Security guards no longer an option for council

Dave Cull.
Dave Cull.
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull says the Dunedin City Council is "taking each day as it comes" with regards to what to do about the protesters camping in the Octagon.

"We haven't come to any conclusions yet. We are still working through what our options are, but we're not trying to predict what those options might be," he said last night.

The council is reviewing the legalities of moving the protesters on, after Dunedin police declined to support a non-notified application for a court injunction to move the occupiers on, and then declined to enforce a trespass notice issued by the council last week to the occupiers, because to do so would risk the protesters' suing them for breaching their rights under the Bill of Rights Act.

The council's options may include court action, but will not include using security guards to remove protesters, who have been camping in the upper Octagon - which is against a council camping bylaw - for 28 days.

Mr Cull said the council's legal team was still considering what options the council had, and the implications of those options.

Earlier yesterday, he said court action, such as seeking injunctions, court orders or a judicial review were time-, energy- and money-consuming and the council had to look carefully at the problem before it decided if it was prepared to scale up its response to that extent.

The issue was not the protest, but the camping, he said.

 

 

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