Former Wellington mayors are furious that hundreds of pages of their confidential council documents ended up in the hands of a local man who bought an old mayoral office desk at a dump.
Dame Kerry Prendergast, whose private papers are included in the files, said it is a “diabolical situation on a number of fronts”.
She plans to raise it with the council’s CEO and Mayor Tory Whanau in a meeting today.
The papers, which detail termination agreements, a council sexual harassment claim and staff pay details, were locked in the drawers of a desk taken to the dump from the Wellington Town Hall.
The council, which initially told the Herald it believed reports of the document cache was “social media mischief”, has subsequently launched a full investigation and notified the Privacy Commissioner after our newsroom tracked down the files and assessed their contents.
“It’s appalling, I’m appalled,” Dame Fran Wilde told the Herald.
Wilde, whose private correspondence is included in the documents, said she is outraged the files made their way into public hands.
“It’s an appalling breach of confidence that a council administration would let a bit of furniture go containing confidential documents,” she said.
She also planned to contact the council demanding an explanation.
Prendergast, who was mayor between 2001 and 2010, told Herald NOW’s Michael Morrah she could not believe the desk was not emptied in 2013 and that the council did not believe the man who found the documents.
“We’re now is a situation where highly confidential papers are available to the media.”
She said she hoped there would be a full and rigorous investigation.
“Those cupboards in the [desks] were locked for a good reason.“
“These were the days before digital, so everything was in hard copy … this is a terrible situation for both the people that signed the documents but also the parties that were part of the agreements. It’s diabolical.”
She said before she left office in 2010, she was made to go through all the files. A special importance was placed on things locked away in desks.
“And I know Mark Blumsky and Dame Fran Wilde would have done the same. And when you hand over to the next mayor, you hand over the keys, you explain why you’ve kept them and why they’re in that part of the desk.”
The papers mostly date between 1988 and the early 2000s and contain information concerning the highest level of council leadership.
It includes anonymous letters from a whistle-blower detailing sexual harassment allegations against a former councillor, printed email correspondence about claims of abusive workplace behaviours, termination agreements, code of conduct complaints, information about employees’ pay, confidentiality agreements, private emails and highlighted newspaper clippings from media coverage of the council at the time.
Raymond Morgan, a builder who lives in Breaker Bay, said he spotted a desk, which was labelled as being from the Office of The Mayor, at the Tip Shop last week among other items from the old Town Hall.
He took it home and broke the locks to find hundreds of papers about former council employees.
Contacting the council to report it, Morgan claimed officials “didn’t really take much notice at all”.
He provided the Herald with the full collection of files.
The council has now said it is investigating the situation.
“We are taking the situation extremely seriously and are working with our legal and privacy staff – along with staff and contractors involved with the disposal of the Town Hall furniture – to understand what has happened,” the spokesman said in a statement.
“We will also endeavour to discuss the situation with the member of the public who is alleged to have found these documents.”
The council disputed suggestions from Morgan that officials didn’t appear to take his approach seriously, saying the staff member who spoke to Morgan did not understand what Morgan was talking about.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.