‘Completely trivial matters’ - Councillor questions $38k complaints bill

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

South Waikato District councillor Dave Shaw wants the three remaining code of conduct complaints made against a fellow councillor dropped immediately.

Ratepayers in the South Waikato have forked out almost $40,000 to investigate multiple code of conduct complaints this year, and there’s more to come.

Since January, the council has employed two independent investigators to look into four code complaints, costing the council a total of $38,237 (including GST).

The first two complaints - made against mayor Gary Petley by councillor Zed Latinovic - cost the council $4312.

The South Waikato District Council met to discuss two of the five code of conduct complaints made against councillor Zed Latinovic on Friday.

The cost to investigate the two complaints made against Latinovic by council chief executive Susan Law on behalf of staff, is $33,925 - almost eight times the amount spent on the first two complaints.

A third independent investigator has been appointed to consider the three remaining complaints made against Latinovic.

Councillor Dave Shaw questioned the amount of money being spent “over completely trivial matters” and said the remaining investigations should be dropped immediately.

Councillor Zed Latinovic walked out of Friday’s meeting set up to discuss complaints made against him. His spokesperson said the process was ‘a sham’.

“This council is divided, there is no harmony here, and this is doing nothing to fix that.

“Just drop them, drop them now, pay the fees and leave it there.”

Shaw said none of the issues presented in the complaints could not have been dealt with by “sitting around a table together to talk out your differences”.

South Waikato deputy mayor Maria Te Kanawa chaired Friday’s extraordinary meeting.

He said the newly appointed investigator was a “top flight” lawyer from Wellington, and would likely cost the council even more than the last one.

Shaw suggested the final bill could reach $80,000.

“For goodness' sake, put your big boy and girl pants on, sit around the table and sort out your petty differences without costing the ratepayer any more money.

NZ Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Tory Relf says the complaints process is ‘a very expensive stick for elected members to beat each other with’.

“This is not what I came to the council for.”

Shaw said no matter who was “in the right, or wrong” the situation would not do the council any good.

“This has gone crazy. It's a huge amount of money, and ratepayers are not going to appreciate it … they're going to think we're a bunch of idiots.”

According to deputy mayor Maria Te Kanawa, the investigation of complaints made against Lationvic “were significantly more complex than the complaint about mayor Gary Petley, which related to only one material matter”.

She said more than $8000 of the total bill “was accrued through various communications with Cr Latinovic, including responses to a request for an extension to the investigation deadline, and a review of 50-plus pages of material submitted by Cr Latinovic”.

“These did not occur in the case of mayor Gary Petley, due to him accepting he had done the wrong thing … and accepted the outcome from the independent investigator, and council, in the first instance.”

Te Kanawa said the only people who could stop the process were the complainants.

“At this point in time council have had no request or direction from the complainants to halt the process.”

The council expects the investigator will come to a preliminary conclusion regarding Latinovic’s three remaining complaints in the coming days, and it was too early to estimate those costs.

Te Kanawa said conduct complaints were not something any council wants to deal with.

“They come at a cost, and place a huge strain on staff resources, especially at a time when we have huge topics like local government reform to deal with.

“However, the core issue here isn’t dealing with the complaints, it’s the behaviour that leads to them, and in each case with the latest complaints Cr Latinovic was found to be at fault and the need for an investigation was validated.

“The code of conduct is the only tool at council’s disposal to deal with such inappropriate behaviour from elected members.”

New Zealand Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Tory Relf described the complaints process as “a very expensive stick for elected members to beat each other with”.

“Except it’s ultimately ratepayers getting the whack.

“South Waikato households are being asked to bankroll a spat that should have been sorted around a table long before the lawyers got involved.

“Councillors and mayors are there to serve ratepayers, so trading blows through the complaints system is a rotten way to spend their money.”

Relf said if elected members were behaving badly “recall elections” could be employed “so ratepayers can make the call themselves, rather than leaving councils to fight it out through expensive code of conduct warfare”.