We held the March Council meeting today, which went for a fair part of the day.

I had a notice of motion to make public access to briefings workshops and seminars the default position, rather than the current practice of excluded by default.

I wish to thank Councillor Davies, Dietche, Edge, Pauling, Robinson and Southworth for supporting it but sadly it was lost 9 – 7. 

Here is some of what I said to introduce the motion.

The notice of motion I bring today, is in response to the ‘open for business’ report by the Chief Ombudsman published in October 2023, “

The Chief Ombudsman reports that “The public’s perception of a council’s openness is heavily influenced by how easy people find it to participate in elected members’ decision making; and by how easy it is to find records of the key proceedings related to those decisions ‘

It is my contention that this Council is viewed with suspicion by many within our community, operating under a veil of secrecy, despite the many many fine employees within the organisation. That suspicion or distrust is not helped either because we are still to have our Public Meetings live streamed and exacerbated as Audio recordings are usually unavailable until about five days after the meeting, according to a media response to an enquiry on the 14th February this year.

NOW, there will be some of my colleges who will argue that adopting this position will stifle free and open debate and discussion.

I would argue that if you are not confident saying things in public that you would say here, you are probably in the wrong role.

I will remind you all too, that should we adopt the proposed resolution, that does not exclude discussion away from the public where there are genuine commercial sensitivity or privacy considerations. However, these come with clear instruction and obligations.

Our Regions, largest urban territorial Authority, CCC has just adopted the very position in this notice of motion, and while in the early stages, the sky does not appear to have fallen in at 53 Hereford Street

To end, it is my position that “Transparency is the most important feature of democracy” and an informed community is an engaged community.

We also received the report from staff to investigate the Canterbury Regional Council supporting Aotearoa New Zealand government policy, as expressed through United Nations Security Council resolution 2334, to ensure it distinguishes between goods and services from Israel and goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
In particular, amending our procurement policy to exclude purchasing goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements. In implementing such a policy, the Canterbury Regional Council would take particular note of the list of companies identified by the United Nations Human Rights Council as being involved in the building or maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements”.

To that we passed the following
1. Notes that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 states that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of Palestine are illegal under international law.

2. Notes that there is a subsequent list of organisations trading with the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories.

3. Notes that Environment Canterbury does not currently trade with any organisations included on the United Nations’ list.

4. Notes that the advice received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in relation to United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 is included as an appendix to this paper.

5. Approves the modification of Environment Canterbury’s Procurement Policy to include a commitment to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, with any exception being approved by the Chief Executive in liaison with the Chair of Canterbury Regional Council.

(Resolution 5 is to cover anything exception that may arise which is a perverse outcome of the policy but must be extraordinary)

We also
– adopted the final version of the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan as recommended by the Hearing Panel
– adopted the Greater Christchurch Housing Action Plan
– Approveed the commencement of work to consider how the Waitaki River catchment could be managed as a whole by Canterbury Regional Council, Otago Regional Council, Te Rūnaka o Arowhenua, Te Rūnaka o Moeraki and Te Rūnaka o Waihao in partnership and
– approved the revised Council Reserves Policy (financial)

Right thats it from me, tomorrow i’m out at Friends of Tūhaitara Coastal Park with the Enviroschools team.

Peace out