{"id":585962,"date":"2026-08-31T14:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/585962\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:48:15","slug":"pair-deny-filming-to-intimidate-new-plymouth-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/585962\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair deny filming to \u2018intimidate\u2019 New Plymouth councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Plymouth’s M\u0101ori ward councillor<\/a> says two onlookers were aiming to intimidate by filming her in the council chamber.<\/p>\n

The pair deny they were recording and want their names cleared.<\/p>\n

Councillor Te Waka McLeod interrupted last Thursday’s meeting to ask Debbie Hancock to stop filming her from the public gallery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

McLeod said Hancock – who stood unsuccessfully for council last year – repeatedly pointed a phone towards her, lowering it every time McLeod looked up.<\/p>\n

New Plymouth District Mayor Max Brough ordered Hancock to stop as the alleged filming was disturbing McLeod and the meeting.<\/p>\n

McLeod said Hancock’s companion Kevin Moratti then took up the filming.<\/p>\n

The mayor again insisted they end the disruption.<\/p>\n

“It’s causing a distraction and a nuisance, and if it carries on you’ll be asked to leave,” Brough said.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Plymouth District Mayor Max Brough.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Robin Martin<\/p>\n

McLeod later said Hancock’s phone was pointed at her several times before she objected.<\/p>\n

“When someone’s directly pointing a camera at you, towards you, many times – I just wonder what the motivation is behind that,” she said.<\/p>\n

McLeod represents New Plymouth District Council’s Te Purutanga Mauri P\u016bmanawa ward.<\/p>\n

“I felt like … they were trying to intimidate me.”<\/p>\n

Afterwards Moratti said neither he nor Hancock had been filming.<\/p>\n

He said he raised his phone to follow the meeting while sending messages, rather than looking down.<\/p>\n

“Vertical, you can look straight across the top of your phone \u2026 and you can carry on at least being interested in the meeting.”<\/p>\n

Moratti said he’d officially object against the disruption finding.<\/p>\n

“It’s got out of hand, so it needs to be addressed.”<\/p>\n

\"Debbie<\/p>\n

Debbie Hancock, councillor Kerry Vosseler and Kevin Moratti say there was no filming.<\/p>\n

LDR \/ Te Korimako o Taranaki file<\/p>\n

Moratti was a foundation board member of Hobson’s Pledge, which campaigns against Treaty rights and interests<\/a>, and is a former ACT Party candidate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He heads the Taxpayer Union-aligned New Plymouth Ratepayers Alliance, which on Facebook posted that Hancock raised her phone “to get a signal”.<\/p>\n

Hancock was unable to be contacted, but on Facebook said she hadn’t been filming but “looking at other things”.<\/p>\n

She wrote that she was troubled an accusation was acted on without proof.<\/p>\n

“Nobody approached me and asked what I was doing.<\/p>\n

“Instead an assumption was made about my behaviour and I was publicly singled out.”<\/p>\n

Last October Hancock stood for council on a ticket of four endorsed by the Ratepayers Alliance, which was formed by Moratti, Brough and councillor Murray Chong.<\/p>\n

Councillor Kerry Vosseler – the only winner from that ticket – turned to wink at her allies as a point of order was raised against their behaviour.<\/p>\n

After the meeting Vosseler said she “didn’t see anything untoward”.<\/p>\n

“We all hold our phones at different levels to read etcetera.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure if it was a recording that the person would’ve stopped because there’s a risk of you getting kicked out of the chamber.”<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Plymouth councillor John Woodward.<\/p>\n

Supplied<\/p>\n

Councillor John Woodward raised the point of order that prompted the Mayor’s rebuke.<\/p>\n

Woodward later said he was certain Hancock and Moratti were filming.<\/p>\n

“I’m 100 percent sure they were.<\/p>\n

“The phones were pointed in Te Waka’s direction, and it would be an unusual position to put your phone if you were checking Messenger or scrolling Facebook.”<\/p>\n

Woodward said people were free to film meetings but not to disrupt such crucial work as long term plan deliberations.<\/p>\n

Councillor David Bublitz said he’d seen Hancock pointing her phone towards McLeod and Moratti follow suit.<\/p>\n

“Lifting up [his phone] as soon as Ms Hancock was asked to put it down \u2026 the timing of it seemed interesting to me.”<\/p>\n

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Plymouth’s M\u0101ori ward councillor says two onlookers were aiming to intimidate by filming her in the council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-585962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585962","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=585962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}