Last October, Cr Laws was elected as one of three councillors from the council’s Dunstan Ward, which covers the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago district council areas.
Cr Laws was subsequently invited to an informal council gathering for councillors-elect held at the Dunedin Club on October 21, before the councillors were sworn in at a later, formal meeting.
The Dunedin Club event was partly a social function, but there was some informal discussion, including about potential support for candidates to chair the council.
Cr Laws could not attend, but earlier advised council chief executive Peter Bodeker and fellow councillors-elect by email on October 15 that he would not have attended, on principle.
The ODT has obtained a copy of this email, after a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request.
"I have opposed informal meetings for all my 30 years of public life, unless they are social occasions designed to introduce colleagues and their partners on a personal level," Cr Laws wrote.
"Informal meetings have an unfortunate tendency to decide policy and council decisions away from the appropriate public scrutiny.
"They suggest a ‘behind closed doors attitude’ to decision-making that runs counter to an open and transparent democracy."
Any "genuinely confidential matters" could be protected through "formal resolution of the council".
"I had hoped not to introduce myself to you in any other than convivial way, but I did stand with the public and declared policy of making the ORC a more transparent, accountable and proactive organisation," he said.
Cr Laws said in an interview that he did not object to social gatherings but had "always opposed" informal pre-meetings, and informal "workshops", the latter being held by many local government councils. The Otago council holds frequent "workshops", usually in the afternoons after morning committee meetings or main council meetings.
Cr Laws, who is a former Wanganui mayor, said he attended the Otago council workshops because it would otherwise be too hard for him to follow council business.
Workshops resulted in too much discussion behind closed doors and he believed in "open, democratic local government".
Nothing genuinely "confidential" had been discussed at Otago council workshops since the election and it would be "useful for the wider public" to know what was being said.
More transparency would positively help the council by showing the public what it was considering, he said.
Council chairman Stephen Woodhead said the October 21 gathering was mainly a social, introductory event for people who had not yet been sworn in as councillors. Four of the 12 had just been elected to the council for the first time. Similar gatherings had been held after previous elections, and there had been an informal discussion about potential support for the chairman role, potential directions for the council, and the overall aspirations of councillors.
He emphasised that the council was a "public entity" which worked openly, adding that "local government lives in a fishbowl".
Council decisions were made in public at formal council meetings, and other matters discussed in such meetings were ultimately "discoverable" under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.
The council did not hold pre-meetings, where business was discussed in advance before council committee or main meetings, and he "absolutely" opposed them. Workshops were a "open venues for completely open and frank discussion" and "an extremely useful part of our work".
They allowed councillors to informally discuss issues which were often complex and developing, and to gain information from council staff, he said.
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Oh yes we've all heard of the 'workshops' which mean they are not open to the public or the media. Its OUR money they are spending and we the public should be able to hear discussions and participate where and when appropriate.