Kiwileaks Exclusive: Privacy Commissioner, Corrupt or Incompetent?

This is the arrogant and dismissive response from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in response to the issue of the South End School.  Faithful followers of Transparency in New Zealand will recall that I received a letter from the Board of Trustees of the South End School in Carterton in sacking me from my job because, according to the letter, the Board was distressed to have received information that I had been recently charged by the Police for an offence involving a child.

This was despite an earlier visit from the Deputy Principal, to ask me if the allegation was true, because she had been so shocked to discover that the Board was proposing to send me the letter.  Of course, I told her in no uncertain terms that this was utter rubbish, and that I had never in my life been charged with any such offence, never mind recently!  I was therefore very surprised indeed to receive the letter some 6 weeks later saying: "The Board of Trustees were distressed to hear of you recently being charged by the police.  The vetting policy at the school is designed to reduce risk to the children at South End School.  Whereas your previous Court incidents did not have this risk the present one involves a child.  This does present a risk and therefore a problem for the Board.  With this charge over you the Board of Trustees requests that you stop your work in the school gardens.  Should you be found guilty of the charge the Board could not permit you to resume your work on the school garden.  As a Board we hope that either the charges are withdrawn or you are found not guilty of the charge as this would remove our problem.  We appreciate the work and enthusiasm you bring to the school garden and hope that we can be in a position to resume this work in the near future." - what hypocrisy and lies!

Of course I immediately rang the school and made an appointment to see the Principal, Rod O'Leary, who I had previously had a very good relationship with through my job at the school teaching gardening and running the school gardens, which I was solely responsible for creating and developing.  The school gardening program I introduced was wildly successful.  It brought out all the best qualities in the kids, and they learned so much, because gardening is a holistic sort of process, and it teaches kids to look at life holistically, it teaches commitment, planning, risk management and all sorts of interesting things as well as growing food, a very basic but essential life saving skill, especially in these economic times.

We met and I told him that the allegation in the letter was untrue.  I requested all information the school held about me, and in particular all information regarding the letter sacking me because of the false and extremely offensive allegation.  The meeting was pleasant, but I was clear about how I felt about receiving the letter from the Board, after I'd made it perfectly clear to the Deputy Principal that the allegation was untrue when she had put it to me 6 weeks earlier.  I asked for a meeting between myself and the Board as soon as possible.  This request, and all other requests for a meeting with the Board were refused, as was the request for information.

I wrote a considerable number of letters to various individuals and organisations, all of which concentrated more on explaining to me that it wasn't really an issue they wanted to deal with for one excuse or another.  This letter from the Privacy Commissioner's Office is a good example.  The Principal provided one or two documents to me and told the Privacy Commissioner that was all the information.  I asked for the minutes of the Board meeting where it was decided to send me the letter, and the notes of the staff representative, which the Deputy Principal had told me she had sighted, documenting that the Police had given the Board the erroneous and slanderous information, along with other false, slanderous and defamatory information.  This would be in accordance with their announced policy of sharing gossip with anyone who's interested:  (Click on these images to enlarge, or open them with Paint program.)

The principal lied to the Privacy Commissioner, repeatedly stating that no other information existed, well after he, and the Board of Trustees, had received a number of complaints from parents.  When confronted with the evidence, in the form of a copy of one of the letters of complaint, he was forced to accept its existence, grudgingly.

Contrast this with the article in the Dominion Post October 2008 which boasts how police blatantly flout the privacy laws, giving free access to basically any idiot on the committee of any little community organisation.

The people in charge of the community organisations in the Wairarapa are mainly corrupt and incompetent (a notable exception being Ken English of the Heart Foundation, and I wish him all the best in his retirement, he deserves it and we'll all miss him a lot).  This article quotes Lyn Buckley of Women's Refuge, Masterton, who told me her organisation wouldn't be assisting me in any way when I asked if they could assist with urgent accommodation and assistance after the recent assaults at what's now Gallon Road.  There's no shortage of greedy, incompetent, unscrupulous and outright corrupt people running so-called 'community organisations' round here (and elsewhere I suspect).

I had also written to the Privacy Commissioner about the refusal of the Police to provide an audio recording of the call to 111 emergency services from Clair Cook and Kelly Wilson regarding the attack on me in my home by Michael Francis Murphy of 18 Wyndham St Carterton on 11th February 2009, and the letter from the manager of the Police Communications Centre, Inspector Wayne Ewers, in which he states the reason for the refusal: "according to the Privacy Act you are not entitled to any information that is created by other people." - what rubbish!  Rubbish which the Privacy Commissioner and the Police have refused to acknowledge.  The newsclipping file has deteriorated (Bob told me about jpeg files), readers might like to try and get a copy from the offices of the Dominion Post, it was on the front page in October 2008, next to an equally large photo of a female police officer breastfeeding her baby instead of doing what she's paid to do, exposing way more breast that Christine Rankin.

My complaint, which is referred to insultingly in the Certificate of Investigation issued by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (at my request in order to progress the matter through the proper channels, the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Ombudsman), is that (inter alia) the Principal of the South End School, Rod O'Leary, is lying to the investigator and everyone else, in saying that I told him I had recently been charged by Police with an offence involving a child.  He knows perfectly well I didn't and no person in their right mind would believe that!  I don't make things up, he does, and he made up this lie deliberately in order to get rid of me, in conspiracy with members of the Board of Trustees, because after I had slaved away to build beautiful gardens at the school from nothing, and investing a huge amount of time and resources in to the gardens, and hundreds of dollars of equipment, with no help whatsoever from the Board or other staff, the school finally managed to get funding for gardens, and wanted to get their hands on it unhindered by me.

I told the Privacy Commissioner's investigator, Diane Swan, that Deputy Principal Dallas Powell had told me that she had seen the notes of the meeting, that they were clearly about me, and that she would verify that I told her the exact opposite of what O'Leary claimed.  I also asked for any evidence whatsoever of O'Leary's claim, such as notes, incident reports, anything whatsoever, and asked her to contact Deputy Principal Dallas Powell and ask her directly, and obtain a statement from her about the matter.

Swan rudely refused, like Mike Flahive, who signed this rude letter - how much taxpayer's money was wasted - or pocketed by him and Diane Swan - over this little racket?!  I DID NOT TELL O'LEARY ANY SUCH THING HE IS A CORRUPT LIAR WHO HAS PROFITED CONSIDERABLY FROM THIS CORRUPT CONSPIRACY.

Then a few things happened.  Deputy Principal Dallas Powell left the school abruptly.  I was issued with a trespass notice, preventing me accessing my tools and equipment at the school.  When I was hailed by the school's bullying and lazy groundsman one day I responded by stopping and asking him to move our property from his locked shed on the grounds to the gate so that I could remove it from the site, and when he said it was not going to be returned, I called him a thieving crook, and the Principal, who he was speaking with at the time, and was charged by the police with using insulting language.  All three prosecution witnesses failed to turn up to the hearing, wasting considerable Court time, Police time, and public resources, after numerous preliminary Court fixtures.

Court Summary of Facts, written by corrupt Constable Harvey Pope states: "In 2009 the defendant RAUE was Trespassed from the grounds of CARTERTON South end School (sic).  She was at the time a volunteer at the school and involved with the school's vegetable gardens.  During this involvement her bad behaviour in front of the pupils caused the schools' teachers and board members to become concerned.  Efforts to sever ties with RAUE turned hostile."  The document alleges that I was cycling past, stopped and shouted "abuse" at the "Principle and grounds man" (sic).  A very serious crime in Carterton apparently.

Efforts to sever ties - like sending me a letter accusing me of child abuse and a trespass notice effectively stealing my property - certainly did turn hostile in the face of the obvious lies and corruption.  There was no "bad behaviour" because if there had there would undoubtably be some record of it, such as a single incident report, a note, there's nothing at all, and there is considerable evidence from witnesses that this is an utter lie.

What a waste of taxpayers money this all is.  Are people too stupid to see it, or what?