Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Here today, gone tomorrow

Regular readers will know that I've had my fair share of battles with our local council (the South Waikato District Council).

The latest salvo they've fired at me is a trespass order that prevents me from attending *public* meetings for fear that I will record proceedings and use them as part of my right to freedom of expression, as granted under Section 14 of the NZ Bill of Rights.

Clearly this is a breach of those rights and the trespass is therefore unlawful -- but I shall be addressing (and claiming compensation) for that at a later time.

Well now it seems that they've tired of abusing their power against me and have begun to turn on each other.

In light of this I hereby rename this local government instutution to become: The South Waikato District Circus (SWDC).

At the heart of this unbelievable stupidity and abuse is the "Code of Conduct" procedure put in place to deal with the situation when councilors breach the "rules" by which they should operate.

In the case of the SWDC, the Code of Conduct is published on their website and available for all to see.

Recently, not one, not two not three -- but FIVE code of conduct complaints were filed against a local first-term councilor; Mr Zed Latinovic.

The official investigation into the first two complaints were presented to a meeting of council on Friday. The cost of processing these complaints is an unbelievable $29,500.

In its usual way, the SWDC proved once again how biased and incompetent it is in that Friday meeting.

Natural justice (and the process) allows for the accused party to speak to the investigator's report but this essential element of the system was effectively corrupted by the actions of the council.

Remember that these investigations have taken months of work and cost a king's ransom. Every councilor in the room would have eight minutes to speak to the report and since all bar one of those present seemed to be part of the action against Cr Latinovic, this amounts to the "prosecution" getting a total of almost half an hour to speak against him.

In response, Cr Latinovic had invited a councilor from a neighbouring district (Mr Robert Lee from Rotorua) to present his case for him. Mr Lee had spent a lot of time creating his presentation, which included a power-point presentation and a series of rebuttals to the findings of the $25,900 investigation and resulting 30 page report.

Natural justice would allow Mr Latinovic's side to have at least as much time as those who might speak against him would have -- but this was denied. Instead, he was told that he would have just 15 minutes to present his case.

WTF?

This sort of injustice only occurs in a kangaroo court.

Since this would have completely gutted Mr Lee's presentation on behalf of councilor Latinovic, the two gentlemen expressed their disgust at the subversion of this process and the denial of natural justice by the SWDC and left without saying anything else.

It was at this stage that the real nature of this witch-hunt was revealed.

The process should give the accused sufficient time to speak their case. Councilors should then consider what has been said, speak to that finding and engage in a vote on whether the Code of Conduct complaint should be upheld.

It was so damning of these clowns to see that those councilors who went on to speak to the matteer, did so from a previously prepared written speech.

Yes, that's right -- they were *never* going to listen to Mr Latinovic's side, they had already made up their minds well in advance of the meeting.

A true witch-hunt and kangaroo court.

The vote was held and (of course) the Code of Conduct complaints were upheld, with all but one of the councilors present voting to do so.

One of the councilors engaged in the witch-hunt had already prepared his motion of censure against councilor Latinovic and he presented it from a written document. Based on what I know of this councilor's abilities I really do not think that he wrote the motion at all. It's my belief that he'd been handed it by those further up the food chain.

So what is the outcome of this massive expense to ratepayers?

Well, for an expenditure of almost $30,000, the SWDC gets to write councilor Latinovic a letter which basically says "you've been a very naughty boy".

That's it.

They also state that he should attend some "training" (at Room 101 no doubt) but they can not compel him to do so.

He can't be made to resign, he can't have his monthly stipend docked, he can't be prevented from attending meetings or voting on issues before council. In effect, all this money has been utterly wasted -- but hey, it's only ratepayers' money and there's always more where that came from, right?

The final nail in the coffin of this clown-infested circus is the apparent deletion of critical evidence by the council.

The investigator refers to "the live-stream recording" (Section 19 on page 7 of the final report) as a crucial part of the evidence they used in coming to their conclusions. I challenge *anyone* to find that livestreamed recording of the meeting on 26 Feb 2026 on the SWDC livestream archive.

It would appear to have been "disappeared" -- as so many other incriminating or embarrassing elements of the public record have been in the past.

Most people will join the dots at this point and realise why this council is prepared to go so far as issue unlawful trespass notices against me to prevent any chance of an independent third-party record of events at these meetings. Without the ability to completely delete those "inconvenient" elements of the public record, the SWDC would lose control of the narrative -- and they can't have that.

That's the problem with an online record -- it's "here today, gone tomorrow" when it suits those who have exclusive control over it.

But wait... the SWDC is not finished abusing the public purse and the concepts of natural justice.

There are still three code of conduct complaints yet to be investigated against councilor Latinovic. If we extrapolate the costs from the last two, that's another $45,000 of public money about to be wasted -- just so they can send him another letter to tell him, once again, that he's been "a very naughty boy".

To be honest, I'd hoped there would be some jugglers or maybe some tight-rope walkers but sadly... no. This circus only has clowns.

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!

Here is a PERMANENT link to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font