Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: There's already a good punishment for councillors who misbehave

All right - given the level of hostility we have at the moment towards local body councillors and councils, I suspect there'll be plenty of support for the idea I'm about to tell you about. But I would caution against getting too excited because it's a terrible idea.

If you've been following councils around the country lately, you'll be aware of Benedict Ong from the Dunedin City Council and Ray Chung from the Wellington City Council. Both are making nuisances of themselves, which is why they're in the news.

Benedict, for repeatedly receiving council emails and then immediately forwarding them to multiple journalists and leaking the information; and Ray Chung, for getting himself to the scene of a missing person during a flooding event in Wellington when he shouldn't have been there, and then telling porkies, or what looked a lot like porkies afterwards, about why he was there.

Now, Ben McNulty, the Wellington Deputy Mayor, is so frustrated by this nonsense that he's proposing tougher sanctions for councillors like this to deal with what he calls "almost existential threats to democracy" caused by councillors leaking sensitive information.

Ben hasn't said specifically what powers he wants but whatever it is he's proposing, I don't like it.

Because while I have no love for the antics of Benedict Ong, Ray Chung or anybody like that, I respect the fact that both of them were democratically elected. They are just as entitled to council information and council access as the most well-behaved councillors.

And if we start dreaming up ways to punish wayward councillors we don't like, we may find those very same rules being used against good councillors we do like if the wayward ones gain a majority.

Whatever punishment we concoct is a punishment that can be weaponised against enemies.

There is already a perfectly good punishment for councillors who misbehave and push things too far. It is the loss of office at the next election.

Democracy already has a built-in punishment. We do not need another one.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. Now, given the level of hostility that we
have at the moment to local body counselors and local councils,
I suspect there will be plenty of support for the
idem about to tell you about, but I would caution
against getting too excited about it because it's a terrible idea. Now,
if you've been following councils around the country lately, you'll
be aware of Benedict Onng from Dunedin City Council and
Ray Chung from Wellington City Council. Both of them are

(00:21):
making nuisances of themselves, which is why they're in the news.
Benedict for repeatedly receiving council emails and then immediately forwarding
them to multiple journalists and leaking the information. And Ray
Chung forgetting himself to the scene of a missing person
during a flooding event in Wellington when he shouldn't have
been there, and then telling Porky's or it looked a
lot like Porky's afterwards about why he was there. Now

(00:41):
Ben McNulty, the Deputy Mayor of Wellington, is so frustrated
by this nonsense that he's proposing tougher sanctions for counselors
like this to deal with what he calls almost existential
threats to democracy because of counselors leaking sensitive information. Now,
Ben hasn't said specifically what powers he wants, but whatever
it is that he's propos I don't like it because
while I have no love for the antics of Benedict

(01:04):
Onng or Ray Chung or anybody like that, I respect
the fact that both of them are democratically elected. They
are just as entitled to counsel information and council access
as the most well behaved counselors. And if we start
dreaming up ways to punish wayward counselors that we don't like,
we may find those very same rules being used against
good counselors that we do like, if the way would
once get to a majority. Whatever punishment we can coct

(01:28):
is a punishment that can be weaponized against enemies. There
is a perfectly good punishment already for counselors who misbehave
and push it too far. It is the loss of
office at the next set of elections. Democracy has already
got a built in punishment. We do not need another one.
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(01:50):
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