Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel has been accused of shutting down democracy during an exchange with city councillors today.

Councillors Sam MacDonald, Phil Mauger, James Gough Catherine Chu and Aaron Keown wanted the Christchurch City Council to delay work on cycleways (not already being funded by the Government) for five years.

At today’s public meeting, Councillor MacDonald asked Dalziel if he could ask council staff about the advice they had provided on cycleways.

“No, I’ve ruled it out of order” she responded. “I made a decision, it is not debatable, so no it’s not up for discussion.”

MacDonald pressed the mayor again. “So we can’t even question the advice provided?”

“No” she said. “I have accepted the advice I have been provided and I have rule it out of order. That is the one advantage I have sitting here, is that I make the decision whether to rule it out of order or not. It is not subject to debate and I will end this conversation now.”

The mayor said she was sticking to the standing orders, which meant a debate was not a legal requirement.

MacDonald told the council he wanted to express his “absolute disappointment that we don’t have the ability to have a serious conversation around this table today when we are looking to set an LTP (long term plan) to defer some of our capital programme.”

“Just to put on record my complete frustration that in a democracy like ours, we’ve been deliberately stymied from having an open and honest debate about this today. This is probably one of the worst things I’ve seen in council to date, and I’ve only been here 18 months.”

He went on to say “it’s not right for the city and doesn’t foster openness and transparency.”

Councillor Sara Templeton said the time to put forward the ‘deferred proposal’ was during the draft long term plan at “which point we would have asked the community do we want to defer the cycleways?”

Councillor James Gough said “the difference between the draft and at this point in time is our response to the submissions that we’ve heard. There was a significant number of people who said to us they value and would like extra priority given to footpaths and roads.”