Letters of criticism cost $6k
A former secretary has been ordered to pay $6,000 to a Taranaki polytech after she penned letters criticising the organisation and sent them to government ministers.
Employment Relations Authority (ERA) member Mike Loftus described Angela Parr’s actions as ‘‘flagrant, deliberate and at the upper end of wrongdoing’’ when he ruled in favour of her former employer, the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (Witt).
In May, an ERA hearing was held after Witt alleged Parr breached a confidential agreement by making disparaging and critical comments about the organisation.
Parr had been employed for about six years as the personal assistant of Witt’s former chief executive Richard Handley, who left in April 2013 when his contract was not renewed.
Six weeks later, Parr’s job at the polytech was terminated and the two parties subsequently agreed to a settlement.
Evidence at the ERA hearing outlined how Parr used a fake name to sign off letters which which were sent in 2016 to then Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce, Labour’s then Education spokesman David Cunliffe and two charitable organisations in New Plymouth.
The letters spouted a slew of allegations against Witt, which painted it in a negative light.
Witt chief executive Barbara George became aware of the first letter in February 2016, after it was tabled in Parliament by Cunliffe.
The same letter had been sent to Joyce, which resulted in a ‘‘please explain’’ from the Minister’s office to Witt.
In May 2016, a second letter was also sent to Minister Joyce and the boards of the TSB Community Trust and Bishop’s Action Foundation - charitable organisations which the now former Witt chairwoman Mary Bourke had been involved with.
Parr denied writing the letters but in his determination Loftus refuted this position.
He ruled that the New Plymouth woman had written the letters and they had been disparaging, which was a direct breach of the settlement.
‘‘I have accepted there has been a breach for which Mrs Parr is responsible.
‘‘I also accept that given the attempt to hide the breach by using an alias it was deliberate,’’ he said in his ruling, which was released yesterday.
He said there was information to show Parr held a grudge against Witt and sworn evidence given by an experienced handwriting expert clearly linked her to the penmanship on the letters.
‘‘I conclude the breaches were flagrant, deliberate and at the upper end of wrongdoing.
‘‘Furthermore by her defence Mrs Parr has shown no remorse.
‘‘There is a strong case for condemnation and a need for deterrence,’’ Loftus said.
Parr’s involvement was first suspected by George after she saw the handwriting on one of the letters and its envelope. George believed she had seen it before and checked Parr’s personal file. The similarities in the writing further raised her suspicions so she decided to seek advice from two handwriting experts.
Both their assessments found similarities between Parr’s handwriting and the letter and envelope but neither could give an unqualified opinion.
George then approached Patricia James, a police document analyst.
Following her first analysis which was completed in July 2016 using photocopied documents, James was then provided with the original copies of the letter and envelope, along with a sample of Parr’s writing.
In her evidence at the hearing, James said after comparing the two, she was able to give an unqualified opinion that Parr was the author of the letter.
Loftus said the evidence provided by James was key in helping him reach the conclusion Parr had written the letters.
‘‘She was a compelling witness with impeccable professional qualifications,’’ he said.
In its application to the ERA, Witt sought an order for Parr not to breach the settlement again, along with penalties.
Loftus ordered Parr to comply with the condition of the settlement not to make any negative or disparaging statements about the institute.
When approached for comment Parr continued to deny she had written the letters. ‘‘I would like to appeal because I’m not happy with the decision,’’ she said. ‘‘I didn’t write the letters and I will stand by that because I didn’t.’’
Parr said she couldn’t make any further comment because of the settlement agreement.
Parr was also ordered to pay Witt $6,000 by September 6. Peter Hudson and David Halls turned food preparation into comedy with their bickering, self-titled cooking show full of innuendo that ran for a decade on New Zealand TV from 1976.
And now those who remember Hudson and Halls can see them come to life again at the TSB Showplace.
Hudson and Halls Live!, starring actors Todd Emerson and Chris Parker, opened last night as part of this year’s Taranaki Arts Festival.
The theatre adaptation, which runs until Sunday, puts Hudson and Halls, with their flustered, serious but rather incompetent floor manager Ngaire, on set ready for their TV cooking show, doing their sound check with sarcasm and cattiness and a few dramas along the way.
The show came about when Emerson talked about the original show with actress Rima Te Wiata.
He asked why no one had reenacted it in theatre, and she suggested he do it.
Since then Emerson, who plays Peter Hudson, Parker, who plays David Halls, and Anya Tate- Manning (Ngaire) have performed the show 75 times.
‘‘We’ve done it so many times now you have to constantly find new things in it to keep it fresh,’’ Emerson said.
‘‘It’s keeping the joy fresh,’’ Tate-Manning added.
They said the show is actually very complex - right down to putting something in the microwave for 27 seconds to sync with another beep at the exact same time.
‘‘It’s a crafted chaos,’’ Parker said. ’’I love the challenge of trying to cook on stage...The audience is the fourth character and the food’s the fifth, or it’s the star.
‘‘It feels new every time because you don’t know what the food’s going to do.’’
Every ‘disaster’ in the show is turned into part of the act, Emerson said.
‘‘It’s 95 per cent scripted and five per cent improvised.’’
‘‘We would be acting and we’d be like ‘something’s burning’,’’ Parker added. ‘‘It all becomes part of the joy of being out there.’’
While Parker reckons he’s so similar to ‘David’ it’s scary, Emerson doesn’t know if he’s that much like Peter. ‘‘But we’ve just spent so much time with these characters now.’’
They have no plan for slowing down - hoping one day to take the show overseas.
They want to keep the memory of the original Hudson and Halls alive. Says Parker: ‘‘They were an important part of New Zealand TV.’’