What are they hiding?
Mayor defends 161 secret meetings
A Waikato council that holds hundreds of meetings in secret is a danger to democracy, an academic says.
As councils across the country reconvene, Stuff can reveal that the Waikato District Council held 161 closed door workshops during the 2016-2019 council term.
That’s once a week on average, information released under the Local Government Official Information Act, shows.
And Waikato District mayor Allan Sanson is unrepentant and does not intend to open the meetings, saying a council should be able to do their work without the media watching.
His position is at odds with Hamilton City Council which abolished closed door workshops in 2016, opening them up to the public.
And an academic, who specialises in local government, says such workshops are dangerous.
Lincoln University academic Jean Drage said all meetings councils hold should be open.
‘‘These people are representing our interests, making decisions on our behalf, with public money – so what is it that they can’t tell us?
‘‘The question is why do councils need to have these meetings behind closed doors?’’
There is an argument for some items, such as those dealing with contractual issues, to be kept private through public excluded items, she said.
She was aware of councils across the country using workshops and thought some councils used them more than others.
‘‘There’s a tendency for some mayors to say that political debate is a bad thing, but actually it’s vital for democracy.
‘‘We’ve just had this ‘woe is me’ debate about New Zealand’s low voter turnout in the local body elections.
‘‘But how can councils expect people to vote when they are not engaging with their communities?’’
At Waikato District Council workshops are not public, there is no available agenda for them and no published minutes attached. The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requires all meetings to be public.
But because no decisions are supposed to be made in workshops, they are not considered meetings under the act.
Sanson said he did not class workshops as secret because community board members were allowed to attend.
But he would not open up the meetings to the rest of the public.
He said the council sometimes took a straw poll of councillors’ views after an hour of talking in workshops, yet he did not classify that as voting.
According to Sanson many workshops were used for modelling around the District Plan and Long Term Plan.
The council talks about its position on things like subdivision or natural hazards in the workshops, he said. Asked whether Sanson felt voters had a right to know what individual councillors thought about issues, he said ‘‘no’’.
‘‘We’re put in there as governors...we’ve got to be able to work and do our job without feeling [the media] is sitting there making a judgment on what you think you want to put in the paper.
‘‘We always start from the view that an item is public, rather than private’’ Hamilton City Council chief executive Richard Briggs
‘‘Workshops are where we do our crafting, where we do our work in relation to finding a position on things.’’
He said ‘‘finding a council position’’ was not making decisions.
Sanson maintained debate was held in the chamber for the advertised meetings and people could hear councillors’ views there. However, Stuff’s experience covering the council’s meetings is that they are prone to rubber stamping and lack robust debate. When pushed about the public’s right to know what was being discussed in workshops, Sanson terminated the interview.
Hamilton City Council decided to open workshops to the public in 2016 and now hold them (otherwise known as briefings) once every fortnight. The workshops are open to the public, the topic and presentations of which are uploaded to the council website.
Council chief executive Richard Briggs said they made the move to ensure openness.
‘‘We always start from the view that an item is public, rather than private. Otherwise the risk is council is not holding itself to the spirit of the act or to the spirit of democracy.’’
Briggs said council business had not changed significantly since workshops became public.
He said certain information remained confidential, either dealing with commercial sensitivity or staff issues.
Local Government New Zealand senior policy adviser Mike Reid said workshops can be a useful tool for councils to narrow down policy making with officials.
But it would be worrying if they were being used for decision making and voting, Reid said.
‘‘Broadly speaking, the more open local government is the better.’’