23 April 2017

Cr Michael Laws

Dunstan Ward

Otago Regional Council

Councillor Uses Official Information Act to Highlight Council’s “Obsessive Secrecy”

Otago regional councillor Michael Laws has used the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (1981), and the responses of the Otago Regional Council to his requests for “stock standard local government information” to highlight the organisation’s “obsessive and unhealthy culture in hiding basic information away from the Otago public.”

“ I’ve never struck a public organisation – the SIS apart – that is more determined to be secretive than the Otago Regional Council. It’s got to the position where it’s just plain unhealthy and anti-democratic.”

Cr Laws said that he had been forced to use the Official Information Act after attending his first meeting of the council’s audit and risk committee, “and discovering that neither audit nor risk concept seemed to be alive.”

“ For example, I asked for basic information like some accountability around how the chief executive spends ratepayers’ monies (in terms of discretionary grants) that are not reported to the council. That information wasn’t available.

Much worse, it didn’t seem to have ever been available to the governance team nor publicly notified.

Then I asked what legal risks attended the current council – a basic question that any audit and risk committee would automatically address – well, that information wasn’t available either.

Finally, the information that was presented – like basic details around how the council invests its $55 million of reserves – was deliberately hidden away from public and media view. I have now obtained some of that under the Official Information Act [see enclosed document] but I couldn’t previously release such basic information as a councillor! That’s simply absurd.”

Cr Laws said that one of the most important legislative requirements of local government “is to be open and transparent. It’s a basic principle of the Local Government Act. But this obsessive secrecy, and lack of accountability and transparency, frustrates that law every day.”

Cr Laws said that he had brought the matter to the attention of the governance team so the release of the accompanying information “should come as no surprise.”

“ The council is due to make some huge decisions around water use and the like that will affect the livelihoods of thousands of Otago people. But how can the public have any fate in that process if such lack of openness and transparency permeates through the organisation? It’s got to stop.”

ENDS

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