A complaint to the Auditor-General about Mayor Barry

I have been sent a copy of a complaint to the Auditor-General about the Mayor of Hutt City. It raises very important issues around taking donations and conflicts of interest.

The Mayor is Campbell Barry. It relates both as a Councillor and Mayor. Mayor Barry stood on the Labour ticket.

My summary of the complaint is this:

• The E Tu union campaigns for Councils to adopt a “living wage” policy for Council staff and contractors. This obviously benefits many E Tu members and the union itself, if it occurs.
• On 7 June 2019 E Tu donated $5,000 to Barry’s election campaign. It was his largest donation (if you ignore his self-donation).
• Four days later in 11 June 2019 the Hutt Council met to decide whether or not to introduce a “living wage” for staff. Cr Barry spoke in favour and voted in favour of doing so. The vote was won on a split vote.
• Cr Barry did not disclose the E Tu donation (or his membership of E Tu) to his Council colleagues. He did not disclose any conflict of interest, despite both the donation and the membership being obvious conflicts.
• Cr Barry met with two officers of E Tu in private just prior to the vote.
• A further Council vote was held in December 2019, when Barry was Mayor, to extend the “living wage” to contractors. It was passed by just one vote – the Mayor’s whose successful campaign for Mayor was funded by E Tu. Again no disclosure was made of the donation or membership to the Council.

It would seem to me to be a no brainer that if four days before a Council meeting, to vote on a controversial issue, you receive a large donation from the major advocate to vote yes on the issue, you must disclose it as a conflict of interest.

Could you imagine the outrage if say a business lobby group dedicated to stopping the living wage donated $5,000 to a Councillor four days before the same meeting, and that Councillor met with them privately, and then voted against the living wage with no disclosure of the donation. The media would report this as a major scandal.

I’m not suggesting that Barry should have been unable to vote because of the donation or that the donations influenced his views. Money tends to follow policy, rather than policy follows money (except for one political party in Government). But absolutely Mayor Barry should have disclosed the donation as a conflict of interest so his colleagues would be aware he had just received $5,000 from the union pushing the living wage policy.

I will report further on the complaint once the Auditor-General determines how they plan to proceed.