Neil Holdom: New Plymouth mayor responds to Murray Chong feeling threatened ahead of Māori ward vote

New Plymouth's mayor says threats against councillors aren't uncommon.

Councillor Murray Chong abstained from voting on Māori wards yesterday - saying he was fearful after finding a bullet dent in his ute.

Legislation passed last week to let councils get rid of their Māori wards.

New Plymouth has voted to retain theirs, but Kaipara District Council today become the first to scrap theirs.

New Plymouth mayor, Neil Holdom, says they get threats on a range of topics.

"People used to write in emails and they'd express their views quite professionally and constructively - now it's just becoming increasingly aggressive."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heller D for see Allen.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Now, the Marty Wards debate has turned ugly unfortunately. New
Plymouth counselor Murray Chong has been an outspoken opponent of
Marty Woods. He's revealed he's been receiving death threats and
his car was shot at, and he's not sure it's
got to do with that opposition, but he thinks it is.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
I've had a message is saying that you know, ilvii
kin one day, so watch, you know, watch she beat
because you own you won't know about it. You'll wake
up from the hospital. I've had then saying they'll grab
my dog from my house and cut it up in
pieces and put up my doorstep in the sack. You know,

(00:38):
my my daughter's been hassled. Yeah, so you know enough
enough now, Murray.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Chong says he's not going to campaign against Marty Wards
anymore because he's too scared. Neil hold him is new
plymouths mayor and with us. Now, hey, Neil, did I Heather,
did you know that this stuff was going on?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Murray, Murray let me know a few days ago sent
me to images of the you know, the dent that
are left in his vehicle and I've kind of checked
in on as how he's feeling about that. He's obviously,
you know, it's appalling behavior. He's you know, highly stressed that.
The team came together today. We had a sort of

(01:16):
a strategy session today, but we discussed, you know, what
we're going to what measures we can take to protect
team members, because actually it's a it's indication of a
pattern that's actually occurring across the country. I think more
than half of elected kind of counselors across the country
surveyed indicated that they've had some form of kind of

(01:39):
online aggression, and then about a third of them have
experienced it in person. So there's increasingly kind of aggressive
and intimidatory behavior towards local government elected people. And unlike
our peers and the Beehive, we don't get the benefit
of having security sweeps of our house, where basically, if

(02:02):
you're an MP, they send someone out, they do a
security assessment, they put in place protection measures. We're just
basically hanging out there.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, is it any particular subject you guys a getting
hansled on.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Look, people get you know, a range of things. A
rate increases individual projects. You know, obviously there's the issue
around Mary Wards. There's a broad range of issues and
if you look at the pattern though, what we're seeing
is there used to be people used to write in
emails and you know that express their views kind of
what i'd say, quite professionally and constructively. Now it's just

(02:36):
becoming increasingly aggressive and I mean it's putting people off
from expressing their views. And you know, we've discussed we've
got a broad range of views. We've got quite a
diverse council. But actually as a team we get on
really well because we respect that diversity. And what we
do is we talk about ideas and values and we

(02:56):
argue and debate and then we make decisions. But what
we've got here is people that are just you know,
that crossing lines that you know, basically threatening intimidatory behavior,
that's criminal acts. And you know, we've got to look
to ensure that our team are safe, and we're going
to look at how we can support Murray and the

(03:17):
wider team because there are other team members have had
abuse and threats for different issues.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, some luck dealing with it. Neil, appreciate your time.
It's Neil Holdham, you plum It's mayor.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
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