Nobby Clark - long a challenging figure, now Invercargill’s civic leader

Saturday, 8 October 2022

Sir Tim Shadbolt leaves as the country’s longest-serving living mayor, interrupted by only a single term out of office 1996-98. It’s a feat unlikely to be repeated anywhere in the country.

New Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark arrives at the job with strong credentials for challenging bureaucracies from within and without.

Clark has defeated long-time incumbent Sir Tim Shadbolt, having served as his deputy since 2020, on a council he joined in 2019 as the poll-topping candidate, following a longstanding role as a high-profile commentator on council affairs.

Nelson-born he moved to Auckland after leaving school and was a Vietnam veteran by the time he arrived in Invercargill in 1975 to work in a public service jobs.

He would later say that 20 years in the Navy, Prison Service and Department of Labour had given him a background in discipline and a moralistic outlook, and 14 years in the social services brought a more humane perspective on the disadvantaged in the community.

* Nobby Clark to stay on as Invercargill's deputy mayor

* Shadbolt still storing personal items in council-owned buildings

Nobby Clark speaking to the protestors gathered inside the Invercargill City Council building foyer. [File photo]

A football referee - and not the sort to suck up abuse - he became a whistleblower in the broader sense in 2005 when he cried foul on his own employer.

He was, at the time, employed by Murihiku Whanau Services which had been contracted to provide Family Start services to 200 families in the city. But it sacked him after he approached its overseeing body, the Southland District Health Board, to seek an independent audit of its accounts.

The audit found poor judgment, lack of stewardship and highly inappropriate use of public funds by the trustees and, after a painful and costly employment relations appeal process, Clark received an out-of-court settlement for his sacking.

Be became an ardent public opinion correspondent to The Southland Times on a range of subjects, particularly lenient court sentencing and alcohol-binge culture.

Nobby Clark, left, and former Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt during Invercargill City Council meeting. [File photo]

The Invercargill City Council became a particular focus of his concerns and he was leading commentator on its activities, long before he took the more formalised leadership role in the Invercargill Ratepayers’ Advocacy Group.

Taking up a councillor’s role, around the council table he was reliably among the most questioning, on issues large and small.

When ructions within the council led to an independent report its author, Richard Thomson, initially questioned whether Clark, as an ”activist councillor’’ was the right appointment for deputy mayor.

But in a review six months later said Clark had reacted to the challenge and had amended his mode of operating, all while in a difficult situation by providing significant de facto leadership given the “leadership void’’ that had developed under Sir Tim.

Clark last year said he would quit local politics, but later switched stances citing ratepayer feedback and a sense of unresolved business, particularly given the future of local government.

Predicting that within three years there would be some degree of amalgamation among Southland’s four councils.

“And I don’t want the resources that we’ve built up over a long period of time to be thrown in with other councils at this stage.’’

The city had a three-year window to get things done.

His agenda includes reopening the Southland Museum and Art Gallery , finding an alternative water supply for the city should the sole existing one fail in an emergency, and protecting the jobs of Southland disAbility Enterprises workers, who have a contract handling the province’s recycling.

He went into this year’s election the most prominent member of a ticket - “Let’s Go Invercargill’’ which featured only one other sitting councillor, Allan Arnold.