Shadbolt refuses to abide by new rules
Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt says the decision of his city council’s elected members to effectively gag themselves when speaking to the media is a ‘‘sad day’’ for freedom of speech – and he won’t be co-operating.
And Shadbolt says he will support any other city councillors who also do not tow the party line.
The council’s new media protocols, which were adopted by elected members on Tuesday, mean they have agreed to focus on council issues and activities when speaking to the media, ‘‘rather than the actions or decisions of other elected members or staff’’.
The decision was made following a tumultuous 2020 in which numerous elected members, including Shadbolt, publicly criticised each other on different issues.
Shadbolt, New Zealand’s longestserving mayor, said freedom of speech was one of the most important parts of a democracy. He wouldn’t be giving it up, despite the fact the protocols were passed by a majority of councillors.
Shadbolt, deputy mayor Nobby Clark and councillor Lindsay Abbott voted against the protocols, while newly elected councillor Marcus Lush said he did not vote and councillor Ian Pottinger did not attend the meeting.
When Shadbolt was asked if he would think twice before speaking about the actions and decisions of his council colleagues in future, he said he wouldn’t.
He would be ‘‘speaking out’’ when he believed councillors had crossed the line, and he would support those councillors who were prepared to ‘‘take the risk’’.
Shadbolt said freedom of speech at the council table was a finely balanced compromise, split between supporting
colleagues so they could get things done more easily and, in his case as mayor, showing leadership when it was needed.
The council decision erred on the side of ‘‘thwarting’’ free speech, he said.
City council project director Peter Thompson said the media protocols were not binding and they were not developed with the intention of penalising breaches.
Paul Moon, a professor of New Zealand history at AUT University and a member of the Free Speech Coalition, said the decision was ‘‘highly unusual’’.
‘‘If elected representatives can’t say what they want to say, how do the voters know what they stand for?’’
He said there would be times when councillors had to raise issues about what other councillors had said or done. ‘‘Why would you want to bar yourself from commenting about their actions?’’
However, a Local Government New Zealand spokesman said it was important that councillors set clear expectations regarding how they communicated with each other and the media. Setting bestpractice guidelines could help, he said.
‘‘These aren’t set in stone – they’re best practice to help guide the council in addressing the hard topics, having robust conversation and playing the ball rather than the person, so to speak.’’
Several city councillors had in the past questioned Shadbolt’s ability to lead the council, but those comments would now be in breach of the new protocols.
Jock Anderson, a semi-retired journalist of more than 50 years and a regular commentator on media matters, said the move was ‘‘clearly a gagging order situation, despite it sounding nice and friendly at this stage’’.
Anderson believed the elected members who agreed to gag themselves had opted out of the democratic process. He suggested they make way for people who supported free speech and were prepared to acknowledge and accept criticism.
Lush, who works in the media as a Newstalk ZB talkback host, said he had planned to abstain from the vote due to the conflict of interest, and he didn’t want to gag himself. But when abstention was not put up as an option, he never voted.
He would have opposed the new media protocols had he voted, he said.
Lush said the council had made the decision, and as a councillor he would have to adhere to it.
But given he was on air 20 hours a week in his radio job, it would be ‘‘interesting’’ because he was allowed to speak about the council while on air, he said.