Queenstown Lakes District councillor Niki Gladding will be assigned a mentor and has been removed from RMA training for a year following a serious breach of the council’s code of conduct.

Mayor Jim Boult and councillor Penny Clark alleged Niki released confidential information from a draft business case associated with Wanaka’s Project Pure to Queenstown media outlet Crux in January. The information included this sentence: “[Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC)] has advised an intention to upgrade the [Wanaka] airport to enable the use of wide-bodied jets in the future”. 

After an initial council investigation, the complaint against Niki was investigated by RBRL director Bruce Robertson. His report will be considered by councillors at a full council meeting tomorrow (Thursday September 3).

Niki told Bruce she was concerned about information which should be in front of the public on the matter of Project Pure and the Wanaka Airport, including QAC’s intentions. Her primary concern was “[council’s] failure to disclose firstly that QAC had advised an intention to accommodate wide-bodied jets and secondly that airport expansion was driving up the cost of Project Pure”, she told Bruce.

QLDC chief executive Mike Theelen later clarified the options on relocation and cost were not responding to any specific proposal about wide bodied jets, but rather a response to future proof the airport.

The reference to “wide bodied jets” for Wanaka Airport was incorrect, council chief executive Mike Theelen said.

“I am not sure where the concept came that this runway and the subsequent change in the proposed location of the SBR tank was associated with the introduction of wide bodied jets as this has not been discussed with QAC nor is it consistent with the advised purpose of the proposed runway,” Mike said in a response to Niki in January. “If wording that refers to wide bodied jets has crept into our qldc [sic] business case then that is incorrect and we will amend that accordingly to avoid creating unnecessary and unhelpful confusion.”

Niki told the investigator she did not have time to do further research and instead encouraged Crux to follow up her concerns through a LGOIMA request. Crux did make a LGOIMA request, which was declined. The next step would be to make a complaint to the Ombudsman, but instead Crux published an article in February, under the heading “Wide body jets for Wanaka referenced in QLDC documents”. By that stage Niki had asked Crux not to publish the information.

Bruce’s report said Niki breached confidentiality on a draft business case which was subject to change; her actions could result in a breakdown of trust and confidence among councillors; and she did not raise concerns with other councillors before leaking the information.

“The investigation was well done and I agree with the findings,” Niki told the Wanaka App. “The penalty agreed by the councillors is absolutely fair and I’m sorry that they’ve been caught up in all this.”

However, she said she thinks the committee has missed an opportunity in not adopting Bruce’s recommendation to debrief the event and discuss councillors’ access to information. 

“I do feel that staff carefully manage the level and timing of information that comes to councillors and I’d like to see greater transparency from the organisation. I can say, hand on heart, that if I felt I was getting free and frank responses to my questions about the ‘wide bodied jet’ reference, I wouldn’t have felt the need to take it to the media - I would have felt comfortable dealing with the matter internally and I did try to do that.

“At the end of the day, we can’t do good governance unless we’re getting all the information - the full picture - when we need it. Hopefully we can have that discussion and start to build back some trust,” she said.

PHOTOS: Supplied