greater involvement of the membership<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
A sacking – and an injunction<\/p>\n
This bitter battle in the union executive began in May 2024.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went through some turbulent times as a result of those two deaths\u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Four of those people are then selected for office-holder slots – president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer.<\/p>\n
Back in early 2024, Jenner and Al-Bustanji had been raising their concerns about the direction of CANZ, its spending and governance.<\/p>\n
It led to complaints about the pair, resulting in the scheduling of a two-day disciplinary process to hear claims against them.<\/p>\n
Jenner and Al-Bustanji, together, sought an injunction in the Employment Court where they argued the process breached CANZ\u2019s rules, natural justice and the union\u2019s duty of good faith.<\/p>\n
![\"Corrections]()
Corrections staff at Rimutaka Prison voted Glen Jenner onto the prison executive. Photo \/ Ross Setford<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Her judgment, which said it was the first case of its kind, found \u201cthere is a real contest between the parties and that there is a reasonable chance (Jenner and Al-Bustanji) will be successful in that contest\u201d.<\/p>\n
Skip forward to June 2025. With that sitting in the background, Jenner stands for vice-president role in June 2025.<\/p>\n
In his candidate statement, he told members: \u201cI hear and agree with many of you that change in our union is overdue and positive change will be my focus. I\u2019m concerned about our union\u2019s current direction, spending, bargaining approaches, and priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
As one judgment said, Jenner sought a car \u201cas he normally uses a bicycle but would need different arrangements for travel between prisons\u201d. In the past, the position has – at times – come with a secondment allowing the elected senior office holder to focus on union issues.<\/p>\n
From Jenner\u2019s perspective, the tools he needed to do the job he intended weren\u2019t forthcoming – and neither was the secondment.<\/p>\n
It was on this basis Jenner told du Plessis he couldn\u2019t fulfil the role of vice-president while working fulltime on the prison floor.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It was during this period du Plessis told Jenner \u201congoing legal proceedings\u201d and \u201cother matters\u201d meant future communication would need to be either via email or in person with a witness present.<\/p>\n
That included fresh complaints about Jenner\u2019s electioneering with those perceiving his call for \u201cchange in our union\u201d as a criticism of previous efforts.<\/p>\n
On July 26, du Plessis wrote again to tell Jenner the executive was considering if there was \u201cjust cause\u201d to remove him from the role. The notice cited issues arising \u201cduring the election\u201d and from \u201cearlier actions\u201d.<\/p>\n
They were claims that Jenner\u2019s lawyer, former Crown minister Andrew Little, described in court as \u201ca hotch-potch of accumulated grievances\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201crespectable chance of success\u201d in his wider challenge to the process.<\/p>\n
![\"Employment]()
Employment Court judge Kathryn Beck. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Beck\u2019s 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 \u201cunsustainable\u201d. She also warned the approach risked allowing union leadership to oust \u201clegitimate opponents, despite fair and free elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
Faced with a clear injunction against dropping Jenner, CANZ held a meeting just one day later and attempted to do just that.<\/p>\n
Jenner, it said, could call himself \u201cvice-president\u201d but that would be a hollow title.<\/p>\n
In an email to Jenner, CANZ told him he was banned from doing the job until the litigation was over.<\/p>\n
And so it was back to court.<\/p>\n
Strike four for CANZ<\/p>\n
The judgment was needed by early November when CANZ was holding its annual meeting.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In minutes signed by du Plessis, union members were told the court had issued only \u201cminor decisions on procedural matters\u201d. Jenner and Al-Bustanji see the outcomes very differently.<\/p>\n
Just days later, the latest Employment Court decision would be difficult to label as \u201cminor\u201d – and it was another loss to CANZ.<\/p>\n
This time, Judge Beck ruled the union\u2019s actions on August 7 – a day after she had issued the injunction protecting Jenner – were unlawful.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cunsustainable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Now, she told CANZ its action breached the Court\u2019s earlier order by effectively stripping him of his powers as vice-president, and an email in which Jenner was told he was \u201cprohibited\u201d from carrying out the role.<\/p>\n
![\"Each]()
Each prison site elects a delegate who sits on the executive of the Corrections Association of NZ. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
Beck said CANZ was trying to achieve the same end by different means and, in doing so, had breached the August injunction.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She also pointed out unions are held to higher legal obligations. She said CANZ was in an \u201cemployment relationship\u201d with its members and was bound to statutory duties of good faith, represent workers\u2019 interests, and are in an \u201cemployment relationship\u201d with their members.<\/p>\n
As Beck explained, this was why CANZ\u2019s internal disciplinary and removal processes faced stricter \u201cnatural justice\u201d scrutiny.<\/p>\n
For Jenner, it was quite simple. He had been elected as vice-president by the union\u2019s members and those members had an expectation he would do the job they had elected him to do.<\/p>\n
Instead, the \u201ca hotch-potch of accumulated grievances\u201d described by Little led straight to a vote that would upset that democratic process.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd their proposal was to\u2026 have a disciplinary hearing\u2026 to either just remove us from the executive, or even remove us totally from the union,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 democratic choices.<\/p>\n
Beck\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
If there was to be a removal process, it required \u201cjust cause\u201d, an investigation, and decision-makers free from bias. None of those safeguards were present.<\/p>\n
Jenner speaks of the anxiety and stress involved: \u201cOur personalities have changed through this process. It\u2019s stressful and I don\u2019t need it at my age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Du Plessis, the union president, doesn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For Jenner and Al-Bustanji, the November judgment was another vindication. For CANZ, it was another defeat. And for the union\u2019s members – the Corrections officers whose fees funded CANZ\u2019s legal bills – it raises the question: what exactly was its leadership fighting for?<\/p>\n
CANZ actions \u2018unlawful\u2019 – judge<\/p>\n
Jenner and Al-Bustanji spoke to the Herald because they said they wanted union members to know what was going on.<\/p>\n
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: \u201cNo, we are not going to go into the details\u201d.<\/p>\n
He went on: \u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Du Plessis told the Herald: \u201cIt\u2019s a relatively straight-forward situation. There were allegations of wrong-doing that were raised against Glen and Aladdin.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlen and Aladdin publicly raised concerns about the leadership of the union, how we were conducting bargaining and that we weren\u2019t doing that well.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, du Plessis says: \u201cBeing critical of the actions of the union is a good thing. If members have issues then they should raise them\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the receipt of complaints – such as the one about Jenner\u2019s campaigning in 2025 – triggered the union\u2019s process, he said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t stop it as president, nor could other executive members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the adverse findings in the judgment, du Plessis said: \u201cIt is not that we didn\u2019t follow the rules\u201d. Rather, he said, the judge found areas where the rules could be better.<\/p>\n
Strictly speaking, it\u2019s correct to say CANZ didn\u2019t break its rules. Judge Beck said – in relation to the May 2024 judgment involving Jenner and Al-Bustanji – if the \u201cdisciplinary process was to proceed, there is a real risk it could result in a breach of the (CANZ) Rules\u201d, good faith and natural justice.<\/p>\n
And in the August judgment on the Jenner case, Beck said there was a \u201creal contest\u201d over whether through trying to remove him from the vice-president role that \u201cCANZ is in breach of its obligation to have democratic rules\u201d and could be \u201cin breach of its own rules in relation to dispute resolution\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jenner\u2019s injunction, and the court\u2019s intervention, meant CANZ had not yet progressed to the point where it actually could break its rules.<\/p>\n
Beck also found CANZ was \u201cwrong in law\u201d to attempt to remove Jenner because of his legal action against the union and for its reasoning on what constituted \u201cjust cause\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked how much defending the cases had cost CANZ, du Plessis said: \u201cThe costs themselves are something that isn\u2019t publicly available.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
![\""Our]()
“Our members have hard jobs” – CANZ executive member Aladdin Al-Bustanji. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis: \u201cThere was a decision made a number of years back not to do electronic copies\u201d.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis rejected Jenner\u2019s criticism that he had been constrained from doing the job he was elected to do. \u201cThere\u2019s no restrictions placed on him. Glen has chosen not to be involved. At the most recent discussion, Glen didn\u2019t want to have any portfolios and work.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The complaints against Jenner and Al-Bustanji have yet to be heard. Du Plessis won\u2019t get into the detail: \u201cWe haven\u2019t gone out and disclosed the allegations and the details to the members. Glen and Alladin have told us not to\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil that happens, we can\u2019t be seen to go into the detail,\u201d du Plessis said.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
Those include following \u201crequirements of natural justice\u201d, properly defining \u201cjust cause\u201d and whether the complaints met that level, giving Jenner a \u201cfull and fair opportunity to be heard\u201d, and excluding biased decision-makers.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She had heard evidence du Plessis had \u201cused strong language\u201d in conversations with both men – they called it \u201coffensive\u201d and \u201can attempt to intimidate them\u201d – and that internal correspondence among CANZ officers including du Plessis \u201chas a negative tone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked why CANZ hadn\u2019t kept members informed, du Plessis said the lack of communications was not to hide the legal spat. \u201cWe purposely kept it out of the public view. We have tried to protect the reputation of Glen and Aladdin going through this.\u201d Jenner and Al-Bustanji dispute this – they say they want members briefed.<\/p>\n
The day after the Herald interviewed du Plessis, he provided CANZ members with their first full briefing.<\/p>\n
In it, he said the Employment Court had issued only preliminary procedural decisions, that no specific breaches of CANZ\u2019s Rules had been identified, and that the legal cases had stopped the executive from addressing allegations against the two men.<\/p>\n
But there was no reference to the issues identified by Beck in her judgments – the \u201creal risk\u201d CANZ would breach its own rules if it continued, concerns over natural justice and good-faith obligations.<\/p>\n
Beck\u2019s finding of the \u201cnegative tone\u201d toward the applicants also wasn\u2019t raised, or concerns over bias, or that CANZ\u2019s August 7 attempt to sideline Jenner was in breach of a Court order.<\/p>\n
The concerns around a fair hearing, Beck said, included du Plessis who had forwarded an email from Al-Bustanji, commenting: \u201cFYI, there is no point he wants any excuse to complain.\u201d There was also evidence du Plessis had taken material from CANZ servers and circulated it as part of the complaint process.<\/p>\n
He told the Herald: \u201cI\u2019m not party to the deliberations or the vote. I\u2019ve got no involvement in it\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In what appears a rare moment of unity between legal combatants, Jenner and Al-Bustanji say the same.<\/p>\n
Jenner: \u201cAre they doing a good job? They\u2019re doing a job. Could it be done better? Absolutely\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exactly what the complaints are is unclear – they have been described as \u201ca hotch-potch of accumulated grievances\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,25207,1349,95583,1122,3938,6130,528,15124,5830,221,10118,26662,5268,4754,111,43,139,69,23421,4989,15400,30619,7812,17509,1361,223,165,61,6382,28355,1237,4483,26756],"class_list":["post-181548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-and","tag-corrections","tag-court","tag-drawnout","tag-employment","tag-executive","tag-failing","tag-far","tag-fight","tag-fought","tag-how","tag-internal","tag-itself","tag-lose","tag-members","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officers","tag-organisation","tag-push","tag-repeatedly","tag-seen","tag-so","tag-that","tag-the","tag-their","tag-to","tag-took","tag-trying","tag-two","tag-union","tag-won"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}