Citizens councillors ‘slighted’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 1

Citizens councillors ‘slighted’

The Mayor of Christchurch (Mr N. G. Pickering) had slighted Citizens’ Association councillors on the City Council by excluding them from the list of special guests to the Mayoral reception to the new Prime Minister (Mr Kirk) while including Labour Party city councillors, said the leader of the Citizens’ Association councillors (Cr H. G. Hay) yesterday.

None of the eight Citizens’ councillors are included in the 40 special guests invited by the Mayor to a function in the Horizon Restaurant after the public reception for Mr Kirk at the Christchurch Airport.

All of the 11 Labour Party councillors in Christchurch at present have been invited, and all the local Labour members of Parliament. The chairman of the Paparua County Council (Mr D. H. Warren) is a special guest because the airport is in the Paparua county. Other local body chairmen are not among the special guests. “It is not just a matter of who meets the costs; it is the principle that all sections of the city should be represented, irrespective of party affiliation,” said Cr Hay.

“I am certain that some of my Citizens colleagues would have availed themselves of the invitation to congratulate Mr Kirk on his achievement. I would myself, and I have already done so in writing. CIVIC RECEPTION “Mr Kirk has brought honour to our city, and we all appreciate this. “I recognise the Mayor’s prerogative to choose his guests at a Mayoral recep-

tion, as opposed to a civic reception, but on such an occasion as honouring Mr Kirk on his first visit to Christchurch as Prime Minister I feel that the Citizens councillors have been slighted. “I had been fully expecting to hear from the Mayor about a civic reception for Mr Kirk to be held in the Town Hall,” Cr Hay said. MAYOR’S REPLY “If Cr Hay and his colleagues wish to congratulate the new Prime Minister they can come to the airport with the hundreds of other citizens who wish to honour Mr Kirk,” said Mr Pickering in a telephone interview from Wellington where he was attending an executive meeting of the Municipal Association yesterday. “If they so wish, I will ensure that they are introduced to the Prime Minister. “Cr Hay should know better than anyone that it is the Mayor’s prerogative to hold a mayoral reception and choose his guests.

“I would also remind him that from 1968 to 1971, when Cr R. M. Macfarlane, Cr R. H. Stillwell and myself were the opposition in the City Council we were not invited to several Mayoral receptions—and we never objected because we realised it was the Mayor’s prerogative to hold such receptions and issue, the invitations. “Because of numerous re-

quests, some from pensioners unable to get to the airport, received by the Town Clerk (Mr M. B. Hayes) and my secretary today, I am certainly considering a civic reception to Mr Kirk in the Town Hall early next year, and will be putting that possibility to the City Council,” Mr Pickering said. “Cr Hay’s concern about the cost to the ratepayer I fiftd very childish. What, in effect, he is saying ‘is that had he and his colleagues been invited to the function the cost would have been justified; but because they have not been invited, he claims the cost is unjustified —a contradiction which the average ratepayer will find very amusing.”