by frog
Auditor-General Lyn Provost has found four Environment Canterbury Regional Councillors broke the law by voting on an issue in which they had a conflict of interest.
The four, Councillors Mark Oldfield, Bronwen Murray, Pat Harrow, and Angus McKay, all participated in discussion on and voted against imposing water management charges on holders of consents to take water and/or discharge effluent while they personally held such consents.
They participated and voted despite suggestions from the then Chair of Environment Canterbury Sir Kerry Burke that they had a conflict of interest, and despite the Auditor-General advising upon Sir Kerry’s initiative that they were prohibited from participating in discussion or voting on the proposal. Instead, they commissioned a shonky legal opinion which said they were entitled to participate and vote, and proceeded to do so.
Then, in what appears to be a vengeful act against Sir Kerry for referring the matter to the Auditor-General, Oldfield proposed a motion of no confidence in him as Environment Canterbury Chair. The motion was passed by 8 votes to 6, with all four of the errant Councillors supporting it, and Sir Kerry was replaced as Chair by Councillor Alec Neill.
Neill is now reported as:
“…encouraged that no penalty will be applied” to the councillors.
The council would examine the decision next year and decide how to implement Ms Provost’s recommendations and ensure the same situation did not arise again.
He would ask the council’s chief executive to make an exemption for the four councillors to participate in discussions over water management charges.
Not good enough!
They had a blatant conflict of interest and will continue to have one. Councillor Neill should be demanding the four errant Councillors’ resignations, not trying to find a way for them to participate in future discussions on the issue. But I guess that’s unlikely, given that he owes his position as Environment Canterbury Chair to them.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Justice & Democracy by frog on Wed, December 23rd, 2009
Tags: Alec Neill, Angus McKay, Bronwen Murray, conflict of interest, Environment Canterbury, Lyn Provost, Mark Oldfield, Pat Harrow, Sir Kerry Burke
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
yah. Provide your reasons please. One would think...
Canterbury? Name another region with a rural heart and have a look at their regional councils.
Something pongy indeed.
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The Auditor-General provided the advice that Cr Murray had a conflict of interest on 14 November 2008. Three days later she divested herself of her shareholding – to her husband! Much like Bill English signing his interest in the family trust that owns his house over to his wife when he became a Minister and applied for the additional accommodation allowance he wasn’t entitled to.
Tory troughers!
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No conflict of interest? I feel a Tui ad coming on.
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If Cr Murray’s case isn’t a conflict of interest, it’s hard to imagine one. But to go further, ECan is almost designed for rural/urban battles, and with water, this is just starting.
The idea of ‘One Council for Canterbury’ needs reviving, now that Auckland is well down the track with a much bigger local authority.
A unitary Canterbury Council would include ChCh City and ECan, and be elected from the Waitaki to the Conway. It would remove the fragmentation of the current setup, many of the costs, and get rid of a lot of petty politicking.
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Um, greenfly, Cr Murray is a woman. But agree with your suggestion.
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Canterbury farmers are a tiny, though undoubtedly important, minority of the 500 000 odd ECan voters. They use the vast majority of the water under CECan’s jurisdiction, pay nothing for it, and expect the expensive monitoring required to be subsidised by the rest of the ECan ratepayers.
The four ECan councillors involved in this shameless conflict of interest all have farming interests, some substantial, yet seem puzzled by the adverse reaction. Someone will have to explain it to them.
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Speaking as one who lives in the heart of Canterbury it just goes to show the rest of New Zealand that this is par for the course, conflict of interest occurs on a regular basis at local council level.I have seen it!!!
But the four above mentioned councillors clearly broke the law ousted the chairman who was to bring them into line and got away with it with impunity!! Which again is illegal.
This is going to be interesting; I think that the Auditor General can still take a case against the present chairman and the four councillors (1)If there is the political will and (2)If there is enough public pressure!!!
If that doesn’t happen then we know that corrupt and croney practices are condoned from above by the National or as Idiot Savant puts it the NASTY government!!!!
Toad has calculated that they would be fined around $13.000 I think accomodation from Her Majesties institutions or a gulag for a few years should cure the spread of this disease.
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Blame the set-up started by the NZ Company, who settled both Wellington and Christchurch, as well as a few smaller provincial areas, for imbuing these early settler families with that sense of entitlement … which has never been removed from them by any administration, be it National or Labour-flavoured, at any time in the past 150-odd years.
Cantabrians as a whole revere the ‘first four ships’ families, and any others who got onto the gravy train early enough in the history of Canterbury province. They take as of right positions on the Council, the various Boards and Directorships that matter in the city, and assume that their local power will not be challenged, whilst squeezing the dollars from the pockets of less-well-off ratepayers to fund their hobbyhorses.
They’ve nearly completely wrecked the Canterbury aquifers, which irrigated grain crops for most of the 20th century, by shifting production from grain to dairy, which is a much more intensive user of water and creates far more pollution of waterways.
Water will continue to be a resource that is hotly debated in the chambers of the Canterbury city and regional councils.
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Will a Green MP put in a private member’s bill to amend the local government act to require a councillor’s penicuniary interest register..?
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Katie I can tell that you must have lived here as what you have said is spot on. The ironical thing is that the very early settlers came here as a result of the land-grabs of the 1840′s in England.
It is a reproduction of the very worst of the British class system, it is extremely dangerous and if it is not challenged and braught under control it could turn into some sort of cast system controlled by some sort of olligarchy that cannot be challenged and undermine our national laws with impunity. Which is already happening!!!!
In our district in Selwyn only ratepayers can vote and only one vote per property. Mr Hubbard who would have 20 properties would have 20 votes.
What about a vote from a tenant? Or a vote from other adult members of a family? Or what about the concept of universal sufferage?
These rural quasi-aristocracies are still living in the ninteenth century and they don’t like being challenged even on environmental issues which has resulted in the Selwyn river being so polluted by algae blooms last summer that two dogs drinking from that river have died and that could be YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!!!
I too would like to second Jezza’s suggested motion on a Green private members bill on local body reform because it is badly needed!!!!
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Surly not! Is such a thing legal?
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Some misconceptions about local body voting here.
All residents in a local authority get to vote, even if they are not ratepayers. So ‘one man, one vote’.
Ratepayers, if non resident, get a vote but only one: not one per property. This is not often exercised (holiday homes are the most common property owned by non-residents) but follows the principle ‘no taxation without representation’.
As far as I know, all local bodies have to follow these rules. A ChCh resident and ratepayer can get a vote in Selwyn, if he/she has a bach at Arthurs Pass, say.
Plural voting (two votes in one local authority – one residential, one ratepaying) went out many years ago.
The Auckland SuperCity rearrangements have brought this issue up, but there seems confusion up there too.
Best to get a proper opinion – it is no doubt on the statute books somewhere.
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Local Electoral Act 2001, section 24
You are right, Bushbasher – apart from the “no taxation without representation” bit – ratepayer electors still get to vote if they have commercial or residential tenants who are actually paying the rates as part of their rent.
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Toad I will have to look into this further, I know that one cannot have one vote in one district and another vote in their batch in another district.
But supposing that a landlord has 2 properties one for himself and one for his tenant. I take it that that the tennant could vote, but what is to stop a landlord grabing the voting papers and voting himself?
The reason I braught this up was that it was discussed a few years ago at one of our local community meetings and I was informed by a councillor that if one owned more than one property in one district they had more than one vote.
So was I led up the garden path?
Bush basher says that a Christchurch resident who has a batch in Selwyn also has a right to avote in Selwyn, correct?
Yet in the village I live none of the week-enders recieved voting papers for the Selwyn district last local election. I did asked around.
Abuse can arise when one has a double vote in two districts (one in each)and this was common practice in Northern Irland.
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As far as I know, it depends on what you are voting for: for local body elections, all people on the electoral roll can vote, one vote each person only, in the electorate in which they live. So residents get to vote as well and ratepayers get to vote only once.
However, from time to time a council will put forward something, for example the new stadium in Dunedin, and all those who pay rates (i.e. own a property) in that place get a vote whether they live there or not, presumably on the grounds that it is their rates that will pay for it, or not. I don’t know if you get a vote for each property – I suspect not. But if so, then that would be the thing to target.
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Have they resigned????
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As a Canterbury resident, I admit that I did not vote in the last local body elections, simply because I did not know enough about any of the councillors to be able to make any sort of informed decision. If you bring this issue back up just before the next local body elections and make it clear which councillors are preferred, then I will certainly consider voting those councillors with an obvious conflict of interest out.
Trevor.
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NAILS IN THEIR ELECTION COFFIN!!!!!!!
Any way back to the subject at hand I dearly hope that the Green party keep this issue going because if Lyn Provost has found the 4 councillors to be breaking the law then justice has to be seen to be administered.
They should be punished.
If they are allowed to get away with it then that would leave a very unfortunate precident where a plutocracy of priveledged farmer-councillors will repeatedly be flounting a good law with inpunity.
Which is very serious indeed!!!!!!!!!
The opposition parties need to pressure the government to step in and discipline those involved. If the government ignores this issue then it is seen as aiding and abetting corrupt practices and that my friends would bang a few nails in their election coffin!!!!
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Merlinnz: No they have not resigned!! Knowing the type of people they are they would literally have to be thrown out!!!!!
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Who were the other 4 councillors that voted Sir Kerry out and who were the 6 that opposed this motion?
Trevor.
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