{"id":580787,"date":"2026-08-26T10:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T10:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/580787\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T10:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T10:36:13","slug":"watch-invercargill-mayor-loses-patience-with-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/580787\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Invercargill mayor loses patience with councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long-serving Invercargill councillor has clashed with a meeting chairman for a third time after calling the mayor’s answer to his question a “soliloquy”.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred during a full Invercargill City Council meeting on Tuesday, when six-term councillor Ian Pottinger asked council manager Rhiannon Suter a series of questions relating to amalgamation.<\/p>\n

Mayor Tom Campbell’s response to one of those questions, as meeting chairman, was not well-received by Pottinger.<\/p>\n

“You jumped in and gave a soliloquy, sorry,” Pottinger said of the mayor\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\"Invercargill<\/p>\n

Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell. (Source: Invercargill City Council) (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Campbell was visibly frustrated by the councillor\u2019s comment and told him he could \u201csit there and be rude, or … take part in this meeting in an appropriate manner”.<\/p>\n

“When you start talking about soliloquies, there was no soliloquy. I expressed about two sentences. So why don\u2019t you just ask a question, but ask it politely?” Campbell said.<\/p>\n

Pottinger was provided further opportunities to ask his question, which was ultimately answered by Suter, though she was not sure she fully understood it.<\/p>\n

The councillor\u2019s run-in with Campbell was not the first time he has butted heads with colleagues.<\/p>\n

In February, Pottinger refused to apologise to councillor Alex Crackett after questioning if she was listening during a meeting.<\/p>\n

At a May 2025 meeting, he had a tense exchange with councillor Darren Ludlow after suggesting he hadn\u2019t received an email that “democracy was not in place today”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Invercargill<\/p>\n

Invercargill councillor Ian Pottinger. (Source: Invercargill City Council) (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Both Crackett and Ludlow were chairmen during those meetings.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Local Democracy Reporting on Wednesday, Pottinger said he was trying to get an answer out of Suter but was interrupted.<\/p>\n

Regarding the ongoing incidents with members, he said he was a passionate person who did a lot of research and was not the kind to back down.<\/p>\n

Mayor Campbell said Tuesday\u2019s incident was relatively minor and dealt with at the time.<\/p>\n

The Cambridge Dictionary describes a soliloquy as a speech where a character speaks to themself, or those watching, instead of other characters.<\/p>\n

\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A long-serving Invercargill councillor has clashed with a meeting chairman for a third time after calling the mayor’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69,135],"class_list":["post-580787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}