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West Coast regional councillor Allan Birchfield unrepentant after code of conduct breaches
Disgraced West Coast Regional Councillor Allan Birchfield is unrepentant after being disciplined for code of conduct breaches.
In a statement issued following a closed door extraordinary council meeting, chairman Peter Haddock said Birchfield was being stripped of his right to access privileged council information in-committee.
However, he also noted they could not remove Birchfield from the council as he had been democratically elected, as per the provisions of the Local Government Act.
For his part, Birchfield said after the meeting he believed he had nothing to say sorry for.
“I don’t accept the findings of the investigation. I have done nothing wrong, nor will I be making any apologies – or changing my behaviour.”
After seeing out the ordinary open meetings on Tuesday, he simply went back to work at his goldmine.
Stepping aside from the council was not on the horizon, Birchfield said.
“You won’t knock me out of there.”
The five-term councillor – who was into his second term as chairman after being returned last October – was one of the top-polling candidates before being sacked from the chair in March, after murky circumstances began to unfold last December.
He suddenly went on leave for ‘health reasons’.
But internal ructions were clear. These included the ongoing sore of Birchfield’s gold dredge on the council’s balance sheet, and an increasingly dysfunctional relationship between governance and management.
Prior to a formal petition in March, signed by all councillors, to have him removed as chairperson, it was revealed Birchfield had not been speaking to acting chairman Haddock and the former chief executive Heather Mabin for months.
The meeting on Tuesday covered two code of conduct complaints, one brought by Birchfield himself in May and the other by Remuneration and Employment Committee chairman Frank Dooley.
Dooley complained about a leak early in the year of information to media about the employment of the former CEO.
In turn, Birchfield alleged an assault by Dooley during an all-council panel convened to interview candidates to find a replacement CEO.
Independent inquiries commissioned by the council into both complaints, found Birchfield’s assault allegation was not upheld, while Dooley’s allegation was upheld “on the balance of probabilities”.
In October the newly sworn in West Coast Regional Council with chief executive Heather Mabin, front centre, and with Crs Peter Haddock, back second from left, and Allan Birchfield back, second from right. Photo: Greymouth Star/ Brendon McMahon
As a result, Birchfield is now excluded from all confidential sections of council meetings. He was also ordered to apologise.
Birchfield told the Greymouth Star that as an elected councillor he was not convinced of the basis for being excluded from parts of the meetings.
“It says I’m being excluded from all council committees. I don’t think that’s legal. That goes back to the argument when Frank tried to exclude me (in May) from the Remuneration and Employment Committee,” Birchfield said.
However, he decided to go quietly yesterday as the ordinary council meeting moved to in-committee, “rather than have a scene”.
He said the question of the alleged assault with Dooley was yet to be resolved in his mind, and he had laid a complaint with the police.
He also maintained that he had no involvement in the alleged leak of employment information to Newsroom relating to the CEO: “I didn’t provide the information to the writer that did that – it wasn’t me.”
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
VIA RNZ
The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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