Kavinda Herath/Stuff
Gore District Council chief executive Stephen Parry says the bullying card is played too often in the workplace environment. (File photo)
The man who was at the centre of a stoush with Gore district mayor Ben Bell says the bullying card is played too often in the workplace environment.
Gore District Council chief executive Stephen Parry, who has resigned from the council after 22 years and will leave at the end of this month, made the comments at a policy and regulatory committee meeting on Tuesday, which was discussing amendments made to the council’s Workplace Harassment Prevention Policy.
The policy has been reviewed to include WorkSafe definitions of what workplace bullying is and is not, and Parry said that was welcomed.
“Because I think too often now the card is played, and it is performance management related and it’s not bullying. It is just a function of ensuring that a employee is operating at the expected level,’’ he said.
Parry’s working relationship with Bell has not been far from the headlines since Bell narrowly won the mayoralty from long-standing mayor Tracy Hicks after a re-count in November.
Parry and Bell clashed almost right from the start of Bell’s mayoralty, and a month into his tenure the pair were already in mediation and no longer speaking.
In April, the Taxpayers Union manager Callum Purves criticised Parry for “airing his dirty laundry in public by speaking to multiple media organisations,’’ about his working relationship with Bell. Parry had told Stuff the council had ‘’struggled quite majorly in the last six months,’’ and was ‘’paralysed.’’
Kavinda Herath / Stuff
Gore district council chief executive Steve Parry speaks to the media after council votes unanimously for an independent review. [File video]
He told Stuff his working relationship with Bell was ‘’irreparable”.
Tensions came to a head in May, when protesters gathered outside the council’s offices, calling on Parry to resign after deputy mayor Keith Hovell and councillor Richard McPhail called on Bell to resign. They later called for a vote of no confidence in the mayor.
Parry was also accused of bullying former staff members, leading to an online petition calling for his resignation, and a former staff member spoke out about how Parry had visited his home in London in 2009, forcing him to take out a restraining order.
In June, Bell took the unusual step of issuing a statement apologising to Parry, saying the media attention had caused “significant disruption, distress and hurt to the chief executive, staff, and councillors’’.
Parry told Stuff the allegations of bullying had been ‘’extremely hurtful and stressful’’.
“The elected members wish to acknowledge and apologise for the hurt caused to the chief executive,’’ the statement said.
Last month, the council voted not to go ahead with an independent review of its governance because it has ‘’genuine concerns that any further re-examination of the past may reignite the very events and experiences that we seek to move on from’’.
The council has also been tight-lipped about any payouts to Parry when he leaves.
