She is an unpaid, full-time public advocate who Transparency International New Zealand recognised as instrumental in advancing transparency into how billions of dollars of ratepayers’ monies 
are spent in Auckland. She has an unrelenting, brash and uncomfortably in-your-face style – and she prolifically spouts facts and figures as her first line of attack and defence.
He is a local public servant who earns almost a quarter million dollars a year more than the New Zealand Prime Minister. $690,000 per year. He is the distinguished bureaucrat who manages how Auckland ratepayers’ monies are spent; a position which brings many potential suitors to his door. Perhaps tellingly, the ratepayers pay his exorbitant legal bills which he would doubtfully authorise if it was his own money. More on this in a bit.
Penny Bright, whistleblower v Stephen Town, Chief Executive of Auckland Council. The battleground is now Ms Bright’s house which Auckland Council last week published it intends to tender sale by 24 April 2018.
Ms Bright owes Auckland Council over $20,000 in rates on her freehold Kingsland house. She says she is refusing to pay the deficit until Auckland Council “opens the books” on what Auckland Council is paying private contractors. In addition to asserting ratepayers are entitled to know where their money is spent, she believes the existing model is rife with conflicts of interest and backhanders. With legal costs and penalties her outstanding bill stands at $47,000, and Auckland Council is now seeking to force sale of her home to collect the debt.
Mr Town on the other hand has long considered information on what private contractors are paid to be proprietary, alleging any financial disclosure on how ratepayers’ monies are spent would compromise the business relationships Auckland Council enjoy with private contractors.
As to her forced house sale, Town says it is unfair to other Auckland ratepayers if Bright is not forced to pay her back rates – which have skyrocketed to the equivalent of 1 ½ weeks of Mr Town’s salary.
Ms Bright cannot help believe there is some bad blood acting out, having sued Mr Town for defamation in a case which never went to trial. The catalyst was an Auckland Council-funded October 2014 press release in which Town claimed “Ms Bright has made wild and inaccurate accusations about the Council and its probity”. An Official Information Act request by Ms Bright revealed Auckland ratepayers paid $207,133.62 to law firm Simpson Grierson to file 3 motions (first 2 unsuccessful) to strike out Bright’s defamation claim pre-trail and 1 motion for security for costs, just to make sure Mr Town did not suffer the injustice of the half day court hearing which the legally-unrepresented Bright sought to have her 3 1/2 page defamation claim. heard.
Being the ever-annoying public watchdog, Bright early on exposed that Town had authorised Council pay more than $100,000 in legal costs ahead of any court appearance.
Relevant to the ratepayers’ legal expenditure Mr Town authorised, lawyers defending a half day hearing in the High Court are entitled to $1,600 in fees under the High Court Fees Regulations 2013. Ms Bright offered to settle her claim against Mr Town before filing for $10,000 damages and a retraction – an offer which Town flatly rejected.
Why is Mr Town so focused on hiring lawyers at ratepayers’ expense? And what is the business imperative in selling Ms Bright’s house when Auckland Council can simply file a charging order which ensures the rates will at some stage be collected with interest? Town’s best answer to the second question is it sends a message to the larger community that non-payment of rates will not be tolerated. But the truth is this dance has been going on for years with Ms Bright. It is hard to see any variables changing other than the successes Bright has recently achieved in making local government spending more transparent.
Among these successes is exposing Mr Town has personal authority on behalf of Council to award contracts valued up to $20 million. And that Mr Town has routinely exercised this unchecked power to award contracts to members on the private sector lobby group The Committee for Auckland of which he is personally a member.
In the broader realm, no one in the know would dispute Bright has single-handedly whittled away at Town’s executive powers to grant contracts under the public radar. In 2015, she succeeded in compelling Auckland Council to divulge contracts exceeding $100,000 in value and this has recently been reduced to $50,000. After an Auckland Transport executive and private contractor were criminally convicted of collusion to defraud Auckland ratepayers in February 2017, Ms Bright sought and obtained a commitment from the Board of this Auckland Council-controlled organisation to publish private contracts.
Evocatively kiwisfirst was refused an Official Information Act request in 2016 for information on how much Auckland Council was spending on lawyers to silence Ms Bright on the ground Ms Bright might use this information in court proceedings.
Einstein stated “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” and Warren Buffet unrelatedly observed “Price is what you pay and value is what you get.” Yet both could well be fitting axioms for the juxtaposition of CEO Town’s value to New Zealand society relative to Ms Bright in this bitter fight where Bright’s value comes at no cost to society. Mr Town spends ratepayers’ money somewhat lavishly where it is not his money and where no one before Ms Bright had exhibited any inclination to shine the sanitising light of day on this bureaucratic spending. Conversely Ms Bright has no money so she spends nothing other than her time and that time is either (1) running up the cost of local government if you believe Stephen Town, or (2) saving New Zealand society in spite of its apathy if you don’t.
Often in history civilisation pivots on a small grievance which lays bare a greater ill and thereby provides the tipping point to monumental change or - unthinkable in our society - revolution. Few would argue Ms Bright’s civil disobedience is sustainable in its own right. The question is whether there is merit in her reasons and, if there is merit, whether such merit advances our society as a result of her disobedience.
