The nation’s news outlets aren’t usually interested in local government ructions in the south, but deep rifts in one dysfunctional council have made many headlines lately. When a ‘showdown’ meeting in Gore was livestreamed on major websites this week, peace broke out instead. Was that because of the media attention?
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Miriama Kamo introduces TVNZ's Sunday report by Kristin Hall from Gore last weekend. Photo: TVNZ Sunday
It was an extraordinary council meeting for an extraordinary situation.
Gore’s councillors were considering a vote of no confidence in their 24-year old mayor Ben Bell just eight months into his first term and also seeking to remove him from council committees.
Demonstrators in support of him had gathered outside while others watched the livestream in Gore’s library.
For those outside Gore, the livestream was carried on the homepages of Stuff.co.nz and nzherald.co.nz - even on the day updates were still coming in on the fatal fire in Wellington.
But in the end, what the Herald billed as the “Gore Showdown” turned into “a kumbaya drum circle,” according to co-editor of Newsroom.co.nz Tim Murphy.
The deputy mayor and seven councillors who called for a vote didn’t move the motion of no confidence. Instead, the deputy mayor said the council should now seek help from the Internal Affairs Department to pull together, while the embattled mayor pledged to mend fences in “the Gore way.”
It wouldn’t have made any difference even if the vote went against Bell.
“If he is democratically elected, he has to resign or he has to die or be convicted of a crime resulting in two years' imprisonment or greater. None of those appear particularly likely at the moment,“ RNZ’s Otago and Southland reporter Timothy Brown told Morning Report on the morning of the meeting.
Mayors have ended up at loggerheads with their councillors elsewhere in recent times.
Invercargill’s city council revolted against Sir Tim Shadbolt but even though he was a national figure, that got nothing like the national news coverage.
Councillors and mayor Tenby Powell were at daggers drawn in Tauranga in 2020 and commissioners were eventually appointed to keep things running there.
But that didn’t get much national media attention either.
(Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking accused the government of planning to take over dysfunctional councils in 2020, though they were merely following procedure for a breakdown in relationships by notifying the DIA).
So why were the media so interested in a little local political difficulty in Gore?
Ben Bell supporters outside of the Gore district council building. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The answer lies partly in Bell being by far the nation’s youngest mayor. He had unseated a long-serving incumbent and ended up at loggerheads with a council CEO who’d been in place for 22 years.
This week Ben Bell's counterpart in New Plymouth, mayor Neil Holdom, said the whole affair would have been reported differently if Ben Bell was older.
“We had the Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown framed as a sort of a strong leader and a new broom with big changes for Auckland,“ he told RNZ’s Morning Report.
“But the narrative for Ben Bell was that he was a 23 year-old and New Zealand's youngest mayor,” he said.
There were other intriguing tensions and personality clashes for the media to latch onto in Gore.
Kristin Hall’s report on TVNZ’s Sunday last weekend was a compelling summary.
What Sunday described as “a peaking firestorm” was the tip of an iceberg more than two decades in the making according to ‘special inquiry’ - Mud and Gore - published earlier by Newsroom.co.nz.
Te Anau freelancer Vanessa Bellew reported the GDC was “caught in allegations of a culture of bullying” long before Ben Bell became mayor.
She also said the council had paid several severance settlements to departed staff, many incorporating non-disclosure agreements.
Newsroom reported a “culture of fear” where former employees felt they were not allowed to make mistakes and some said they were targeted because they were good at their jobs.
A chief financial officer said his mental health suffered after being forced out and GDC chief executive Parry even turned up unannounced at his home in London to confront him long after his departure.
The council subsequently issued a statement to Newsroom in Parry's name insisting all severances had been professionally handled. Staff surveys showed most believed the management created an environment of trust and fairness, it added.
The Gore Ensign newspaper, in print since 1878, reports the surprise outcome of Tuesday's meeting. Photo: Gore Ensign
Much of this was also covered off in TVNZ’s Sunday last weekend, which also featured Kristin Hall’s fruitless attempts to get Steven Parry on the record.
According to Sunday, he cited legal advice that it would be “inappropriate” to be interviewed by TVNZ.
But while some councillors claimed Bell’s short time in charge had been traumatic, The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire asked: ‘So what exactly is Gore mayor Ben Bell accused of?’
Aside from some already-acknowledged communications problems, it wasn't at all obvious.
But was it the national media attention that caused the remarkable reversal in Bell’s favour on Tuesday?
“I absolutely think that's the case. I don't know how you can go from publicly stating your lack of trust in the mayor. And a few days later the council is sending out a press release saying the council is united and getting on with it,” said Logan Savory, who covered the drama in Gore for his daily online news service for subscribers to The Southland Tribune.
“Public pressure which comes from extreme media attention had to play a role and what was a pretty incredible flip flop,” Savory who covered local politics over several years reporting for The Southland Times, told Mediawatch.
In the Southland Tribune this week he asked: “How did Gore end up in a primetime current affairs spot?”
”I think it's absolutely the fact that Gore has New Zealand's youngest mayor - and it comes at a time when there's been a bit of a spotlight on local government and whether it truly reflects the community. The majority of councillors are probably 60 to 65-plus,” he said.
Steven Parry, the council chief executive, didn't take part in the TVNZ Sunday show and hasn't responded to other media requests citing legal advice.
“What ended up happening is we got this picture painted of a young mayor and the way he's been treated by Steve Parry and other councillors,” Savory said.
“Steve Parry is probably in a difficult situation where he was asked to talk about his employer - and probably he wasn't going to get much out of it by speaking of his relationship with Ben Bell,” he said.
“But I also would love to have heard the other side of the story, because we had been told by councillors that they lacked trust. Someone needed to tell us why they made the stand and asked him to resign. In hindsight, I think they probably should have spoken about it,” he said.
But if there had been a culture of bullying and exclusion at the council, as some people have alleged, over a period of a couple of decades, was media attention overdue?
“Maybe on reflection, local media could have done better,” he told Mediawatch.
“I think the Gore council situation is pretty well covered by local media such as The Southland Times but it's a district of about 13,000 to 15,000 people so it naturally gets shuffled down the order of priorities. But it does highlight the need to continue to cover smaller councils because there is potential for real issues,” Logan Savory told Mediawatch.
On Morning Report, New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom credited Stuff’s Andrea Vance for highlighting the corporatised nature of local government today - and how it gives power and clout to executives who aren't elected.
“We have real potential here to come together to reunite and to find a way forward. What a redemption story that will be,” Ben Bell told Tuesday’s extraordinary meeting after the councillors had urged him to resign.
Will the media be as interested in that as they have been in the conflict and the bitterness in Gore since October?
“I'd imagine there's still going to be plenty of interest in this. If they can turn this around all of a sudden I would be very surprised. So I expect there to be more media attention on the Gore District Council in the months to come - and particularly the situation with the CEO and the mayor not speaking. I just can't see how this is going to stay out of the headlines,” Savory said.