{"id":610073,"date":"2026-09-24T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610073\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:08:09","slug":"controversial-dunedin-councillor-benedict-ong-to-run-for-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610073\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial Dunedin councillor Benedict Ong to run for Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">Controversial first-term Dunedin city councillor Benedict Ong has announced a run as an independent candidate in the November general election, saying bans against him have left him unable to do his council job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Ong announced his bid in a social media post, less than a year after he was elected to the Dunedin City Council.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">He described the bans against him as &#8220;wrongful and false&#8221; and said he had been hit by &#8220;malicious falsehoods and political attacks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;I cannot as a wing-clipped and banned City Councillor drive our Dunedin City to fly and soar,&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">His council term has been marked by controversy. He has faced several code of conduct complaints, and early this year he was escorted from a council meeting with tape across his mouth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">In March, councillors voted 10-2 to ask him to resign. He refused, and read from Franz Kafka&#8217;s The Trial rather than defend himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">This month the University of Otago trespassed him after the students&#8217; association reported two alleged incidents at a campus protest involving unwanted physical closeness or contact with students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Controversial first-term Dunedin city councillor Benedict Ong has announced a run as an independent candidate in the November&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1080,42,43,135,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-610073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610073","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=610073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}