In an interview on The Platform with host Michael Laws yesterday, Cr Ong said he was thinking beyond the next two and a-half years.
The remainder of his life expectancy could be four decades, he said.
Mr Laws, who is also an Otago regional councillor, asked: ‘‘So you are going to be serving for decades and decades, are you, on the Dunedin City Council?’’
Cr Ong replied: ‘‘I hope so, in the same way you have, Cr Laws.’’
Mr Laws clarified he had not served for decades and decades on one council.
Cr Ong was introduced as probably the most controversial councillor in New Zealand and the interview traversed matters such as Aurora Energy, code of conduct complaints and restricted access to the Civic Centre.
The first question from Mr Laws was: ‘‘Are you mad or on some neurodiverse spectrum?’’
He followed this up twice and Cr Ong did not provide a definitive answer, but said: ‘‘To those who state that, please don’t make these claims that disparage members of our community.
‘‘And the second thing is, please do not continue falsehoods about me.’’
Cr Ong said his first six months as a councillor had felt like his whole life.
‘‘I’m sure it must feel like that for some of the council staff, too,’’ Mr Laws observed.
Cr Ong was asked what he had achieved so far.
‘‘There are too many things that I can list,’’ he said.
Cr Ong claimed to have reinvented ‘‘what our council should be ... to deliver more back to our community members’’.
He said more than one elected member wanted to sell Aurora, despite community opposition, and Civic Centre access restrictions were part of ‘‘a pattern of blocking, barring and restricting me from delivering to our community’’.
Cr Ong is facing a code of conduct complaint about breaching confidentiality.
Such complaints were ineffective, he said.
‘‘Listen, any chance of restraining you with a code of conduct violation is just laughable,’’ Mr Laws agreed.
On Wednesday, Cr Ong revealed to media the code of conduct complaint five minutes after being told ‘‘this matter is to be treated as confidential’’.
Asked by the Otago Daily Times if this was enough time to think it over, Cr Ong said ‘‘if I had seen it a second after receiving, I would send it in a second’’.
