Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark denies request from councillors to resign over Code of Conduct complaints

Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark has declared he will not be resigning despite fellow councillors calling for him to do so at an extraordinary council meeting today.

A vote for councillors to request Clark formally tender his resignation failed on a five-five split, although a vote he delegates all future public engagements to the deputy mayor or fellow councillors was accepted.

The meeting was called after a code of conduct complaint against Clark due to his behaviour at a United Fire Brigades’ Association (UFBA) prizegiving dinner where he was a guest of honour.

UFBA chief executive William Butzbach said Clark mocked, disrespected, degraded and offended its members, staff and other guests during the event.

A code of conduct complaint was lodged by council chief executive Michael Day on behalf of the UFBA.

Clark has since apologised in a letter to Butzbach, saying he was suffering from “brain fade” after open heart surgery, while maintaining some of his behaviour was not as described.

In his opening statement, Clark said he had read the report and believed it was overly harsh, “but I accept the outcome”.

“I acknowledge to my colleagues that this code of conduct deflects from all the good work done around the city and the work that is still in progress.”

He said he did not accept that the public complaint - “that is outside this code of conduct” - should be dealt with in this way and that he would take an opportunity at a later date to set a review for this process.

Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark on TV show New Zealand Today. Photo / Three

He said that in his view it set a dangerous precedent for elected members.

He said he had taken steps around media access and public speaking to ensure there were no repeating concerns.

“For those who have publicly sought my resignation, I need to declare that I will not be resigning.”

As a final note, Clark said he would not be making any further media comments and left the meeting to allow his colleagues to decide the outcome without his presence.

Councillors quickly agreed that the matter was within the council’s scope and that the mayor had breached the council’s code of conduct, in light of lawyer Linda Clark’s report, and then discussed potential penalties at length, with several calling for Clark to resign.

Cr Trish Patterson said she was disappointed the council was put in this position and that she had demonstrated this to the mayor, but she believed there was a way to move forward with conditions around future practice.

Cr Lesley Soper said it was clear from the investigation the “egregious behaviour” was a repeated set of comments, and the apology letter was “not sufficient”.

Cr Steve Broad called for Clark to resign, stating that his behaviour while acting as mayor had “fallen short of the honour of that role”.

Cr Grant Dermody said the situation had made a significant impact on the Southland community and that Clark had made an error of judgment, but was “wearing it heavy”.

He said he also questioned the mayor’s health, and what duty of care with hindsight about his capacity to return to work when he did.

Cr Alex Crackett said leaders by definition were inspirational and while there was no doubt Clark’s work effort was inspirational, his “ageist, sexist and racist behaviour” had created a void.

She said this instance was just the first had actually made it to the council’s table, but was in a series that had made Invercargill “a national embarrassment”.

Cr Ria Bond said she did not believe Clark’s apology, and that he had failed in his objectiveness of how he should behave as mayor.

She said he could not blame his behaviour on his heart surgery and recommended the council seek further medical evidence that supports this claim.

Cr Ian Pottinger said the mayor’s behaviour had shown he was not a person capable of leading the city.

Cr Peter Kett said deep down the mayor was “not really a bad bugger at all” and he hoped Clark had learned his lesson.

Cr Alan Dennis said he felt very “sorry and affected” by what had happened, but wanted the chance for Clark to make amends and thought he was still “the right person for the job”.

Deputy Mayor Tom Campbell said his perspective was a mixture of what had been said at the table and agreed another apology needed to be made.

He also said there was a need to provide a mechanism or protection so the council did not end up in a similar situation in future and strongly recommended that Clark step aside from all public engagements.

He allowed a motion put forward by Pottinger that Clark be requested to tender his resignation, which was seconded by Broad but failed five-five.

Campbell then put forward a motion strongly recommending the mayor formally delegates all public engagements to the deputy mayor or another councillor for the remainder of the triennium, which was accepted with the inclusion of a request for Clark to apologise to the public.

In April, Crs Ian Pottinger and Ria Bond filed a code of conduct complaint against Clark after his appearance on Guy Williams’ satirical news show New Zealand Today where he defended previous use of the N-word at an Art Foundation event, and repeated it while on the show.

Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.