Taupo Councillor Blows the Whistle: The '5Ds' of Bureaucratic Sabotage At Work in Local Government

(By Duncan Campbell, Councillor, Taupo District Council)

Deny, delay, deflect, discredit, destroy . . . the unspoken code of senior bureacrats is alive and well in our local councils, too.

The "5Ds" secret code of senior bureaucrats - Deny, Delay, Deflect, Discredit, Destroy — as Jordan Kelly skilfully explained in her earlier commentary are not abstract. They are the precise instruments used by management to erode oversight and suppress challenges to their fiefdoms and their statuses quo.

When they're explained, the average Joe Citizen can see them hiding in plain sight in almost every dealing they have with a government entity, where they're dealings the entity would rather they weren't having.

What's less obvious is how, in local councils, management all too often uses these rather despicable tools of their private trade to stymie their communities' very own elected representatives.

Now to be sure, many Councillors are just along for the ride. But there's also those of us that put ourselves up for election by our communities to make some real, positive change - and the first step in achieving that change is usually to find out what's actually going on - including where, how and why their money is being spent.

Those of us new to the Council table have found to our great chagrin, that this is more often than not a mindset and a motivation that is unwelcome by senior management. In some Councils, senior management would prefer us to be the equivalent of inanimate Council Chamber furniture. They don't want their boats rocked by pesky elected representatives of the community.

The 5Ds . . . In Clear & Present Action in Taupo District Council

Example 1: DENY

Issue: Access to basic planning documents on the most significant water restructure for decades: Local Water Done Well.

Details: Requests to Council's general management for .pdfs to enable third-party independent review were repeatedly stonewalled or ignored, as was a request to view the project leader’s resume. A workshop had been held to set the staff's course of direction, but no reports nor financial analysis were provided beforehand. Just a few slide shows.

Impact: Prevented transparency to the community, through the undermining of Councillors' ability to seek independent opinions or validation.

Example 2: DELAY & DEFLECT

Issue: Request for written confirmation to justify why public consultation is being denied for a forthcoming Joint Management Agreement (JMA) between Council and local Iwi Tuwharetoa (potential connotations of co-governance by stealth, in my opinion).

Details: Despite verbal affirmations that "due process has been followed", staff delayed the release of any written material - which also served to deflect discussion, in its own right, on the necessity for public consultation.

Impact: An agreement with Tuwharetoa, with potentially significant implications to the governance of Council, is heading to be signed off without any public input whatsoever.

Editor's Note: This case appears to be blowing up in the faces of Taupo Council management and others supportive of its "closed door / behind-the-scenes / no public discourse" modus operandi, when Hobsons Pledge and then journalist Duncan Garner got wind of it late last week.

Example 3: DISCREDIT

Issue: I challenged the continued withholding from public view, of the $300,000 Northern Access Transport Study, which was completed nearly a year prior. I also challenged some of the study's conclusions and questioned my exclusion from input - despite my directly relevant professional qualifications in this area. That is, I'm a traffic and roading engineer.

Details: I'm accused of having “undermined staff,” of “grandstanding,” and of “wasting Council’s time'.” The worst part of it, though, is that these bullets came from my peers around the Council table, in what, to me, appears to be the result of management's misplaced coaching (on what "governance" is supposed to be all about), alongside an ingrained culture of intransigence.

Impact: An act of political courage (because it does take a bit of backbone to be one of the few at the Council table standing up to management) is conveniently reframed as disruption.

Example 4: DESTROY

Issue: A behind-the-scenes push to silence dissenting Councillors via legal threat or committee exclusion.

Details: An independent lawyer was contracted to give me a good browbeating for (allegedy and supposedly) “breaching confidentiality” - which I firmly maintain that I did not.

Impact: Intimidation now considered a viable tool of governance.

Community, Council & Closed Doors . . . Not A Healthy Equation!

I wrote a letter to the editor last June (2024) of The Taupo Times community newspaper, opening up about what the Taupo community and its ratepayers should rightfully know: that, I believe, Council engages in wasteful spending, and that, I also believe, the unbridled ability for management to do this is, in significant part, due to elected representatives' over-reliance on less than completely objective staff reporting.

But not all of my Councillor colleagues wanted to address the elephant in the room. So much easier to be obedient to management, rather than accountable to voters, it would seem.

So a strategy of "politicise the personality" was hatched.

Instead of tackling the issue directly (or tackling it at all), Taupo District Council's Mayor David Trewavas responded with a conflict-of-interest assertion (directed at myself), in his own responding letter to the editor, in what appeared to me to be a not particularly well-disguised attempt at character assassination. (Inferences, as I saw it, included that I was more interested in sandwiches and the state of the air conditioning, and that my questions are often politically motivated – whatever that actually means).

In an open letter of response to Mayor Trewavas, I wrote:

Dear Mayor Trewavas,

This letter is in response to your June 28, 2024, letter in The Taupo Times, whereby you made some inferences about my character and asserted a conflict of interest.

Firstly, I think most constituents believe it is not a bad thing to ask a lot of questions, especially for a first-term Councillor. It is acknowledged there is some repetition in my questioning; one reason being that I do not accept non-answers or obfuscations as answers.

Indeed, it was along these lines that a complaint was laid by myself to The Ombudsman in March 2024, and I take offence at the suggestion that my questioning is mostly trivial.

Secondly, you state - on my behalf - a supposed conflict of interest. This surprised me, because to the best of my recollection you have not previously raised this before. I do not believe that my expertise as a traffic engineer gives rise to a conflict of interest, and I am not attempting to use my position in Council to obtain business for my consultancy. Rather, I seek to use my expertise for the benefit of the Taupo district, and I suggest this is one reason people in the community voted for me in the first place.

Many are asking about my exclusion and are also probably now wondering about other decisions being made behind closed doors.

Yours faithfully,

Councillor Duncan Campbell

Is it telling that no response was ever received from our Mayor?

The point I would leave you with is that, a year later (and counting), my best efforts to achieve transparency for my constituents over financial and other decision-making made in the inner bunkers of the executive suite, remain neatly thwarted.

The broader problem is, I'm not Robinson Crusoe, either. There are other Councillors in other Councils who put themselves up for election for all the right reasons, and I know full well they're experiencing the same immense frustrations.

There's only one answer:

Those that sit around the Council table with me need to grow a pair and stand up to the Council bureaucrats and demand visibility over what they're doing - in our name, and with our ratepayers' funds - behind their closed doors. This needs to happen before it becomes too expensive for us to stay in our own homes.

There's an election happening this October – who else is with me?

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Massey’s Vet ‘Hospital’ Staffed by Unqualified Juniors Administering Drugs At Will, Committing Serious Animal Cruelty, Falsifying Diagnoses, Records & Coercing 'Euthanasia'

by Jordan Kelly • 15 March 2026

Editor’s Conclusion : Unqualified. Unsupervised. Unaccountable. And Still Accredited.

UPDATED 10.3.26: WAITING, MASSEY . . . Are You Going to Comply with Your Legally Required Information-Release Obligations?

by Jordan Kelly • 10 March 2026

UPDATED: 10.3.26 Will This Badly Behaving Institution Finally Allow the Full Truth to Be Revealed?

FOLLOW THE MONEY: The Compromised Veterinary Regulatory & Accreditation 'System'

by Jordan Kelly • 8 March 2026

Hidden in Plain Sight: Unashamed Conflicts of Interest to Make Your Head Spin

IN PROGRESS: How Massey 'Training' Produces the Low Vet Care Standards & Outright Contempt NZ Pet Owners Have to Tolerate

by Jordan Kelly • 4 March 2026

Time for Change : New Zealand's Pet Parents Say NO MORE to the Poor Standards, Compromised Care & Outright Contempt We Put Up With from the 'Products' of the Massey Veterinary Degree Factory

MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED

by Jordan Kelly • 27 February 2026

Readers following the coverage of my attempts to get to the bottom of what happened to my beloved little papillon, Harry, with whom I was extraordinarily closely bonded, will know that: (A) The rot in Massey University’s Companion Animal “Hospital” (CAH) runs deep. (B) Honesty and transparency is not their policy. Denial, dismissal, stonewalling, legal threats and intimidation are. (C) Animals aren’t safe there, with cruelty embedded in “care”, and your property (as your pet legally is) not considered your property at all, as far as Massey, its CAH staff and management are concerned. Your pet is theirs ; to do with as they please, according to their mindset and their modus operandi. And if that involves catastrophic levels of unauthorised, contraindicated, convenience sedation to facilitate their use of your pet in monetised student video collections (including on private cell phones, and to which you will be given no access), this too, according to Massey, is its own God-given right and “best practice” Standard Operating Procedure. (D) “Informed Consent” has a very different meaning in the Massey playbook to that which is generally deemed its accepted definition. (E) “Accountability” is a foreign concept and not one with which they have any intention of becoming acquainted. (F) Laws – including those governing animal welfare, property conversion and more – are not only optional, in Massey’s case, they simply don’t apply. In fact, they appear blissfully ignorant of them according to my (and Harry's) experience. You know all that. You’ve read about it here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and in most of my other now 30+ articles covering the numerous different sub-atrocities within the overall atrocity that was the demise and disposal of my precious little Harry. Actually, "atrocious" doesn't come anywhere near to being an adequate adjective. Despite having been a professional writer since I was 16 and having upwards of 25 published books under my belt, I don't actually have an adjective that's adequate for the pure evil that was perpetrated upon Harry . . . and, by extension, me . There is not one word or one phrase that can sufficiently convey the depth and breadth of the sheer, unadulterated wickedness that festers without restraint within the walls of Massey University's Companion Animal "Hospital". What you, my readers (or those of you not on Massey's massive legal team payroll) didn’t yet know – because I didn’t yet know – is that record and evidence tampering (which, for any other New Zealand citizen would attract jail time of up to 10 years under the Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 (Altering document with intent to deceive) or Section 260 (Falsifying registers) , and/or a $10,000 fine under the Privacy Act Section 212(2)(b) - appears also to be included in the “we’re exempt” culture of Massey and its veterinary “hospital” staff. Note to Readers: The above laws aren't some hypothetical, bottom-drawer, dusty old legal tracts in archaic library textbooks. They're real, "living" laws that apply to every individual in our country. And today, they are being made to apply to Dr Stephanie Rigg and her "colleagues" who falsified Harry's records to create a cover-up of what they did to him . . . and to me. I will, duly, see Dr Rigg and her associates in Court. Dissecting the Cover-Up: Massey’s Metadata of Deception But back to what readers do know for a moment: You’ll know that I’ve been in the battle of battles for the past two months to extract Harry’s full records (or anything approaching them) from Massey’s Legal and Governance department. HOWEVER . . . there was one thing I hadn’t known how to decipher that they actually had finally drip-fed to me. It was File Name: Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) . I’ve been learning a lot about veterinary science, record-keeping, and law in general lately. Not because I wanted to. But because if you want to figure out how deep the rot really runs at Massey, you kind of have to. So I’ve learned a bit about how to decipher clinical metadata. Just e nough to realise that this Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) is exactly where the digital fingerprints of a cover-up are hiding. Despite the fact that this document has as much redacted as it shows (probably more), with ALL staff names and positions blacked out, for example -I still found four distinct “smoking gun” entries in these otherwise heavily-redacted metadata logs. BIG. FAT. SMOKING. GUNS. that amounted to one undeniable overall conclusion: This document isn’t a clinical record so much as it’s a literal crime scene . There were already so many dodgy inconsistencies in the few items I'd managed to pull out of Massey to that point (as I've documented in various of my preceding articles). But this document is where, undeniably, the bodies are buried. You just need to know which clod of dirt to look under. Hidden in Plain Sight . . . In A Little Thing Called the Metadata (That the Average Pet Owner Wouldn't Even Know Existed ) There are four hidden but key findings demonstrating that the entire timeline of Harry’s “experience” in that hellhole were was orchestrated, and the sudden "neurological event/decline" exit strategy planned for him were a total fabrication. And that fabrication had a start time. (For this start time we will initially revert our focus back to Massey's previously-supplied "Clinical Summary" (in all its dodginess) . . . We will then lead from the immediately below into the afore-mentioned "Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit)". Bear with me. I promise not to let this get boring). Well, one of two start times. Either: (1) The 8.38am disconnection of his (with, by-then, the TWO 750% overdoses of the renally contraindicated convenience sedative with which the "crying dog"-sensitive ICU staff had plied him overnight) now life-essential IV fluids (8.5 hours into the prescribed 24-hour protocol that they charged me for). And/or: (2) When the day shift ICU "vet" arrived at 9am and decided a THIRD 750% overdose would be a strategic way do deal with a clearly already massively overdosed little 3.8kg, 15-year-old, dehydrated dog. Now WHY would any vet take such a decision? Well, for legal purposes, of course (remembering that the Venerable Dean Jon Huxley and the obviously not- so-new-broom Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter, have all the money in the public purse to pay their top-tier external legal counsel . . . and by gum, there are enough of the buggers, if this site's analytics are anything to be guided by), I will precede the following by stating that these are my conclusions, made on the basis of the collation and evaluation of the information before me. That said, what I know of my readers is this: You are no intellectual slouches. Feel free to let me know if you can come up with any other conclusion from the information (complete with now numerous "receipts") that I have thus far presented, most especially here and here , and most tellingly of all, in today's expose. R emember, though, I held the ultimate evidence in my arms at 6pm on December 1 . . . and, some 45 minutes later, I let them take it (safely, for them) away from me, just like Harry's (the literal body of evidence) life had just been taken from him. Little Numerals that Tell A BIG Story The plan for Harry's manufactured exit is not so much written into the records, as it is revealed by the tampering with the logs. They lay bare the lead vet’s apparent plan that his life would come to an abrupt end by the pre-scheduled time of (well, they couldn't quite get consistency in the logs regarding the exact minute, but by the absolute latest time of) 17:00 hours i.e. 5pm . . . assumedly, the end of the day shift on December 1. Just in time to mark him "Deceased" and seal off the records of this catastrophically overdosed patient, before the next shift came on, saw his records, and someone started asking the immediately necessary, and certainly appropriate, questions. And those questions would (0R SHOULD ) have included , but would certainly not have been limited to: How long has this dog been in this state? Why hasn't any rescue and remediation protocol been undertaken? Why was he given yet ANOTHER administration of 50mg of Gabapentin at 09:00 hours after the preceding two during night shift? Why is he disconnected from his IV fluids? Who approved that and why? (And if they knew he'd starred in a multi-video student film festival that morning): Was he taken out of his cage and handled in this state? When did he last drink? Was he given any food before he entered this near-comatose state? Does the owner know of the overdoses and the state he's in? Have you filled in an incident report? Have any emergency specialists been called in for advice? and, no doubt, many more questions. OR . . . maybe not. It depends if the rot in that ICU is fully immersive, or if it's concentrated on Dr Stephanie Rigg's day shift and the ICU shift staff of the preceding (November 30) night. But none of those questions could be asked and none of that could happen. The day shift - led by "Dr" Rigg ("Steffi") - wasn't about to let it happen. Thus, the pre-timestamped, just before end-of-shift, Time of Death entered into the "Euthanasia Authorisation" form that they had all queued up for me long before I ever arrived at that Godforsaken facility that fated December 1 afternoon.

(UPDATED) PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It . . . & the VCNZ Has A MASSIVE Conflict of Interest

by Jordan Kelly • 17 February 2026

Harry WAS A Marked Dog. I Had Hoped Massey Vet Staff Couldn't Have Been Any More Wicked Than They'd Already Been Caught Out Being. But YES , Actually, They COULD .

CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSING & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey

by Jordan Kelly • 15 February 2026

This Is What Happens When Massey Thinks THEY Own Your Dog & Can Do With Him As They Please (You Just Pay the Invoice) At This Appalling, Unaccountable Veterinary House of Horrors (LATEST PROOF OF 'LAB RAT' TREATMENT HERE )

NOT ‘Euthanasia’: A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences

by Jordan Kelly • 12 February 2026

FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS: GO HERE . My Precious Little Boy Died Needlessly, In Intense Physical, Mental & Emotional Agony . . . After Massive Overdosing, Intense Cruelty & Intentionally False Diagnosis by Massey 'Vet' (So Called) to Enable His 'Disposal' After Lab Rat-Style Experimentation

Massey University's Upside-Down Prioritisation of Taxpayer Funds: Fiscal Malfeasance & the TRUE Cost of Institutional Arrogance

by Jordan Kelly • 11 February 2026

While my focus is on the 750% overdosing of my precious little dog, Harry, with an unauthorised, contraindicated convenience sedative, his conversion from patient to live specimen, and the subsequent destruction of evidence (HIM), Massey’s focus is on deploying a taxpayer-funded legal hit squad to 'profile' me.

ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous?

by Jordan Kelly • 8 February 2026

An Expert Contributed Commentary (FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE .)

When the Tail Wags the Dog . . . A Look Inside the Councillor/Management Power Dynamics of Local Government