Exactly what the complaints are is unclear – they have been described as “a hotch-potch of accumulated grievances” – but involve Jenner and Al-Bustanji’s criticism of bargaining, financial management and overall management of the union.
Corrections officers and executive members of the Corrections Association of New Zealand, Aladdin Al-Bustanji and Glen Jenner who are locked in a legal battle with their fellow executive union members. Photo / Supplied
CANZ is not saying how much money it has spent on defending itself. CANZ president Floyd du Plessis did not question sums of $400,000 and above put to him by the Herald.
Of those judgments, four have gone against CANZ. A further judgment is due from the Court of Appeal and another Employment Court hearing is scheduled for next year.
None of the court decisions so far determine whether the complaints against Jenner and Al-Bustanji are true. One decision has found the union has behaved unlawfully. Others have predicted it has a hard argument to make to win its case.
While du Plessis told the Herald there had been a deliberate decision to keep the stoush out of public view, information provided to executive members at a recent annual meeting have led Jenner and Al-Bustanji to speak out.
In minutes of the meeting, held in Dunedin on November 4, the executive were asked if any rulings had gone against it.
The answer recorded in the minutes, signed by du Plessis and national secretary Paul Dennehy, said there had been “three preliminary decisions” and “some minor decisions on procedural matters”.
“One of those resulted in a costs decision against two of the members by the court. There have not been any final judgments or outcomes of the court regarding the substance of the claims.”
The answer overlooked the five judgments issued on the matter of which four had gone against CANZ. Of the five judgments, only one went against Jenner with a minor costs award to CANZ of $5000. Even then, it was a loss for Jenner who was late filing documents rather than a win for CANZ.
Aladdin Al-Bustanji and Glen Jenner – both on the Corrections Association of NZ and both involved in legal action against it. New Zealand Herald composite photo
At the meeting, members asked about the cost and were told: “All of these matters have involved significant legal costs as CANZ is required to defend them. Due to the cases still being ongoing, these costs are not able to be disclosed.”
Jenner and Al-Bustanji say they have spent more than a year’s wages each on the court battles. They told the Herald the cost sits around $200,000.
But they say they will not quit.
Jenner asks: “If this is how much we’re spending, how much of the membership subsidies and fees is being spent by the union? I mean, they hire King’s Counsel and they definitely pay more than us.”
Corrections Association of NZ president Floyd du Plessis. Photo / Supplied
Jenner said the pair were determined to dig in, saying they wanted greater transparency and greater involvement of the membership.
“This is our passion. This is what motivates us, the members. Our members do a hard job, especially in the tough present. They have a hard job, they have a very challenging job, they deserve better.”
A sacking – and an injunction
This bitter battle in the union executive began in May 2024.
Jenner and fellow Corrections officer Al-Bustanji were at the time the union reps for their respective prisons, Rimutaka (Wellington) Regional Prison and Tongariro Regional Prison.
Jenner was also with wife Mandy in grieving the loss of two sons at the ages of 29 and 36, one with aortic dissection and the other with a brain haemorrhage.
“We went through some turbulent times as a result of those two deaths… but I buried myself in union work. I felt that the union could be progressing in a different way than it is at the moment. It can be doing better for its members.”
Voted in by union members at their prisons, Jenner (26 years working in prisons) and Al-Bustanji (seven years working in prisons) were members of a national executive made up of delegates from other prisons across the country.
Four of those people are then selected for office-holder slots – president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer.
Back in early 2024, Jenner and Al-Bustanji had been raising their concerns about the direction of CANZ, its spending and governance.
It led to complaints about the pair, resulting in the scheduling of a two-day disciplinary process to hear claims against them.
Jenner and Al-Bustanji, together, sought an injunction in the Employment Court where they argued the process breached CANZ’s rules, natural justice and the union’s duty of good faith.
Corrections staff at Rimutaka Prison voted Glen Jenner onto the prison executive. Photo / Ross Setford
The full case is yet to be heard – it needs to cycle through the Court of Appeal first – but in early hearings Judge Kathryn Beck granted the injunction to stop the disciplinary hearing.
Her judgment, which said it was the first case of its kind, found “there is a real contest between the parties and that there is a reasonable chance (Jenner and Al-Bustanji) will be successful in that contest”.
Skip forward to June 2025. With that sitting in the background, Jenner stands for vice-president role in June 2025.
In his candidate statement, he told members: “I hear and agree with many of you that change in our union is overdue and positive change will be my focus. I’m concerned about our union’s current direction, spending, bargaining approaches, and priorities.”
On June 27, Jenner was voted in as vice-president. Over the next month, he sought the resources made available to former senior office-holders – a secondment to focus on union work, a mobile phone, laptop, credit card and vehicle.
As one judgment said, Jenner sought a car “as he normally uses a bicycle but would need different arrangements for travel between prisons”. In the past, the position has – at times – come with a secondment allowing the elected senior office holder to focus on union issues.
From Jenner’s perspective, the tools he needed to do the job he intended weren’t forthcoming – and neither was the secondment.
It was on this basis Jenner told du Plessis he couldn’t fulfil the role of vice-president while working fulltime on the prison floor.
A month of tense emails and letters between the pair sit in contrast to the evidence of how necessary it was for the president and vice-president to work closely and well together.
It was during this period du Plessis told Jenner “ongoing legal proceedings” and “other matters” meant future communication would need to be either via email or in person with a witness present.
That included fresh complaints about Jenner’s electioneering with those perceiving his call for “change in our union” as a criticism of previous efforts.
On July 26, du Plessis wrote again to tell Jenner the executive was considering if there was “just cause” to remove him from the role. The notice cited issues arising “during the election” and from “earlier actions”.
They were claims that Jenner’s lawyer, former Crown minister Andrew Little, described in court as “a hotch-potch of accumulated grievances”.
Faced again with being sacked from his role, Jenner went back to court and – on August 6 – won an interim injunction stopping CANZ from removing him.
At that hearing, CANZ learned it faced a serious head wind if it hoped to succeed. Judge Beck reviewed the evidence submitted and forecast that Jenner had a “respectable chance of success” in his wider challenge to the process.
Employment Court judge Kathryn Beck. Photo / Supplied
Beck’s judgment stopped CANZ from dropping Jenner from his role, saying its argument that it could do so because he was involved in suing the union was “unsustainable”. She also warned the approach risked allowing union leadership to oust “legitimate opponents, despite fair and free elections”.
Faced with a clear injunction against dropping Jenner, CANZ held a meeting just one day later and attempted to do just that.
Jenner, it said, could call himself “vice-president” but that would be a hollow title.
In an email to Jenner, CANZ told him he was banned from doing the job until the litigation was over.
And so it was back to court.
Strike four for CANZ
The judgment was needed by early November when CANZ was holding its annual meeting.
While the arguments had been made in a hearing across September 30 and October 1, weeks later CANZ made an unsuccessful last-minute bid to reopen its arguments.
It failed. Judge Beck said CANZ lawyers had already been given a full opportunity to make their arguments. Strike four for CANZ. Jenner, in that hearing, raised concerns about the rising costs.
The CANZ annual meeting went ahead in early November without the benefit of the awaited judgment. Questions at the meeting showed how little members knew about what had transpired.
In minutes signed by du Plessis, union members were told the court had issued only “minor decisions on procedural matters”. Jenner and Al-Bustanji see the outcomes very differently.
Just days later, the latest Employment Court decision would be difficult to label as “minor” – and it was another loss to CANZ.
This time, Judge Beck ruled the union’s actions on August 7 – a day after she had issued the injunction protecting Jenner – were unlawful.
Beck had been explicit that Jenner could not be suspended, sidelined or removed while the legality of the process was still being argued. And she had warned the union its justification for removing Jenner was “unsustainable”.
Now, she told CANZ its action breached the Court’s earlier order by effectively stripping him of his powers as vice-president, and an email in which Jenner was told he was “prohibited” from carrying out the role.
Each prison site elects a delegate who sits on the executive of the Corrections Association of NZ. Photo / File
Beck said CANZ was trying to achieve the same end by different means and, in doing so, had breached the August injunction.
This was the third court action in which the union had been blocked from taking action against one of its own elected officials. In this judgment, Beck voiced clear concerns about how the executive was exercising its powers.
She also pointed out unions are held to higher legal obligations. She said CANZ was in an “employment relationship” with its members and was bound to statutory duties of good faith, represent workers’ interests, and are in an “employment relationship” with their members.
As Beck explained, this was why CANZ’s internal disciplinary and removal processes faced stricter “natural justice” scrutiny.
For Jenner, it was quite simple. He had been elected as vice-president by the union’s members and those members had an expectation he would do the job they had elected him to do.
Instead, the “a hotch-potch of accumulated grievances” described by Little led straight to a vote that would upset that democratic process.
“And their proposal was to… have a disciplinary hearing… to either just remove us from the executive, or even remove us totally from the union,” he said.
It was this that led him to calling a lawyer – there appeared nothing that stopped the executive from driving a process he believed overturned members’ democratic choices.
Beck’s November judgment highlighted the actual process CANZ needed to follow. The constitution had detailed steps to resolve disputes including independent assessments, procedural protections, and natural-justice obligations. Beck found these were not followed.
If there was to be a removal process, it required “just cause”, an investigation, and decision-makers free from bias. None of those safeguards were present.
Jenner speaks of the anxiety and stress involved: “Our personalities have changed through this process. It’s stressful and I don’t need it at my age.”
Du Plessis, the union president, doesn’t see it that way.
And still, the underlying dispute remained unresolved. Both sets of proceedings – the 2024 case involving Jenner and Al-Bustanji and the 2025 vice-president case involving Jenner alone – continued to move through the court system.
For Jenner and Al-Bustanji, the November judgment was another vindication. For CANZ, it was another defeat. And for the union’s members – the Corrections officers whose fees funded CANZ’s legal bills – it raises the question: what exactly was its leadership fighting for?
CANZ actions ‘unlawful’ – judge
Jenner and Al-Bustanji spoke to the Herald because they said they wanted union members to know what was going on.
They tried at the annual meeting last month. The minutes record both men attempting to get their version of events across to members. First Al-Bustanji and then Jenner before du Plessis intervened, saying: “No, we are not going to go into the details”.
He went on: “The reality is that the court case very clearly states the applicants brought the case against the union. It is not the union. We had no option but to defend ourselves.
“There have been options put forward by us to resolve this, unfortunately not successfully. The executives are the ones who make the determination of what goes forward and what gets accepted. And the executive have fully endorsed where we are at and the direction we are currently following.”
Du Plessis told the Herald: “It’s a relatively straight-forward situation. There were allegations of wrong-doing that were raised against Glen and Aladdin.
“Glen and Aladdin publicly raised concerns about the leadership of the union, how we were conducting bargaining and that we weren’t doing that well.”
For his part, du Plessis says: “Being critical of the actions of the union is a good thing. If members have issues then they should raise them”.
But the receipt of complaints – such as the one about Jenner’s campaigning in 2025 – triggered the union’s process, he said.
Du Plessis said there was no way around the process which could be put in train by anyone on the executive. He said he couldn’t stop it as president, nor could other executive members.
“They had their opportunity to front that and put their positions forward. Glen and Alladin put through the injunction to permanently stop the process from happening and answering to these allegations.”
On the adverse findings in the judgment, du Plessis said: “It is not that we didn’t follow the rules”. Rather, he said, the judge found areas where the rules could be better.
Strictly speaking, it’s correct to say CANZ didn’t break its rules. Judge Beck said – in relation to the May 2024 judgment involving Jenner and Al-Bustanji – if the “disciplinary process was to proceed, there is a real risk it could result in a breach of the (CANZ) Rules”, good faith and natural justice.
And in the August judgment on the Jenner case, Beck said there was a “real contest” over whether through trying to remove him from the vice-president role that “CANZ is in breach of its obligation to have democratic rules” and could be “in breach of its own rules in relation to dispute resolution”.
Jenner’s injunction, and the court’s intervention, meant CANZ had not yet progressed to the point where it actually could break its rules.
Beck also found CANZ was “wrong in law” to attempt to remove Jenner because of his legal action against the union and for its reasoning on what constituted “just cause”.
Asked how much defending the cases had cost CANZ, du Plessis said: “The costs themselves are something that isn’t publicly available.” He said hard copy versions of accounts were held by all executive members which meant any member of CANZ could visit their delegate to see financial details.
“Our members have hard jobs” – CANZ executive member Aladdin Al-Bustanji. Photo / File
It’s a point Jenner and Al-Bustanji dispute because of the hectic work rate inside prisons and the requirement the accounts are studied there without being taken away.
Du Plessis: “There was a decision made a number of years back not to do electronic copies”.
Du Plessis rejected Jenner’s criticism that he had been constrained from doing the job he was elected to do. “There’s no restrictions placed on him. Glen has chosen not to be involved. At the most recent discussion, Glen didn’t want to have any portfolios and work.”
Jenner, in contrast, told the Herald he very much wants to work, visit prisons and meet with prison staff. Instead, he said he was assigned a minimal job list intended to keep him out of the way.
The complaints against Jenner and Al-Bustanji have yet to be heard. Du Plessis won’t get into the detail: “We haven’t gone out and disclosed the allegations and the details to the members. Glen and Alladin have told us not to”.
The executive also do not know the detail of the allegations, he said, and would not until the process to remove Jenner and Al-Bustanji completed.
“Until that happens, we can’t be seen to go into the detail,” du Plessis said.
When that happens, Judge Beck has given CANZ strict guardrails to guide the process if it is intent on removing Jenner (with the separate lawsuit involving Jenner and Al-Bustanji not being heard until next year).
Those include following “requirements of natural justice”, properly defining “just cause” and whether the complaints met that level, giving Jenner a “full and fair opportunity to be heard”, and excluding biased decision-makers.
On that, Beck ruled out du Plessis, another executive member and the two complainants. On du Plessis, Beck found he was too personally embroiled in the dispute in a way that risked neutrality.
She had heard evidence du Plessis had “used strong language” in conversations with both men – they called it “offensive” and “an attempt to intimidate them” – and that internal correspondence among CANZ officers including du Plessis “has a negative tone”.
Asked why CANZ hadn’t kept members informed, du Plessis said the lack of communications was not to hide the legal spat. “We purposely kept it out of the public view. We have tried to protect the reputation of Glen and Aladdin going through this.” Jenner and Al-Bustanji dispute this – they say they want members briefed.
The day after the Herald interviewed du Plessis, he provided CANZ members with their first full briefing.
In it, he said the Employment Court had issued only preliminary procedural decisions, that no specific breaches of CANZ’s Rules had been identified, and that the legal cases had stopped the executive from addressing allegations against the two men.
But there was no reference to the issues identified by Beck in her judgments – the “real risk” CANZ would breach its own rules if it continued, concerns over natural justice and good-faith obligations.
Beck’s finding of the “negative tone” toward the applicants also wasn’t raised, or concerns over bias, or that CANZ’s August 7 attempt to sideline Jenner was in breach of a Court order.
The concerns around a fair hearing, Beck said, included du Plessis who had forwarded an email from Al-Bustanji, commenting: “FYI, there is no point he wants any excuse to complain.” There was also evidence du Plessis had taken material from CANZ servers and circulated it as part of the complaint process.
He told the Herald: “I’m not party to the deliberations or the vote. I’ve got no involvement in it”.
Union members should not be concerned, he said. The union had not sought a court battle and continued to provide good service to its members.
In what appears a rare moment of unity between legal combatants, Jenner and Al-Bustanji say the same.
Jenner: “Are they doing a good job? They’re doing a job. Could it be done better? Absolutely”
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He first joined the Herald in 2004.
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