Update to Giles Tait (KO) Conflict

This update is a followup to the Conflict Of Interest (COI) we discovered with a lead engineer working on the Teitei Drive Kāinga Ora Project. If you haven't read it yet, click here.

Giles Tait held the roles of "Project Manager" and "Delivery Lead" and procured third party contractors and signed authority for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of spend on the project. Kāinga Ora continue to talk down his role in the project, however we have obtained the signed agreements and some of his delegations

On 25th July, Giles Tait & Renee Regal from Kāinga Ora had a zoom call with myself and one other. They agreed the call could be recorded & during that call, Giles stated information about Cordyline place as if he knew the area very well. At no point did he state he had a conflict, or that he owned a property in that street, funny enough Renee Regal was not aware of the conflict until we brought it to KO's attention on the 4th August; Giles only completed official documentation on the 7th August registering his conflict.

Kāinga Ora claims Giles made a verbal COI to his manager on 27th October 2022, though no official paper work was filled out, no emails were sent to anyone and no managers or any other staff were advised of the conflict.

In January 2023, Stage 1 design was modified to extend to Giles property, where a reserve was placed following a contour map, we believe Giles has told them a running stream was present. When we have questioned the matter, we have been pointed to an ecologist report in the resource consent for evidence, but nothing is of use or present about this stream. It's noted that the overgrowth didn't allow an inspection of the particular area. Evidence also shows that Giles instructed personal to extend a stream on the design drawings and provided them the contour map.

Giles was since removed from the project since September with Kāinga Ora saying it wasn't an admittance of guilt, but to protect the individual and the project. They have not released any details into the investigation, however we have found some information and a timeline from the OIA documents we have obtained.

4th August	David Holland emails RDC about Giles COI
7th August 8:28am	Renee Regal emails Tait about Hollands email
7th August 9:27am	Giles emails Tamsyn McDonald Director Greenfield's and David Chau Greenfield and Complex Projects about David Hollands email. This is the same date that Giles apparently lodges his COI.
8th August 1:13pm	Andrea Vance (Media - Dom Post) emails about COI
8th August 3:31pm	Rachel Kelly (Government relations) emails KO team about Parliamentary questions and COI
9th August	Kate Oates Senior Advisor - Integrity Services (the only Senior Advisor, Integrity Services) emails to say she has no filings from Giles Tait going back to 1st Feb 2020, other than "nothing to declare"
9th August	Kate emails to state that Giles has now filed a COI and that they are not just an annual review item and should be filed immediately when a conflict is discovered.
9th August 4:23pm	Paul Wheatcroft EM Communications at RDC states he cannot answer the question on stormwater and that Giles may be able to help as "he has answered earlier stormwater management questions" This should never have been suggested, asking an accused to answer and provide an excuse about something he is being accused of; Council should have done a review on the information that they are party to. To date council have not answered any questions or provided any evidence.
9th August 5:12pm	Lucy Ashby email (Communications Manager) states "it looks like this has gotten even more complicated!!" And the content is then redacted.
10 August 9am	Rachel Kelly "This raises more questions for me", "the survey report was received in January which changed the layout of the development and that is when the property Giles has an interest in shared a boundary with Kāinga Ora's scope in the development", "I dont see that we have enough evidence that this was managed appropriately"
10 August 11:43am	Kate Oates and David Chau (Giles Taits Manager) email about getting together to discuss "so I can get a better Handle on what the situation is"

This seems like a conflict to meet in person and not do it via email for record keeping. This is after the COI has apparently been lodged, but perhaps before it's officially lodged in the main database. As we have not been privy to the COI lodged by Mr Tait, we can only assume this is to get the wording right for the submission. Especially after all the email threads and concerns of conflict.

10 August 2:43pm	David Chau responds with rational for Giles Tait, possibly coached in his response? It also states that Giles Tait expertise led him to make a correction to the design to preserve existing stormwater management.
11 August 8:50am	Tina Dellow (Chief / Senior Advisor) emails to say "You would have thought they would handle the conflict a bit better - why on earth would they have worked on it at all"
11 August 8:53am	Thomas Humphrey (Senior Advisor - Customer Practice and Improvement) follows up with "You would think that would be logical! We're not short on construction FTE"
11 August	Tina Dellow follows up with "We are certainly not :)

It is then recommended that compliance week is coming up and that all staff members should be sat down one by one to ensure they are aware of their obligations. This goes against what the media has reported and Kāinga Ora have stated, that Giles COI was registered due to the annual filing, it was still a week out from actual compliance week.

The claim that the reserve was built due to contours or stormwater is not fact, they have built a road over it in the design, the snowmass developer has confirmed it can be infilled and built on.

There is no supporting documentation other than a contour map showing an old stormwater erosion; the ecological and environmental documents show a manually drawn on additional stream.

Design drawings were updated at the request of Giles Tait (email 6th April) to add a stream to the drawings.

Statistics of OIA's submitted