Confidential papers Photo: 123RF
The Wellington City Council is investigating after reports a stash of confidential documents was found by a member of the public in an old mayoral desk bought from the tip shop.
The NZ Herald is reporting there are hundreds of papers.
The council told RNZ it was "taking the situation extremely seriously and are working with our legal and privacy staff - along with staff and contractors involved with the disposal of the Town Hall furniture - to understand what has happened".
They had also contacted the member of the public who found the documents, and alerted the Privacy Commissioner.
The building was shut in 2013 for earthquake strengthening.
Former mayor Kerry Prendergast told RNZ she understood the papers covered the years in which she, Dame Fran Wilde and Mark Blumsky were mayor.
"This is long before the days of digital storage," she said.
"Everything was in hard-copy, and things of a sensitive nature... the mayor was involved in all of those, and they were locked securely in the desk that belonged to the mayor.
"And when you handed over the chains to the next mayor, you passed over responsibility for what was kept in those files, and in those drawers and cupboards."
Kerry Prendergast. Photo: NZ Herald / Catherine Hutton
Prendergast said she was confident her predecessors and her successor "would have assumed that the desk, when it was put into storage and subsequently taken to the tip for sale, would have been emptied of any confidential papers".
She said the papers were "potentially incredibly damaging", and she hoped privacy laws would protect the people involved.
"It's disappointing that they've ended up in the hands of the media, and more effort wasn't made on behalf of the person who bought the desk to take them to the city council."
If she had found them, she would have put them in a box without looking at them, and hand-delivered them to the appropriate authority.
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