Goff v the 'B' Team: Investigations, bullying and distrust at Auckland Council

Friday, 15 June 2018

Councillor Cathy Casey and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff at a governing body meeting of Auckland Council in December where the Mayor was accused of turning Council into an 'A' team' and a 'B' team.

There is a single crucial moment when Auckland mayor Phil Goff sowed the seeds of his winter of discontent, his rivals say.

Goff, head of the country's most powerful council, faces an Ombudsman investigation into a troubled attempt to rekindle a stadium debate, following hard on a letter of no confidence in him signed by nearly half his councillors and claims of bullying and a toxic culture of distrust.

His troubles lie, say those aligned against the former leader of the Labour Party, in bringing the hard-nosed tactics of central government into the town hall.

Long-time Auckland councillor Mike Lee, one of nine who signed a letter addressed to Goff, traced the hostility back to a council meeting on December 14 where Goff decided to roll a likeable councillor from a chairmanship.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff with 'B' team member Mike Lee at the governing body inauguration.

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Goff said a letter making allegations against him had been leaked to the media before he'd had a chance to see it.

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Fellow councillors thought it lacked decorum - was too brutally done. That got the hackles up and eventually the knives out.

LGNZ said there was virtually no similarity in the relationship between prime ministers and their cabinets and mayors and their councillors.

That move against Councillor Wayne Walker to oust him from his position as deputy chairman of the regulatory committee drew a furious reaction from other councillors.

Many of those who criticised Goff at that December meeting attacked the mayor for only calling Walker the day before he attempted to relieve him of his deputy chairmanship of the regulatory committee.

Several who criticised Goff at that meeting would go on to form the group of nine councillors who signed the no confidence letter delivered to Goff on Wednesday.

This included Cathy Casey who accused Goff of having an 'A' team and a 'B' team of councillors at the meeting in December.

Chris Darby says Goff's skills are perfect for the mayoralty.

'It's about the way you are doing your business as mayor,' she says.

'If you're in the A team you'll get treated well, if you're in the B team you'll get a phone call the day before the governing body meeting.'

Efeso Collins says the mayor's response to complaints this week gave him cause for optimism the environment at council could change.

However, it was a decision made at the beginning of Goff's term to launch a nearly $1m report into the feasibility of an inner-city stadium that brought matters to a head this week.

GOFF: FROM NATIONAL POLITICS TO LOCAL

Goff said the letter addressed to him had been leaked to the media before he had read it.

Goff was elected to parliament in 1981 and would spend almost all of the next 30 years there until his exit in 2016.

He is likely best known as the leader of the Labour in opposition from 2008 to 2011, where he would suffer a stinging defeat to John Key that would see the Labour's party vote decline from 34 per cent to 27 per cent.

Goff left parliament in 2016 to contest Auckland's mayoralty after a long parliamentary career where he headed a number of important ministries including defence, housing, foreign affairs, justice, and corrections.

North Shore Ward councillor Chris Darby didn't sign the letter attacking Goff.

He describes himself as a progressive centrist and says the mayor's background in parliament and cabinet gives him the skills needed for one of New Zealand's most critical governance roles.

'Outside of cabinet we are the most powerful governance board in the land.'

Other councillors such as Manukau ward councillor Efeso Collins who is, like Goff, aligned with the Labour Party say the mayor has navigated most of the transition from local to central government smoothly but there is one area where he hasn't.

In Parliament, votes are whipped and counted before every vote and MPs vote along party lines.

City councillors are supposed to debate issues at the council table and come to their conclusions independently and Goff has not paid enough attention to this, Collins says.

A spokesperson for Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) says there are 'virtually no similarity' in the relationship between a prime minister and cabinet and the mayor and council among most councils in New Zealand.

'Whether a councillor is a committee chair or a spokesperson on a particular issue is decided by the council as a whole, not the mayor.'

The spokesperson notes that Auckland is slightly different from other councils in that the mayor has a range of executive powers, including access to his or her own policy advice, and the authority to determine who the deputy mayor and committee chairpersons should be.

STADIUM STOUSH

Goff romped home to the mayoralty in October 2016 with 75,891 more votes than his nearest rival Vic Crone.

On the campaign trail, Goff made a point of saying the city had 'looked a gift horse in the mouth' when it turned down the chance to construct a government-funded stadium on its waterfront.

'Do we then continue to keep putting good money after bad into Eden Park knowing there are all those restrictions on its use?

'Or do we take a long-term plan and say, okay, what are the other options?'

Goff announced in March 2017 that PwC would commission Regional Facilities Auckland, a wing of Auckland Council, to investigate the feasibility of an inner-city stadium.

The report ended up costing nearly $1m with the bulk of it completed by June of that year.

Debates on who could have access to that report eventually led to an investigation by the Chief Ombudsman.

Manukau ward councillor Efeso Collins claims he only heard the report had been commissioned when news reports started appearing early this year about journalist Todd Niall's repeated attempts to gain access to it.

Goff's office made headlines by attempting to block Niall's Official Information Requests for five months.

The mayor's office refused to release the report on the grounds it was a draft and was commercially sensitive.

The Office of the Ombudsman ordered Auckland Council to release the report and on May 21 councillors were emailed a copy that had black lines through 50 per cent of it, according to Collins.

'It was virtually black paper,' he says.

Goff said earlier that the redactions were approved by the Ombudsman's office.

Darby says some parties to the report had been promised confidentiality as a condition of being included in it and that had been the reason for the extensive redactions.

Goff eventually made the fully un-redacted report available to every councillor, but not the public, but they were only allowed to view it in the mayor's office.

Collins says he had been about to view the report when a colleague told him he had only been able to read it under the eye of a mayoral staffer.

'I don't accept that the mayor has more rights than I do as a councillor,' Collins says.

Three councillors, Cathy Casey, Efeso Collins and John Watson complained to the Ombudsman over their right to access the unredacted documents and independent of mayoral oversight, and the Chief Ombudsman announced on Thursday that he would investigate Auckland Council over the issue.

DEAR GOFF

Two letters with their roots in the stadium debates and the contentious December meeting would have Goff scrambling to answer media calls this week.

Lee says last week's announcement of a deal to move Speedway from Western Springs to a different venue was the catalyst for the letter they delivered to Goff on Wednesday.

He says they feared the Western Springs announcement may be a way of cutting a path for a new stadium without consultation.

Many of the nine had seen the announcement as a fait accompli for the end of Eden Park and the eventual construction of a new inner-city stadium, Lee says.

The plan to use Western Springs as a cricket venue would likely make Eden Park unfeasible as a sports venue.

And a number of noise restrictions in the area meant the ground could not be used for concerts either.

The move would eventually starve Eden Park of funds and mean the council would have no option but to give a waterfront or downtown stadium the green light, Lee says.

A letter signed by nine of Auckland Council's 19 councillors: Mike Lee, John Watson, Wayne Walker, Cathy Casey, Chris Fletcher, Greg Sayers, Sharon Stewart, Efeso Collins and Daniel Newman was delivered to Goff.

It referred to the cantankerous meeting on December 14, the stadium report, and expressed 'strong dissatisfaction' with Goff saying the mayor had created a 'distrustful' environment.

'Quite simply the question of trust and transparency within the Auckland Council is getting worse not better as far as we're concerned,' they wrote.

When news of their letter reached the media the mayor publicly fired back, accusing the nine of presenting their allegations to the media before he had a chance to see them.

Goff emailed councillors on Wednesday morning to tell them a letter had been delivered and he had made a comment in the media about it.

Christine Fletcher's reply to that email heightened tensions even further after she levelled additional allegations of bullying at Goff's team.

'My agreement in signing this letter was not the stadium strategy or report, rather my concern over the increasingly arrogant and disrespectful behaviour by your team,'

'I have attempted to convey this at various times to you, the deputy mayor and your changing chief of staffs,' Fletcher wrote.

'Bullying in any form is unacceptable to me. The council workplace is no different.'

She later clarified her definition of Goff's team to mean those he had statutory responsibility for - councillors he appointed to chair committees and Goff's own staff.

Fletcher declined to provide specifics, beyond the Regulatory Committee incident in December, when she was interviewed on Wednesday.

Others who signed the letter, including Lee and Collins, also denied having been the victim of bullying.

While Lee says he has never been bullied by staff or the mayor, he did draw attention to one occasion in June 2017 when a mayoral staffer had sat in on a meeting then started shouting at him over an issue concerning a war memorial.

He thought the interruption had been inappropriate but says he didn't think bullying was an appropriate term to use for the actions of an 'activist' in Goff's office.

Chris Darby replied to Fletcher asking her to substantiate the allegations with concrete examples because he said the allegations had 'tarred everyone'.

'I have not witnessed that, maybe other than one of those nine in their treatment of staff.'

OMBUDSMAN INVESTIGATES

Goff released a statement saying he welcomed the announcement that Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier would be investigating the stadium report.

Complainant Cathy Casey says she awaited the Ombudsman's response with interest.

Another complainant, Efeso says both the Ombudsman's investigation and the mayor's response to the complaints this week had given him cause for optimism that the environment at council could change.

'It's going to take some time, it's going to take some respect and humility and that's the challenge for everyone.'

'I think that we can do better.'