Opinion: Taking prisoners - school election changes needed in wake of Arps

Opinion

OPINION

When our kids were younger, I served a couple of terms on the board at our local primary school and never, during that six years, did it enter my mind that some of my fellow board members might be ex-prisoners.

I'm pretty sure none of them were but there could've been because we're finding out today that if someone has served a prison sentence of less than two years they can put themselves up for election to a school board of trustees.

We're finding out about it because it's election time for school boards around the country and someone by the name of Philip Arps has put his hat in the ring to be a board member at Te Aratai College in Christchurch, which is being described today as one of Christchurch's most multi-cultural schools.

If his name rings a bell, that's because he's the white supremacist who used to run the insulation company which charged a certain amount per metre for insulation, which was a hate symbol popular with white supremacists.

Back in 2016, he delivered a pig's head to the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch and, more recently, he's had connections with the anti-vaccine mandate movement.

But he's probably best known for sending the video of the March 15 Christchurch mosque shooting to 30 people, and asking a friend to modify it by adding cross-hairs and a "kill count".

That appalling, sickening behaviour earned him six months in prison.

But because he was sentenced to less than two years he is fully entitled to run in school board elections. Which is what he's currently doing. In fact, anyone who has served a prison sentence of less than two years can.

So, in light of Arps trying to get elected to the Te Aratai College board, there are calls today for the rules to be changed because they provide no safeguard at all against parents with extremist views ending up on school boards.

When I first heard about this I thought 'if they're the rules, let him stand, and if people don't like him they won't vote for him'.

But then I thought about the fact that while people might know who Philip Arps is, it doesn't mean they necessarily know every other ex-prisoner who might be trying to get themselves on to a school board.

Philip Arps has put his name forward to be one of five members on the Te Aratai College trust board. Photo / File

And so I definitely think the rules need to be changed because there will be some people who won't want ex-prisoners being anywhere near a school board.

But not all ex-prisoners are the same are they? And while Philip Arps went to prison for something that 99.99 per cent of us were appalled by, there are people who also go to prison for six months, 12 months, or 18 months whose crimes are completely different.

They could be for driving offences or dishonesty offences which, most of the time, aren't necessarily linked to extreme views.

And so there may be someone who did a short period of time inside who may be perfectly ready to make a contribution to their community and who shouldn't be prevented from doing that. That could even be Philip Arps.

So I think letting someone stand for school board elections if they've served a prison sentence of fewer than two years is going to be fine in most cases - but much more transparency is needed.

That's why I think that if there's going to be any change to the rules, it shouldn't be along the lines of banning ex-prisoners from school boards - but we should be requiring these people to be completely open and transparent from the outset about their past.

And I think the best way of doing that would be to require candidates to include their convictions in the blurb they write that goes out to the parents when it's time to do the voting.

So in this case with Philip Arps running for the Te Aratai College board, he would have to say that he was sentenced for doing what he did with the mosque shootings video.

And anyone else who'd been in prison for less than two years would do the same.

Example: My name's Joe Bloggs, I'd love it if you voted for me. I've done this, this and this; I've also served a six-month prison sentence for stealing $10,000 from my employer but that's in the past, I'm a different person now and I'm ready to do my bit for our great school.

This approach would achieve two things: it would let ex-prisoners move on with their lives but also ensure the parents doing the voting weren't surprised after the fact and find that they'd elected the last person they'd want to be a Board of Trustee member.

• John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch.