Code of Conduct issue still not resolved

In September 2025 we sent this letter to the Tasman District Council: 2025-09-15 letter before action.pdf

Until today the Council has not responded. Because after the recent local election we have a number of new councillors around the table, we gave the Council another chance to address the issues that we raised regarding the code of conduct investigation that cost ratepayers almost $40,000. We sent the following email to the mayor and all councillors. Because the Chief Executive and her staff interferes with our email correspondence to elected representatives, we decided to publish the email here in full so that all elected members can read it.

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Dear Mayor and Councillors,

We are writing to you today in a last attempt to avoid costly litigation in order to resolve an issue which we consider relevant. In September 2025 we wrote a Letter before Action to the Tasman District Council in regard to the code of conduct investigation against former Motueka Community Board Member Nicholas Hughes. Unfortunately, that letter remains unacknowledged to this day. For ease of reference, that letter is attached to this email.

Given the local elections have now concluded and some of you signalled being interested in reducing costs to the ratepayers, we considered it reasonable to address this new Council again on the matter.

The crux of the matter is that we are not convinced there was a code of conduct in place for the Motueka Community Board at the time when a complaint against Mr Hughes was investigated resulting in approximately $40,000 costs to the ratepayer for the process. Dr Mike Reid from LGNZ, who was approached for comment at the time, summarised the issue as below, which we think remains to be addressed by the Council in a legally robust way.

“Whether or not a community board adopts a code of conduct is a matter for each board’s discretion. In my view, the 2013 code only applied to the board that was in place for that triennium. It does not have an ongoing life, unless specifically endorsed by subsequent boards - which aligns with the principle that governments cannot bind their successors.”

Please let us know by 1 December 2025 whether the Council considers there to be a reasonable alternative to going to the High Court for resolving this matter. For those with further interest, please feel free to read the article we published at the time:

https://tasman.org.nz/news/code-of-conduct-investigation-unlawful-spending-of-40000

Kind regards