Dunedin City councillor Benedict Ong was formally censured on Wednesday. Photo / Ben Tomsett
“Please note that given the nature of the complaint, this matter is to be treated as confidential until such time as the investigator has reviewed the material.”
She added: “A failure to respect confidentiality at this point in the process is likely to constitute a further breach of the code of conduct.”
Six minutes later, at 4.33pm, Ong replied – copying multiple journalists, including the Herald, into his response.
“This is a well-demonstrated and publicly seen falsehood from you once again, and I am happy to publicly demonstrate this again,” he wrote.
“It is no big surprise coming from you in the continued pattern of false assessment orders, code of conduct complaints, and false attacks I have seen from you.”
Then, at 4.41pm, Ong sent a second email to council staff and multiple media outlets, again discussing the complaint.
“It is well-known and widely publicly reported that I am barred from council meetings with executive leadership, the mayor and other council meetings apart from the public council meeting,” he wrote.
“This code of conduct complaint is a continuation of the false attacks against me at every opportunity.”
The complaint is understood to relate to a sprawling email chain earlier this month, in which Ong copied media, councillors, senior council staff and a representative from the NZ Super Fund into correspondence about a proposed partnership between the fund and the Dunedin City Council.
Councillor Benedict Ong arrived at a council meeting with tape over his mouth in February. Photo / Facebook
In one email, Ong appeared to publicly speculate about the identity of a potential developer for the long-discussed Forsyth Barr Stadium hotel project – information that had not been publicly disclosed.
“I also note by coincidence now that Cr Lund inquired … about ‘Russell Group’ on its being a potential developer for our stadium’s proposed hotel?” Ong wrote.
“It appears this would be the same one and only Russell Group.”
The identity of potential stadium hotel developers had previously been treated as commercially sensitive.
That same email chain also included several heated exchanges with fellow councillors.
After councillor Steve Walker described one of Ong’s proposals as “next level gobbledegook”, Ong responded by suggesting Walker improve his reading comprehension and “learn how to instantly input words and paragraphs into ChatGPT”.
Last month, Ong was asked to resign from the council and was stripped of various roles following another code of conduct breach after Ong again shared confidential information with media, despite being explicitly asked not to.
Independent investigator Steph Dyhrberg found a council staff member had specifically asked Ong not to disclose confidential information, but he sent it to journalists about half an hour later.
Councillors voted to strip Ong of his role as deputy of the technology portfolio and remove him as council representative on both the Otago Settlers Association and the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum board.
His loss of responsibilities also reduced his annual remuneration from $100,577 to $84,496.
When given the chance to address councillors, Ong chose to read a passage from the novel The Trial, by Franz Kafka.
When asked by reporters if he would resign, Ong responded: “Why would I even consider that?
“Very simply, I have been elected. I am a contractor for the next two-and-a-half years to serve at the pleasure of our community.”
He compared the council to “one big, happy family” before adding: “Now it seems like there’s a great deal of sibling rivalry in this dysfunctional family that I’m a part of.”
Mayor Sophie Barker said at the time that she had no confidence in Ong and that she was “horrified” by the contents of the code of conduct report.
“My view is the council needs to give a strong message that it considers councillor Ong’s behaviour to be completely unacceptable and takes the strongest measure that it can to invite councillor Ong to consider resigning,” she said.
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.