An Invercargill councillor says her colleague Nigel Skelt needs to quit over accusations of sexual harassment, while the mayor’s role in the saga is being questioned too. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.

Invercargill mayor Nobby Clark has been accused of a “cover-up” and of trying to sweep harassment claims against one of his own councillors “under the carpet”.

Nigel Skelt, 65, recently stepped down as general manager of Stadium Southland, a position he had held for more than two decades. As The Spinoff first reported on Monday, that resignation came just weeks after Skelt was accused of sexual harassment by an 18-year-old former stadium employee. Skelt has yet to publicly comment on the claims and calls to him by The Spinoff have gone to voicemail.

The revelations have prompted calls for Skelt to resign, as well as questions about mayor Clark’s role in the investigation into the alleged inappropriate behaviour.

Ria Bond, a current Invercargill councillor and previous MP and mayoral hopeful, told The Spinoff it was time for Skelt to step aside from council. “He should have the good graciousness to resign,” said Bond. “It smacks of a power imbalance and I’m not the first to air that… A young woman [was] treated in such a heinous way by a public figure. It has taken a lot of strength and courage for her to come forward.”

It was “unthinkable”, said Bond, that Skelt could keep his position given he was the lead councillor appointed to Project 1225 – a major infrastructure project in the city that included the rebuild of Invercargill’s museum.

The council’s chief executive Michael Day has maintained that, “at this time”, Skelt remains a councillor. Bond isn’t alone in her calls for her colleague to resign, with fellow councillor Peter Kett telling Stuff that Skelt should “face the music” for what he’s done.

Meanwhile, questions are also being raised about the role mayor Clark himself played in the investigation into Skelt’s alleged behaviour. Documents released to The Spinoff revealed that Clark directly responded to the complaint about Skelt, despite the alleged behaviour taking place at Stadium Southland. Clark said that, in his capacity as the council’s representative on the stadium trust, he would personally look into the allegations and helped to broker a settlement that saw the complainant offered $3,000 for “pain and suffering” along with free counselling sessions. 

Bond said the mayor mishandled the complaint from the start and should have stayed clear altogether. “He should never have touched that complaint. He should never have put his paws on it,” she told The Spinoff.

It’s understood that while the mayor had been investigating the complaint against Skelt since mid-February, he was possibly the only person within council to know about it. Bond said councillors were kept in the dark until 3.19pm on Monday, mere minutes before The Spinoff and other media were provided with official information requested in the weeks prior. “Councillors were not privy to that information before then,” Bond said. “No councillor or even our chief executive knew until the LGOIMA requests started coming in.” The Spinoff has sought confirmation of who exactly knew what prior to Monday afternoon.

Bond said that while the public may have been led to believe there was a council cover-up from media reports, that wasn’t the case. “It wasn’t the council sweeping it under the carpet, it was the mayor.” Bond suggested Clark should step aside from his role on the stadium trust immediately in order to ensure a fair and independent investigation.

Clark’s predecessor as mayor, Tim Shadbolt, went a step further and claimed there was a full blown “cover-up”.

“It implicates all involved, especially council,” he wrote on Facebook this week. “There must be severe repercussions. The Old Boys must be accountable.”

Invercargill Council told The Spinoff that Nobby Clark was unavailable for comment this week due to a sudden family bereavement. His deputy Tom Campbell, however, rejected the idea that Clark had tried to sweep the allegations against Skelt under the carpet and said that the complainant’s “best intentions” were front of mind. He admitted, however, that he had been unaware of the investigation until Monday afternoon and believed the mayor should not have been involved at all.

 “I’m quite happy to say I think it would have been much better if he had asked somebody else to undertake that investigation… preferably a woman,” said Campbell. “I don’t think that the mayor tried, in any sense, to sweep it under the carpet. In any employment case there is an element of confidentiality.”

He added: “I think it was handled properly, but it was handled by the wrong person.” Campbell didn’t know whether Skelt would return to council, but said he thought it was unlikely.

Local Government NZ’s deputy chief executive, Scott Necklen, told The Spinoff that allegations such as those against Skelt needed to be taken seriously and properly investigated. “We recommend that everyone involved seek professional advice and support when employment issues arise,” he said.

Skelt is yet to respond to any of the reports about his behaviour and it’s understood he’s been absent from council for a few weeks. However, The Spinoff can also reveal that he has since been temporarily suspended from another position. Until last month, Skelt was an adjudicator for the Racing Integrity Board, most recently asked to rule on whether a jockey had whipped their horse more than the limit during a race. A spokesperson told The Spinoff that Skelt has been on “administrative leave since April 2023 when this matter first came to the attention of the Racing Integrity Board”.

The spokesperson would not comment any further given this was a matter between Skelt and his previous employer.

If you know more, please get in touch: stewart@thespinoff.co.nz

Soon-to-be-ex minister Meka Whaitiri may be in for a shock if she intended to remain an MP, writes legal eagle Andrew Geddis.

When Shakespeare had Dick the Butcher enthusiastically proclaim “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”, he proposed a generally laudable objective. 

However, there is the odd time when talking to a lawyer before engaging in a major life decision is not just warranted, but highly advisable.

Buying a house on land subject to a cross lease title. Signing an employment contract with a broad non-compete clause in it. Setting fire to your own car in order to claim insurance.

A quick prior chat with someone who knows a little bit about the legal issues involved can save you from a heap of regret down the line.

To such situations we now might add writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives to inform him that you have quit the party for which you were elected as an MP and want to be recognised as a member of a different one.

Because, as very-soon-to-be-ex customs minister Meka Whaitiri is discovering, this action has quite particular legal consequences. Consequences that, it appears, she may not have fully understood.

At her press conference this morning, Whaitiri said two things. First, she said that she had “officially notified the speaker that [she] had resigned from the NZ Labour Party and have joined Te Pāti Māori effective immediately.” This decision means, she went on to say, that “I intend to be seated with Te Pāti Māori when we return to parliament.”

The problem for Meka Whaitiri is both these things can’t be true. Under the “party hopping” rules in our Electoral Act – rules that Meka Whaitiri voted in favour of back in 2018 – an MP’s seat in the House automatically becomes vacant if they deliver to the Speaker a written notice complying with certain formal requirements.

The MP must have signed the notice. It must be addressed to the speaker. And, it must tell the speaker that the MP either has resigned as a member of the party for which they were elected, or wants to be recognised as an MP for another party.

Where a notice meets these requirements, there is no discretion on the speaker’s part. The MP’s seat must be declared vacant irrespective of what they intended when sending it; they automatically cease to be an MP whether they want to or not. They can’t go sit with another party, because they can’t be in the House at all.

Given what Whaitiri said at her press conference, it’s hard to see how this consequence could be avoided. Perhaps, we may speculate, she emailed the notice to the speaker and so there is no “signature” on it? Although our law again has things to say about when an “electronic signature” will suffice.   

And then there’s the question of who gets to decide if Whaitiri’s notice has (apparently inadvertently) triggered the party hopping rules. It’s the speaker that is tasked with making the declaration that her seat is vacant. However, in the past where there is potential uncertainty as to whether such a declaration should be made, the matter has been sent to Parliament’s Powerful Privileges Committee (as it is mandatory to call this institution) for examination.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has previously been prepared to examine how the party hopping rules apply. Since it has done so, however, parliament has passed the Parliamentary Privileges Act, which on its face seems to expand the range of parliamentary proceedings that the judiciary cannot touch. Does this law now prohibit the courts from being involved in the issue at all?

All of which is to say, perhaps Meka Whaitiri actually should be thanked for seemingly not chatting to a lawyer before writing to the speaker to inform him of her plans. Because, if she had done so, she might have been a little more circumspect and so cheated us of the chance to engage in a whole lot of fun speculation. 

Or perhaps when she pledged to “return to parliament” with Te Pāti Māori, she meant it as an election promise, not a today promise, and has no interest in remaining an MP. We’ll soon find out.

Update: At the opening of today’s session in the House at 2pm, Speaker Adrian Rurawhe somewhat surprisingly announced that Meka Whaitiri “is from today regarded as an independent member for parliamentary purposes.”

In response to follow up points of order, the Speaker indicated that this was because (contrary to public statements) he only had been notified that Meka Whaitiri wished to withdraw the Labour Party’s ability to cast her vote in the House and wanted to sit separately from that party. This, he suggested, was insufficient to meet the terms of the party hopping law (which requires a specific statement that an MP has resigned from their party, or wants to be regarded as an independent MP or MP for another party).

What remains confusing, however, is how the Speaker then was then able to declare Meka Whaitiri to be an independent MP. Under Standing Order 35(3), “Any member who is not a member of a recognised party is treated as an Independent member for parliamentary purposes.” As such, the Speaker somehow has not been told by Meka Whaitiri that she wants to be regarded as an independent MP for parliamentary purposes (and so the party hopping law doesn’t apply to her), while also being able to conclude from the correspondence received that she is no longer “a member of a recognised party” (and so is to be regarded as an independent MP).

I began this piece with a quote from a Shakespeare character. It now seems apt to conclude it with one from Lewis Carroll: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”