Council to meet over Shadbolt legal action

Invercargill City Councillors will hold an extraordinary meeting today to discuss their response to Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt’s legal action.

Shadbolt confirmed earlier this month that he was suing his own council to recover the costs incurred while defending himself in the defamation claim brought against him by then councillor Karen Arnold.

Arnold unsuccessfully tried to sue Shadbolt and media company Stuff for defamation in a threeweek trial in the High Court at Invercargill in March 2018.

The case arose over comments made by Shadbolt in four opinion columns published in The Southland Times in 2014 and 2015.

Invercargill City Council chief executive Clare Hadley told Stuff this month that Shadbolt was seeking $448,529 from the council to cover the costs associated with the trial, as well as costs incurred in bringing these proceedings to court. The only item on the agenda for today’s extraordinary meeting is ‘‘Litigation – Mayor’s Claim for Indemnity’’.

The agenda suggests the discussion be held in a public excluded session with the exception of the chair of the risk and assurance committee Bruce Robertson, and independent committee member Ross Jackson.

Shadbolt approached the council in 2018 to request court costs be covered under an indemnity clause in the Local Government Act. In 2019, councillors resolved not to cover the mayor’s costs under the indemnity clause, and its insurer has declined cover, Hadley said at the time.