Calming council behaviour
It’s hardly been the most decorous three-year term at Waikato Regional Council, with dramas over alleged aggressive behaviour, and complaints flying around like barbed darts at times.
Now a new set of words to help sooth troubled waters is proposed, apparently leaving little wriggle room for claiming ignorance as a defence.
A draft code of conduct for elected councillors and appointed officials spells out in detail what bullying, harassment and robust debate is all about.
It was released last Friday with the idea that it would be up to the new council sworn in after the October elections to formally adopt.
A new ‘‘relationships’’ section exhorts people to avoid ‘‘aggressive, bullying or offensive conduct, or harassment, including the use of disrespectful or malicious language’’.
The draft defines bullying as ‘‘repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards another person that can cause physical or mental harm’’.
‘‘Bullying can be physical, verbal, psychological or social.’’
Harassment, meanwhile, is defined as ‘‘unwanted and unjustified behaviour that another person finds offensive or humiliating’’.
But the draft makes clear that ‘‘robust debate’’ does not involve bullying or harassment.
‘‘It involves expressing strongly and firmly held views, that will often be contrary to the views of others, in a respectful, professional manner.
‘‘The need for robust debate must not be used as an excuse for bullying and harassment.’’
Council chairperson Barry Quayle, who replaced Russ Rimmington who was rolled from the position in May, said he’d been keen to have the code of conduct reviewed after the triennium’s ups and downs, which frequently involved councillor Fred Lichtwark and Rimmington.
‘‘We wanted better clarity of process [to] avoid what could be termed a bit of snakes and ladders and prescriptive resolutions of things.’’
Detailed definitions of bad behaviour were designed to help avoid a repeat of this triennium’s conniptions, Quayle said.
‘‘It’s not to avoid robust debate but it is to address that bullying and harassment side of things and that type of behaviour, to make it much clearer what those boundaries are.’’
The public, he said, likes robust debate but agreed confidence in councils can be knocked by poor behaviour.
‘‘You can become subject to public concern ... so you’ve got to have those standards,’’ Quayle said.
‘‘In the absence of these sorts of rules you might operate by, you end up with not [being] in a place where you can achieve good outcomes.’’
‘‘It’s not to avoid robust debate but it is to address that bullying and harassment side of things and that type of behaviour, to make it much clearer what those boundaries are. ’’
Barry Quayle
Waikato Regional Council chairperson