A long-serving Invercargill councillor has clashed with a meeting chairman for a third time after calling the mayor's answer to his question a "soliloquy".
The incident occurred during a full Invercargill City Council meeting on Tuesday, when six-term councillor Ian Pottinger asked council manager Rhiannon Suter a series of questions relating to amalgamation.
Mayor Tom Campbell's response to one of those questions, as meeting chairman, was not well-received by Pottinger.
"You jumped in and gave a soliloquy, sorry," Pottinger said of the mayor’s actions.
Campbell was visibly frustrated by the councillor’s comment and told him he could “sit there and be rude, or ... take part in this meeting in an appropriate manner".
"When you start talking about soliloquies, there was no soliloquy. I expressed about two sentences. So why don’t you just ask a question, but ask it politely?" Campbell said.
Pottinger was provided further opportunities to ask his question, which was ultimately answered by Suter, though she was not sure she fully understood it.
The councillor’s run-in with Campbell was not the first time he has butted heads with colleagues.
In February, Pottinger refused to apologise to councillor Alex Crackett after questioning if she was listening during a meeting.
At a May 2025 meeting, he had a tense exchange with councillor Darren Ludlow after suggesting he hadn’t received an email that "democracy was not in place today".
Both Crackett and Ludlow were chairmen during those meetings.
Speaking to Local Democracy Reporting on Wednesday, Pottinger said he was trying to get an answer out of Suter but was interrupted.
Regarding the ongoing incidents with members, he said he was a passionate person who did a lot of research and was not the kind to back down.
Mayor Campbell said Tuesday’s incident was relatively minor and dealt with at the time.
The Cambridge Dictionary describes a soliloquy as a speech where a character speaks to themself, or those watching, instead of other characters.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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