Tasman District Council workshops now open to the public
The year 2025 ended with a significant success for our local democracy in the Tasman district. The Council agreed to open its workshops to the public by default. This change is an important step forward towards more transparency. It will allow better understanding of and participation in the local government decision making process.
Background
Tasman Democracy has advocated for more transparency since the beginning of 2024. The issue around closed workshops surfaced with the Chief Ombudsman's 2023 report on local council meetings and workshops. This report stated that councils should open workshops to the public by default, closing them only where good reason exists. It highlighted the principles of openness and good administrative practice under the Local Government Act 2002. Further the report mentioned the need for local councils to maintain public trust by avoiding perceptions of operating in secret and instead to conduct its business in an "open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner."
Despite this guidance the Tasman District Council maintained the practise of holding all workshops behind closed doors. In November 2023, Mayor Tim King publicly stated he had no intention of changing this practice and suggested that “closed-door workshops give councillors a comfortable space”. Tasman Democracy fundamentally disagreed and promoted the Ombudsman's view that such closures limit public participation in democratic processes. We strongly believe in public scrutiny and open workshops are one way of achieving this.
Our Efforts
Beginning in early 2024, Tasman Democracy engaged repeatedly with the Tasman District Council through emails, public forum speeches at council meetings and complaints to the Council (as it was suggested by the Office of the Ombudsman). We reiterated the Ombudsman's expectations and requested that specific workshops, such as those discussing bylaws, the Long-Term Plan and the representation review for the 2025 local elections be opened because these topics carried high public interest at the time.
The Council responded by asserting that workshops were not formal meetings under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA) and no decisions were made in closed workshops (but how would one know if that is actually true).
Unsatisfied with the Council's refusals and brief responses (which ended with a statement that they would not correspond further with us on this topic), Tasman Democracy escalated the matter by filing a formal complaint under urgency with the Office of the Ombudsman in April 2024. The complaint detailed the Council's practices, quoted extensively from the 2023 Ombudsman's report and emphasised the public benefit of open workshops for public participation in consultations on bylaws and the Long-Term Plan.
Ombudsman's Investigation
Regarding our complaint the Ombudsman responded to us in a letter on 22 December 2025. It mentions that the Office of the Ombudsman contacted the Tasman District Council and informed them of the Chief Ombudsman’s likely opinion that their practice of closing workshops by default was “unreasonable”. The Ombudsman clarified that while not all workshops need to be open, the default position should be openness with closures decided on a case-by-case basis only when good reasons exists.
“In response, the Council has confirmed that it has decided to open workshops by default for the public to attend, closing them only where it considers good reason exists to do so.”
Workshops are now open to the public by default and are only closed when good reason exists. This change achieves the outcome Tasman Democracy has been persistently advocating for. However, this positive outcome came only after a long and frustrating delay. Tasman Democracy filed its urgent complaint with the Ombudsman in April 2024, yet it took more than 20 months until the Council finally changed its practice. During that time numerous workshops on highly significant issues remained closed to the public. It included discussions and information shared on the Long-Term Plan, multiple bylaws, environmental policies, representation review for the 2025 local elections and changes to district plan rules.
This prolonged lack of openness severely limited residents to understand the reasoning behind council’s decision making. Consequently, public participation on some of the most important local government issues was unnecessarily restricted for almost 2 years. It is fair to say that it undermined the local government principles of openness, transparency and democratic accountability.
Looking forward
The achieved outcome shows the importance of persistent advocacy in holding local councils accountable. As the Ombudsman noted in his 2023 report:
“Local democracy is built on the premise that the closer decision makers are to the population they serve, the more the people can, and should, participate directly in decisions that affect their daily lives. This is an important task for councils to get right.”
Tasman Democracy remains committed to advocate for even more transparency. We encourage to attend open workshops, to review meeting agendas on the Council's website and to engage in local government issues, for example by making a submission on open consultations.