Cr Gladding removed from council committees

Queenstown councillor Niki Gladding has been removed from two committees, after speaking out early over the Shotover wastewater issue.

Councillors were called to an extraordinary meeting this afternoon over the issue.

They voted eight to two in favour of removing Gladding from the Infrastructure Committee, of which she was deputy chair, and the Audit, Finance & Risk Committee.

Gladding remains a councillor, however.

With a packed and boisterous public gallery in the council chambers on Gorge Road, the eight who voted for her to be removed were the Queenstown Lakes mayor Glyn Lewers, Crs Gavin Bartlett, Lyal Cocks, Barry Bruce, Cody Tucker, Melissa White, Matt Wong and Craig Ferguson.

Only deputy mayor Quentin Smith and Cr Esther Whitehead voted against the motion to remove her from the committees, believing a full independent Code of Conduct investigation should be held.

Cr Lisa Guy was away on pre-arranged annual leave.

Gladding spoke first at the meeting, stating her view that the correct process should be a Code of Conduct investigation, rather than an extraordinary meeting based on a report by staff who were "frustrated" by her actions.

"This report has been written by people who are not happy with my conduct and it reads that way," she says. "Just the fact that it is front of you suggests that there is a lack of independence."

Gladding went on the outline the benefits of the independent Code of Conduct process, why it is important to follow it.

"I don't really mind what you decide at this point for me, I'm not wedded to anything, but there are people who are going to come after, who are going to want to speak up, and if they think this is how they're going to be treated, then they may not speak up.

"I think you've got a chance today to step back and say, 'we don't agree this agenda. We're going to do it a different way'."

Gladding then stepped back from the council table, saying she didn't want to be involved in the process, to a standing ovation from the public galley, heavily stacked with people who attended the protest outside the Shotover Wastewater Plant last Wednesday.

All councillors in attendance and the mayor spoke on the motion, with many focused on the issue of trust.

Cr Gavin Bartlett, chair of the infrastructure committee, said he had often been inspired by Gladding's work as a councillor but on this occasion she had broken his trust and disrupted the proper process.

"This was not some great cover up or conspiracy. The information relating to the proposed action was scheduled to be made public within days, once partners and directly affected parties have been consulted.

"What resulted has potentially damaged those relationships, caused great difficulty for council staff and created a media storm that has unfortunately led to a huge amount of misinformation and ill-informed commentary."

Bartlett says the problems with the disposal field, which led to the decision to discharge "fully treated" effluent into the Shotover, had been acknowledged since 2021.

"Nobody in the room was happy with the proposal, but we were prepared to support staff to pursue the option in the best interest of the district."

The direct discharge of more than 12,000 cubic metres of treated wastewater per day from the plant into the Shotover River began yesterday.

Bartlett added: "Many times you've asked questions which have given me pause for thought and have often led to me following a similar line of questioning. I've enjoyed working with you in the Infrastructure Committee, but in this instance, you have failed to follow the correct process.

"You were warned against releasing information, received in confidence. I even, respectfully and politely, asked you not to release it, but you chose to ignore all that, and as a result, it lost my trust."

Bartlett said Gladding knew the likely consequences, but acted anyway, so another Code of Conduct inquiry "would serve little purpose", "only confirming at great expense to the ratepayer of what has already been admitted publicly".

"For me, this is not a punishment, but is simply a direct consequence of the deliberate actions of an elected member and reflects a lack of trust in an elected member's ability to handle sensitive information."

Mayor Lewers, before the vote was held, said the decision for councillors was not about the "guilt or otherwise" of Gladding but whether a person who'd released "legally privileged information" should be sitting on council committees.

"That is what we're deciding here today," he says.

"Niki, you had a lot of sympathy from this council. You could have worked with this council, to the point where I think you actually had a majority of the councillors wishing to work with you. There were options before you, to take the matters further under normal process."