It is the third complaint involving Dunedin City councillor Benedict Ong since he was elected last October.
Photo: Supplied
A Dunedin councillor has leaked a report detailing concerns he is repeatedly revealing confidential information and potentially jeopardising the council’s commercial interests.
Benedict Ong is facing a code of conduct complaint after revealing details about a potential hotel development at Forsyth Barr Stadium to reporters last month.
Chief executive Sandy Graham’s complaint, filed last week, was the third involving Ong since he was elected last October, including an unsuccessful complaint against another councillor and another that saw him face a call to resign.
Investigator Steph Dyhrberg’s preliminary assessment report, marked confidential, was emailed to Ong for feedback on Tuesday.
An email chain showed he replied to Dyhrberg and cc’d two local reporters a few hours later.
In the report, Dyhrberg said his repeated conduct could be a serious breach and had resulted in media coverage and potentially compromised council’s and its subsidiary’s commercial interests.
“That makes it a particularly serious potential breach,” she said.
“It appears likely that Cr Ong’s repeated breaches of confidentiality were deliberate.”
She said a full investigation was warranted and she would provide information to Ong to meet the requirements of natural justice.
In his reply to her email, Benedict Ong said he and Dyhrberg agreed on the principle of natural justice so he was sending the “possibly highly subjective assessment” onto journalists.
He thanked Dyhrberg for the lengthy report, saying he was certain it constituted countless bill-able hours of ratepayers’ funds.
Speaking to RNZ, Ong said he had done nothing wrong and this was a false attack against him.
“Anyone that makes the insinuation or the outright statement that our commercial interests of our public, community assets are being harmed are stating that they do not understand how special our great city is,” he said.
He did not believe his actions had breached commercial sensitivity or confidentiality.
“(It) is perfectly right and proper because we are not a private enterprise. We are a public enterprise for our community benefits and this is a discussion that’s regarding public, community assets that our community members all want to know public information about.”
If the information was openly discussed, he said it might encourage other potential developers to the city, not deter them.
“I would say there are plenty of eggs to go around and there will be plenty of developers that will want to invest in the most special city of our country.”
A series of leaked emails from Ong – some marked “in confidence” or “confidential” in bold – outlined how his request to discuss ideas for financial innovation brewed into a code of conduct complaint.
The Dunedin City Council last month held a non-public workshop with Dunedin Venues Management Limited to discuss the potential hotel development.
On 21 April Ong mentioned that another councillor had asked about The Russell Group as a potential developer for the stadium’s proposed hotel at the workshop in a lengthy email chain with councillors, the chief executive, mayor and media.
After hearing about the disclosure, the Dunedin City Holdings chair told Graham that the breach of confidence put the business in a difficult position.
In a subsequent email, Graham reminded councillors that information about the development was provided on an “in-confidence” basis and the way staff and businesses provided information would need to be reconsidered if that was not respected.
She also noted that council subsidiaries were doing everything they could to ensure the project was not jeopardised.
Graham emailed Ong the code of conduct complaint on 29 April, marked “in confidence” and warning that breaching confidentiality was likely to mean another breach of the code of conduct.
Within minutes, he sent the email to several reporters.
Ong has since said the mention of Russell Group was “mere rumoured hearsay” that he was entitled to ask questions about.
It has been a rocky first term for the new councillor – he has confirmed he was not AI, posted publicly about a code of conduct complaint after being asked not to compromise the investigation, had his movement temporarily restricted in the council building following concerns he was accosting staff (which he labelled false allegations) and put tape over his mouth on multiple occasions in protest.
Late last year, Ong made a code of conduct complaint against councillor John Chambers, claiming he made inappropriate remarks about him.
The complaint was dismissed by Dyhrberg, who found it lacked substance.
Ong was in the firing line in March for a code of conduct complaint after he accused a staff member of “apparent political bias” and a “lack of political neutrality” in an email to the council’s chief executive and two journalists.
Dyhrberg’s investigation found his actions were a serious breach and might have been an attempt to discredit a staff member who did not back up his account when he made his complaint against Chambers.
He was sanctioned and asked to resign by his colleagues for the breach, reading an extract Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial in his defence.
Ong was also removed from two council representative roles on local museum boards, which cost him about $15,000 in pay after he previously lost a deputy technology portfolio role.
The Dunedin City Council has been contacted for comment.
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