Christchurch white supremacist Philip Arps has been returned to the community after serving a jail sentence for distributing video of one of the Christchurch mosque massacres. His imminent release led Corrections to ask for numerous
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Auckland University has bought its incoming vice-chancellor, Dawn Freshwater, a $5 million house in Auckland's most ossified suburb, Parnell. Freshwater will rent the four-bedroom house from her employer for an undisclosed amount.
Under her not-at-all-missed predecessor, Stuart McCutcheon, the university cut many jobs and closed three world-class specialist libraries: fine arts, music and architecture. He said at the time that difficult decisions had to be taken. It appears now he was talking about whether to go with the teak or the mahogany in the kitchen renovations.
Attempting to justify the purchase, a university spokesperson said the architecturally undistinguished home "will also be a venue for university-related event hosting". So – party house. The description of the purchase as a "splurge" in one headline was unfair; "waste" or "insult to learning" would have been a perfectly adequate description.
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Connoisseurs of doublespeak are in for a fine old time of it from all directions this election year. You know: something being described as a "life-changing infrastructure commitment" instead of "cynically delayed election-year bribe". That sort of thing.
This will be a fake election straight out of the Trump playbook. Many misspeakings will be misspoken. There are simply not enough media foot soldiers to check and refute every false claim that will be made and many will become lodged in voters' minds as the truth.
But it's unlikely anyone will reach the very high bar set by Simon Bridges attempting to bat away Serious Fraud Office charges connected to a National Party donation. "This was always just a vendetta by a disgruntled former MP," said Bridges. Not when four people are charged with a crime. That is as clear an example of "not just a vendetta" as you will find.
We won't be lied to. But not lying and telling the truth are different things. No one ever actually lies. They just reassemble bits of truth into pleasing shapes.
It's going to be a long year if every time a politician of any persuasion says something, we have to tease out the six possible meanings and decide which one of them to believe.
For instance, when Bridges says "no one in the National Party has been charged" he could well have meant in the National Party office at the time he was speaking. We may never know.
Nor, he was quick to point out, has he been charged with anything. It's a worry when the leader of a party has to cite the fact they haven't been charge with a crime as an achievement.