Dave Cull’s false claim about Ratepayers’ Report withdrawal

Statement on Dave Cull’s false claim about 2014 Ratepayers’ Report “withdrawal”

Local Government New Zealand President Dave Cull’s claim in an opinion piece distributed to media last week (and published on Stuff.co.nz today), that the 2014 edition of Ratepayers’ Report (local government league tables published by the Taxpayers’ Union) has “so many errors the material was withdrawn” is totally wrong. The false claim is being used to try and discredit the accuracy of the organisation and the 2017 version of the same report.

We asked Mr Cull what possible basis he had to make the claim, or whether it was just made up. He wouldn’t tell us, but said he “isn’t too bothered” that the claim is false, and has refused to correct the statement. We followed up the call with a letter – again asking Mr Cull, and LGNZ, what possible basis they could have for the false claim. To date neither have bothered to respond.

The 2014 tables were jointly published and hosted online by Fairfax media. They were taken down after more than a year because the data was (by then) out of date. Mr Cull is either choosing to lie to smear our organisation, or had some basis for the claim but won’t tell us.

Ironically, the opinion piece which contains the false allegation, alleges that our organisation is dishonest. It said the Taxpayers’ Union “doesn’t want voters to have the truth” and that our work is “deliberately obtuse”. We reject both and are happy to put our reliability up against a man who admits he “isn’t too bothered” whether his statements on behalf of New Zealanders 78 councils are true or not.

For the avoidance of doubt, we don’t mind the local government sector engaging with, expression opinions, or even criticising our work, methodology or ideology. In fact, we want the Ratepayers’ Report to elicit information from elected officials about why their councils are where they are on our tables. We have really appreciated the feedback that we have received from councils and will take it into account next time we do a Ratepayers’ Report.

So while we don’t mind people expressing hostile opinion, we draw the line at Mr Cull representing as fact, a false claim designed to discredit the work of our staff.

Mr Cull is the recently elected leader of the local government sector. For him to make stuff up or, at best, be unwilling to publicly correct something presented as fact which smears a group fighting for transparency and accountability, sets a very low threshold for accuracy and integrity.

Last month we stuffed up and got a fact wrong in criticising LGNZ. When alerted to the error, we immediately issued a press release correcting, and apologising for, the mistake. Dave Cull needs to have the mana to do the same.

ENDS

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