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Never surrender, never give up

Time for a little update on my battle with the bungling bureaucrats and local governance of the South Waikato District Council.

Regular readers will know that I've been battling this council over many years now and have had to deal with malice, prejudice and bias from them in respect to my treatment and decisions they've made which affect me.

They came up with special "unpublished" rules to prevent me from flying my drones and RC models at the local airfield, something which had a significant impact on my income.

They tried repeatedly to stop me from filming their public meetings, going so far as to adjourn meetings simply because I stood my ground and chose to exercise my rights.

And, finally, they trespassed me from the council building, even though my actions in attempting to film public meetings there were clearly allowed under their own published standing orders.

Since the trespass notice was served I've been hard at work preparing a case for The Ombudsman in which I'm documenting every instance where I have been singled out for special treatment and where my rights have been infringed by their actions.

As part of that preparation I filed a request under the LGOIMA for a full dump of all communications, memos, meeting transcripts and conversations that may have made reference to me.

I already have a fairly good stack of the communications involved which have been leaked to me by people who work within council and are supportive of the work I do to keep our local community informed. Some of that data verifies that the council is acting in a way that breaches my rights under the NZ Bill of Rights and under the Local Government Act. It also proves beyond doubt that they have acted with malice, bias and prejudice in their dealings with me.

The council's response was to claim that providing such information would take at least four hours of staff time and therefore there would be a charge of several hundred dollars involved. Unless I was prepared to pay (and pay half up-front), they would refuse my request.

Given that this data would require just a few database queries, I believe this time-estimate and related charges were just an attempt to dissuade me from getting my hands on information they knew full-well would bury them with the Ombudsman and later in court.

I asked them to send an invoice for the up-front portion of the charges. That's a great piece of evidence which will be used later.

On receipt of that invoice I then advised them that I would not be proceeding with my request under the LGOIMA and instead that I was resubmitting it as an IPP6 request under the Privacy Act.

Under the Privacy Act, organisations are required to supply *anyone* with a complete record of all information kept on them -- and they can't charge a single red cent for doing so.

A couple of weeks passed and I heard nothing... until yesterday.

A letter arrived from the SWDC advising that under my IPP6 request, they would only be providing information that applied *directly* to me and not material that merely references me. They went on to effectively say that if I wanted the full dump I'd have to use my original LGOIMA request and pay the fees proposed.

You should have seen the smile on my face when I received that letter.

The fact that they are now attempting to redefine what is covered by the IPP6 section of the Privacy Act is further evidence that they're very much aware of the harm that some of the information held by them will do when it comes to my case against them.

When I used an IPP6 request to see what was going on behind the scenes during my battles with CAA, even that organisation didn't try these sort of shenanigans and handed over *everything* without question. They were clearly very much aware that section 212 of the Privacy Act makes it an offense to "conceal or destroy information to prevent access". Having effectively admitted that there's more information than they wantto provide under the Privacy Act, a failure to then provide that information based on an invalid interpretation of the Act would constitute an offence carrying a penalty of a fine up to $10,000.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has made it very clear that "personal information" covered by an IPP6 request covers anything where there is a 'clear connection' between the information and that person. Attempts to excempt such information from my request by ignoring this guideline will see the SWDC in a power of trouble and any staff who might be complicit in "concealing" that information could face significant financial penalty.

Suffice to say that in my reply to the council, I have clearly laid out their obligations under the Privacy Act and the relevant offences (with penalties) if they fail to meet those obligations.

My claims that I am being treated with prejudice and malice were further proven yesterday when, at the latest meeting of the SWDC, another member of the public set up a tripod and recorded the meeting, as he'd done on a previous occasion. The meeting was not adjourned, this individual was not trespassed.

There was zero sanction against this individual who has now done exactly the same thing for which I was trespassed and which prompted two previous meetings to be adjourned.

Proof positive that the council's actions against me are not because of *what* I have done but because of *who* I am and my role as someone who keeps the public informed about the actions of local government. More incriminating evidence for the Ombudsman and the court which will hear my case for compensation and damages for agregious breaches of my rights under the NZ Bill of Rights and the Human Rights Act. It is the latter where I will be seeking damages and compensation to the full extent allowed by the courts.

It seems that the council hasn't learned one of the most important rules in life: when you find yourself in a hole of your own making, stop digging.

Every new day seems to bring new evidence of their lack of good faith and malice in dealing with me. Every new day makes it easier to prove my case to the Ombudsman and then to a judge in a court of law.

And to think... the CE of this council has a law degree and so many of those involved are getting paid very significant six-figure salaries, yet seem completely out of their depth and unwilling to act in the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve.

Stay tuned, this story is a long way from over.

Carpe Diem folks!

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