Council whistleblower stripped of roles

Outspoken Queenstown Lakes District councillor Niki Gladding has been stripped of her committee roles at an extraordinary council meeting this afternoon.

• Shotover whistleblower unrepentant
• Discharge of wastewater into Shotover River begins

After a 30-minute debate, councillors voted 8-2 in favour of an officers’ report recommending Ms Gladding be removed from the audit, finance and risk, and infrastructure committees.

Mayor Glyn Lewers called the meeting after Ms Gladding went public following a public-excluded briefing to councillors last week about a plan to directly discharge treated wastewater into the Shotover River.

The report said the confidential briefing, which included legal advice, updated councillors on an enforcement order and mediation relating to the council’s breaches of its resource consent for the Shotover wastewater treatment plant’s malfunctioning disposal field.

The direct discharge began yesterday.

Cr Gladding made a statement at the beginning of today's meeting before leaving the table to sit in the public gallery.

She said the report had been "written by people who are not happy with my conduct", and an independent investigation would be more appropriate.

The council’s code of conduct also talked about "openness" and not withholding information from the public without good reason.

That gave elected members "conflicting obligations", she said.

"So we have to be really careful when we sit as judge and jury on each other."

Cr Barry Bruce said Cr Gladding had waged a "campaign to discredit and undermine the chief executive, staff and fellow councillors", and he supported the recommendation to strip her of her committee roles.

Cr Lyal Cocks said the breach of rules had achieved nothing other than "creating angst in the community", and put at risk the trust the council had with stakeholders such as iwi and the Otago Regional Council.