Take a spoonful of sleaze & call the doctor in the morning

Shocking as they are, the revelations reported in the Chron(ic) and DomPost about the sordid goings-on and contempt for employment law shown by CEO Dr David Warburton following the firing last year of Wanganui District Council’s community development manager, it will have come as no surprise to Watchers who remember LawsWatch’s revelations about the then newly-appointed CEO. (NB:For the benefit of those who foolishly rely on the Chron(ic) for their information, we hear that after pouring good ratepayers’ money after bad at the Wellington lawyers running the case, the good doctor made an acceptable offer at the end of a torrid two-day hearing to settle the case.)

On Friday, September 9, 2005, this blog reported that the good doctor’s Kaitaia timber company Tanner Group had recently lost an Employment Relations Act case in which it was alleged to have "threaten[ed the] applicant with disciplinary action over [a] term of employment that had not been directly and expressly negotiated and [the] contents of which remained uncertain between parties".

“Hopefully”, we told Watchers with amazing percipacity at the time, “Council staff have dotted the i's and crossed the t's in their employment contracts”.

We also noted that Dr Warburton’s list of achievements included the fact he was also a director of Fibrecraft Industries, placed in liquidation in Wanganui High Court on 2 June 2004 on petition of Nuplex Industries. Interestingly, Warburton’s fellow director in the failed fibreglass venture, Bruce Nicholson, was installed as a director of Wanganui Inc, about the same time as Mayor Michael Laws, deputy Dot McKinnon and the rest of the capitalist raiders were finding their new CEO (and we all know what happened with WINC, don’t we).

Meanwhile, back in Kaitaia in 2005, according to MP Sue Bradford, “in (Warburton’s timber company) TGL ... we have a company that has obviously kept its workers in the dark for some time and has then attempted to make itself look good by offering a fig leaf of consultation."

Welcome to the world of Dr David Warburton, whose contempt for employment law obviously was not left at the door to 101 Guyton St. As for his pretence of recognising the fundamental provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 -- “I will need to learn to work within the constraints of the Local Government Act,” he said at the time of his appointment – the DomPost coverage of last week's Employment Relations Authority hearing revealed he may have missed the bit about the CEO – not the mayor – being responsible for hiring and firing staff.

As commenters have pointed out, Sally Patrick hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory since taking her seat at the right-hand of Warburton and Laws, and it was no surprise to experienced Watchers to see her name on the roll of shame of the “anonymous” Greek chorus of letter writers eventually outed by Warburton and listed on the Chron(ic)'s front page. There she is, with the Spin Fairy's former squeeze Julian Rewiti, the impeccably pedigreed Stephanie Rose and non-entity Jill Jones.

Another area of CEO responsibility for political neutrality that seems to have escaped Dr Warburton’s notice has become glaringly apparent in the first week of what the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) calls “the pre-election period”, ie the three months leading up to the October 13th election. According to the LawsWatch calendar, that started July 13th -- but you wouldn’t know it from the likes of Philippa Baker-Hogan who commandeered the ratepayer-funded Councillor Comment advert in the July 18th MidWeek, and on the WDC website, for a fevered bout of electioneering.

Like many “watchdog” provisions, the OAG’s Communications Guidelines are the sort of toothless tigers that Mayor Mickey, his Visionaries and their pet CEO routinely treat with utter contempt. But it’s safe to assume the OAG is keen to hear about blatant flouting like we’re already seeing, and no doubt will be seeing much more of ,in the next 12 weeks. You can read the full Guidelines here

You can find contact details for the OAG here if, like us, you find it hard to see why Warburton thinks he can continue to turn a blind eye to Vision’s contempt for clauses like these in the OAG’s guidelines:

Principle 12: Communication of a Member’s personal views or opinions using Council resources is unacceptable during a pre-election period.

Principle 13: A Council’s policy should also recognise the risk that communications by or about Members, whether in their capacities as spokespersons for Council or otherwise, during a pre-election period could result in the Member achieving electoral advantage at ratepayers’ expense. The Chief Executive Officer (or his delegate) should actively manage the risk in accordance with the relevant electoral law.

Principle 14: The use of Council resources (including stationery and internet, e-mail and telephone Communication facilities) for re-election purposes is unacceptable.

Porkies on pork

As at least one commenter has already noted under the previous post, the story in today's Chron about the departure of Rosemary Hovey from Council after 21 years of loyal service highlights the fact that promises were made - including by Nicki "I don't read unsigned emails" Higgie in the Chron as recently as May 30 - regarding a community development position being established in the Luftwaffe sorry, the Sally Patrick wing of the Council.

A promise that was subsequently broken. "I did not expect to be restructured out completely," Mrs Hovey is quoted as saying. Nor, we suspect, did she expect over two decades of loyalty to be rewarded with a "don't come Monday" notice on the first day of her holidays. But that's the way it is around Council nowadays. Any number of things - including people - are being sacrificed to find the money, not to reduce debt, but to pay for diVision's pork barrelling of projects such as the Splash Centre.

Commenters have been quick to blame Mayor Michael Laws for the way in which the layoffs were handled, especially since Mrs Hovey reveals that after she wrote to CEO David Warburton asking for written answers about her future, his response "necessitated a letter from her own lawyer". Mickey's record on industrial relations is, after all, less than perfect, having - as we've pointed out in the past - already cost the taxpayer a wallop at least once in the past. And it certainly seems like his modus operandi.

"All further correspondence was then between my lawyer and the council’s lawyers. I did not find any pleasure in this way of resolving matters," she understatedly tells the Chron. "I am disappointed with the tone of the letters I received throughout this process, especially as I felt threatened by them", ominously adding that "It would be fair to say this caused me much angst and may require some follow-up in the future".

Not so fast though, Watchers. LawsWatch has already revealed that Dr Warburton also has an equally appalling record on human resources management, especially when it comes to getting rid of people.

It was Warburton's company, Tanner Group Ltd, which announced it was closing its three paper mills at Kaitaia, Kerepehi and Tairua because it couldn't make a profit. TGL told workers on a Friday that they had until Monday to come up with a way to keep their plant open. Local MP Sue Bradford said at the time that local people were "bitter" towards the company because it had "kept its workers in the dark for some time".

That whole "four days to save your own backside" line sound familiar, Watchers? It ought to. Back in May, that's precisely what was told to Irene Pearson, who was called into Warburton’s office on a Monday and told the council was restructuring and her job was gone. As the Chron reported at the time "Dr Warburton gave her four days to suggest somewhere else in council where she might fit in. She asked what the master plan was, and was told he could not discuss it. That left her at a loss to know where she could fit in."

And then, when the workers get bolshy, the threats begin. For it was Tanner Group which, just a month before decimating the three timber towns, lost an Employment Relations Act case in which it was alleged to have "threaten[ed the] applicant with disciplinary action over [a] term of employment that had not been directly and expressly negotiated and [the] contents of which remained uncertain between parties".

Now the treatment of Mrs Hovey et al may well have Mayoral fingerprints all over it. But in this case it's just as likely to have been Dr Warburton who trained the big lawyerly guns on the first person to peek over the parapet, and blew their head off.

Mickey, Nicki, Dotty et al knew all about his record before he was hired. They knew he had no local government experience, yet according to both Dotty and the Diva, "over fifty people applied for the top job including CEOs of three other councils and the heads of two government agencies". So he was picked for a reason. Now we know what it was. He's a codependent:

Codependent personalities evolve from attempts to keep some type of order in a hurtful relationship. The term codependency refers to a relationship where one or both parties enable the other to act in certain maladaptive ways. Many times, the act of enabling satisfies a need for the codependent person because his or her actions foster a dependency from the other person or persons in the relationship.

Codependency is reinforced by a person's need to be needed. The enabler thinks irrationally by believing he can maintain healthy relationships through manipulation and control. He believes he can do this by avoiding conflict and fostering dependency. Is it rational for someone to think that he can maintain a healthy relationship when he does not address problems and he lies to protect others from their responsibilities?

Still, we're sure Dr Warbond (© Bearhunter, 2006) has "shared with the full council" the latest decision to not have a community development staffer after all, as promised in the e-coli of 15 May:

Unsurprisingly, Dr Warburton is restructuring the current council to make it more efficient and effective. He has shared his restructuring plan with the full council, and those plans have been formally approved.

Perhaps he'll also "share with the full council" (in open meeting, of course - it's our money he's spending, after all) just how much that highly paid Wellington employment lawyer is hoovering up to deal with all this.

So... Nicki? Dotty? Anyone? Prepared to step up and take responsibility for this? Or content to let the not-so-good doctor continue to "not address problems and protect others from their responsibilities?"

Comments on this post are now closed.