tauranga Event's Centre, saying 'it might work”, but described the report as a 'derisory attempt” by the ministry to find a suitable venue.

She said she was not trying to be difficult but was surprised more venues were not provided considering the Department of Internal Affairs routinely managed to find appropriate large corporate venues for public hearings.

She was also surprised to learn that no courtroom was available during the time of the hearing, which was still 18 months away.

She also brought into question the importance the ministry was giving to the technological requirements of a trial in which more than 300 people would be expected to attend via a virtual meeting room.

White Island Tours lawyer Richard Raymond took issue with criticism of the marae as a suitable location.

'To Ngati Awa, frankly, it's offensive,” he said. 'We didn't suggest the location, the Ministry of Justice did. You can't get a more solemn or dignified venue than a marae.”

WorkSafe has charged Inflight Charters, ID Tours, Tauranga Tourism Services, White Island Tours, Whakaari Management and its directors James, Peter and Andrew Buttle, Kahu NZ, the National Emergency Management Agency, GNS Science, Volcanic Air Safaris and Aerius with breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 over the years previous to the eruption on December 19, 2019.

Judge Thomas said the hearing would reconvene at an as-yet unspecified date while he asked the ministry to make further enquiries into suitable locations.

He also raised the possibility of some part of the trial occurring at the Whakatāne District Court before shifting to other venues and asked the various parties whether they had any objections to Te Mānuka Tūtahi being used as a venue for a public gallery for the trial.

Ms MacDonald's response was that she would look into it.

-Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air