Editorial: Unfortunate that council did not release full facts

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

Ratepayers of Napier will be disappointed to see that the city council has probably not been as transparent and upfront as it could have been regarding a Minister for Primary Industries audit report into the Napier Pound.

The report was concluded before Christmas, but instead of releasing it, the council sent out a press release headed "No breaches of Animal Welfare Code at Napier Pound".

The first line of the release read: The Ministry for Primary Industries External Audit Report has found that on the whole, the Napier Pound is "well run" and "very clean and sanitary".

The release, sent out by the council's communications manager Fiona Fraser, downplayed "shortfalls" found by the report and said immediate action had been taken on them.

Hawke's Bay Today requested a copy of the MPI report on numerous occasions, but we were told to go to MPI, which we did.

On Friday, our request under the Official Information Act, was granted and we ran a story about the report's findings in Saturday's newspaper.

While the report did say the pound was well run, the issues that the council called "shortfalls" were described as four major and two minor non-compliances by the MPI investigator.

On pages six and seven of today's paper, we have run the full report and the council's press release from Friday, December 23, last year, so that readers can judge for themselves.

It is unfortunate that the council did not give the full information in its press release. CEO Wayne Jack's refusal to release the report and Mayor Bill Dalton's reaction to justified criticism were certainly not helpful.

MPI is releasing another report into the pound in the next few weeks. This one stems from a complaint by lobby group WATCHDOG!

It is vital that the mayor and his CEO are not defensive and accept the findings of this report when it is released.