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Mayoral desk bought from dump full of highly confidential papers, writes Ethan Manera
Herald reporter Ethan Manera with some of the confidential documents found in a former Wellington City Council mayoral desk. Photo / Mark Mitchell
H
undreds of pages of highly confidential Wellington City Council documents — including termination agreements, a sexual harassment claim, and staff pay details — ended up in the hands of a local man who bought an old mayoral office desk at a dump. The council has launched an investigation and notified the Privacy Commissioner after being alerted to the situation by the Herald, while a former mayor is demanding answers from officials. “It’s appalling, I’m appalled,” Dame Fran Wilde said. The desk was from the Wellington Town Hall, which used to house the council chambers but has been
closed because of earthquake damage since 2013. Raymond Morgan, a builder who lives in Breaker Bay, said he spotted the piece of furniture, which was labelled as being from the Office of The Mayor, at the Tip Shop last week among other items from the old Town Hall. He paid $200 for it with plans to break it down and use the wood to build a bar. When loading it on to his trailer, Morgan said his partner noticed papers printed as “confidential” poking out of locked drawers. “Oh, there are some documents in there hanging out the door,” she said. He took it home and broke the locks to find hundreds of papers
about former council employees. “I thought, unbelievable, even though this goes back a number of years, these people are still living,” he said. He called the council to report it and follow up on a prior query about cycle lanes, but claims officials “didn’t really take much notice at all”. “I said, ‘oh, you might want to get your arse into gear because I’ve just got hold of all these documents, quite legitimately, quite sensitive, confidential, but no one’s got back to me about’. “She was too busy to answer because she had to go pick up her kids from holiday daycare or something like that.” He then posted on a local ratepayers Facebook group asking what
to do about it. “I just find it absolutely amazing that they would not check to see what was in locked cupboards and drawers, especially when the documents were actually poking outside. “It’s just about showing how incompetent these people are because yeah, they can’t even manage this stuff.” When first contacted by the Herald about Morgan’s post, a council spokesman said officials did not believe it to be legitimate, saying it was likely social media “mischief”, and encouraged the Herald to come back when it had found evidence. The Herald then tracked down Morgan, who provided our newsroom with the confidential cache.
The papers mostly date between 1988 and the early 2000s and contain information concerning the highest level of council leadership. It includes anonymous letters from a whistle-blower detailing sexual harassment allegations against a former councillor, printed email correspondence about claims of abusive workplace behaviours, termination agreements, code of conduct complaints, information about employees’ pay, confidentiality agreements, private emails and highlighted newspaper clippings from media coverage of the council at the time. One letter addressed to a thencontinued on A2
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