Dunedin's mayor has again cautioned councillors to be careful about how they speak about city council staff.
The issue came up during a discussion at the Dunedin City Council last week about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Councillor Russell Lund said of the council’s zero-carbon team, ‘‘they appear to want to be early adopters’’ of solutions.
He also suggested the council would do well to take note of how the vast majority of staff travelled to work — by car.
Mayor Sophie Barker said councillors needed to be careful about calling staff ‘‘they’’.
‘‘Staff are carrying out the decisions that council made and ‘we’ are the ‘they’,’’ she said.
Councillor Steve Walker said the mayor was spot on.
‘‘Staff are simply carrying out the motions of council that we vote on around this table.’’
Councillor Lee Vandervis had earlier suggested a 5% increase in emissions for the last half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, had been clouded by other material.
‘‘There’s a whole lot of stuff that’s been wrapped around it to try and make that very unfortunate result not look so bad.’’
Ms Barker said this comment seemed to be aimed at the report writers and was not appropriate.
Cr Vandervis said Cr Walker had referred to the subject matter being ‘‘really tough’’.
This was an indication of a report that lacked clarity, Cr Vandervis said.
