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The history of Ms Susan Law, CEO of the SWDC

I recently made a submission on the South Waikato District Council's "Long Term Plan".

This submission was in written form and I, just like all other submitters, was invited to speak to that submission and field questions from councilors.

Regular readers will be aware of this because I already covered things in an earlier column. However, there are some new elements to this story that leave me and the community more than a little worried.

On the first day of hearings, 37 people were scheduled to have their five minutes of "free speech" followed by five minutes of questions from the elected members.

Although not all of the 37 actually turned up to speak, a good number (including myself) did and our verbal submissions were livestreamed... after the usual "technical issues" that regularly plague the service provided by an Australian company for $26K per year.

Fortunately, I actually recorded some of this livestream and captured the moment a member of the public was stopped from speaking and had his microphone turned off when he dared to refer to the CEO's track record during her work history.

I use the word "fortunate" because it seems that the SWDC has deleted a huge swathe of the presentations (including that one and my own) from the recorded session.

What the hell?

The reason such meetings are livestreamed is twofold. Firstly, it allows those who can't physically be present to watch and hear proceedings. Secondly it produces a permanent record for those who were not able to watch the livestream or who wish to go back at a later date and review what took place.

For the SWDC to go through and delete many of the verbal submissions on that day is unacceptable and speaks to the "don't fix-up, cover-up" attitude of this council. I would like to send video of my submission to interested parties but it is not included in the video record, nor are many others who were also critical of the council and its plan.

In light of this, I've done some investigation into the past performance of the current CEO, the one who moved so quickly to ensure that concerns relating to her performance in previous employment was not presented to the public. At this point in time I'll voice no opinion on that information except to say that in the wake of my research I can perhaps see why she might have been so keen to have this information supressed, even to the extent of violating the rights of a member of the public.

Is her past performance relevant to the SWDC's LTP?

Of course it is. Her and her executive team are the ones who have created this LTP and the ones who would implement it if passed. It stands to reason therefore that her track record in similar roles would have significant bearing on whether the public can have confidence in that plan so suppression of this material is an affront to the rights of ratepayers.

Now it is time for the Streisand effect to kick in.

I'm working on a video in which I will document the job-history and the drama that has sometimes surrounded this woman's performance in positions similar to the one she currently holds.

Given the clearly litigious nature of the SWDC (I have a pile of threatening lawyers' letters to prove that) I won't be doing anything other than presenting evidence published in the mainstream media and pointing to the first-hand reports of people and communities previously affected by Ms Susan Law.

The public will be able to join the dots as they choose and draw their own conclusions.

As a footnote, I should point out that this is the woman who tried to deprive me of my legal right to record public meetings of the SWDC by asserting (falsely) that I was not allowed and whose council has threatened to have me arrested for recording on council property. Perhaps we'll now discover why she so fears the spotlight of public scrutiny.

Stay tuned folks... this could be a rocky ride but if we do not protect our freedoms and the rights associated with a democracy, we will most certainly lose them.

Carpe Diem folks!

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