West Coast councillor voted off committees

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Lois Williams

West Coast Regional Councillor Allan Birchfield has been given the cold shoulder in a restructure of council committees.

The Greymouth gold-miner was deposed as council chairperson in April last year, after allegedly leaking confidential employment information to news media after a stand-off with then chief executive Heather Mabin.

He was replaced as council chairperson by his deputy, Peter Haddock, and formally censured by the council.

The council on Tuesday (September 10) approved a revamp of its committees and updated their terms of reference – but left their former chair off most of them.

He objected strongly.

“Three thousand people voted for me, I’m an elected member and you’ve excluded me from most committees.”

Councillor Brett Cummings said he was unhappy the council’s two iwi reps would be on the committee, possibly with voting rights, while an elected councillor was excluded.

Haddock reminded him that Mr Birchfield had been formally censured, limiting his right to attend some meetings.

Birchfield is still on the council’s Resource Management committee but is banished from the confidential public-excluded part of meetings.
Some previous attempts to eject him from meetings have been unsuccessful.

But under the new structure he is not a member of the newly-named Operations Committee (formerly Infrastructure and Governance); the Risks and Assurance committee; the new Corporate Services committee or the Remuneration and Employment committee.

If he wanted that revoked he or any other councillor could come back to the council and ask it to reconsider, Haddock said.

Birchfield earlier told LDR he was not worried about being excluded from most of the committees, but was determined to challenge his banishment from the Operations group.

“That committee makes all the decisions about our flood banks and infrastructure and deals with our special rating district groups - I go to all those meetings.”

As one of three Greymouth councillors representing the Regional Council on the Grey Special Rating District Joint Committee, Birchfield said he would fight his ejection.

“I challenged you at the Grey District over the right to exclude me and you said you had a legal opinion – where is it?” he asked Haddock.

The chairperson told Birchfield he was being disruptive and closed the discussion, advising him to seek his own legal opinion and come back to the council if he wanted the censure lifted.

The council approved the new committees and the meetings arrangement.

*LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.