Today we breathe a sigh of cautious relief. Our community has held together, backed the health professionals and each other, to isolate, quarantine and get through coronavirus management stage one quite safely. We don’t want a repeat, so congratulations, well done, stay the course.
With 2020’s CoViD-19 pandemic held at bay, for now at least, crisis may be easing. While ready to return to emergency status if needed, now we must also rebuild the broad social strength we had before disaster. We have been given pause to think. To absorb all the lessons of one tumultuous decade for Christchurch, Canterbury and New Zealand / Otautahi, Waitaha, Te Wai Pounamu me Te Ika a Maui: ‘Aotearoa’. Ensuring we have truth at all times in pursuing this.[1]
A mild mid-pandemic aftershock earthquake reminded us of the tectonic past and future for our locality; before this one, nationally significant, also. Fielding historic global plague disease, where we stayed at home to help halt virus spread, we might see that, on top of a shattering decade not quite gone, still worse is yet to come: AF8 (Alpine Fault magnitude 8+) national preparedness. Without delay we must resume urgent community preparedness for a scale of New Zealand emergency not yet witnessed. We have much experience to contribute to the essential work. This is hugely challenging; almost as much as the natural catastrophe ahead. The truth discomfits and shocks, almost matching the stupendous earthquake hazard here.
From 2011 to 2018, Cashmere community had earthquake preparedness actively underway, inspiring neighbouring suburbs through a healthy residents’ group developing a response plan. But we were then robbed: attacked, shattered and stolen from, as a community, for base material political reasons. Disgusting offence was rained upon a placid, inoffensive, genuine volunteering Cashmere community, trying to look after itself just a little.
A right-wing organisation attacked us and stalks our streets – a gangster group tracing back to 1930s origins and flavoured social-fascist in the ignorant, brutal and unsubtle methods of that period, having inherited a role of privilege from then.
Cashmere residents’ organisation – the Cashmere Residents’ Association re-founded in 1996 – has been robbed, gutted and destroyed by a criminal league between the New Zealand Labour Party periphery and involving the local presbyterian church. The residents’ preparedness, based at the church, was stolen from there and CRA finances taken over by a church representative , CRA non-member Leete. Twice the church was asked to run a holding account for the residents’ preparedness work and twice they refused, with ‘enough to do already of their own’ and not wanting responsibility here. So the CRA had to open its own account for this purpose, for CREST, and to seek funds to progress.[2] But as soon as the CRA successfully applied for some Christchurch Red Cross funds being distributed by ACTIS, for its basic good work, new church minister Purdie tried to steal it: wanting to splurge on an extravaganza lunch at the church ‘fit for [Labour] dignitaries’ instead of the basic community barbeque that has support. Frustrated, Purdie attacked and easily helped destroy CRA residents’ autonomy – as part of Labour local dictate. These politicians then gave over rate monies, to be feted with the proposed splurge later.[3] Purdie has since been sent down the road, by the congregation, for reading private feedback comments elicited by the church clerks. An external hire, with no experience of the Canterbury earthquakes but wanting to profit from them, the Purdie fit was non-existent.
Church elder Troughton has acted to cover up for the minister, pretend nothing has happened and that the CRA CREST plan goes on without CRA. This abject fraud, for extending the local Labour hegemony, was to attract rate-payer funds directly to the church and away from residents. Councillor and community board member Clearwater siphoned city council funds – against city council staff advice – to his wife to spend at the church, on the now falsified and off-course CREST community plan. CREST had been suspended immediately the presbyterian church began its robbery attacks upon Cashmere Residents’ Association (done to service extended Labour hegemony, for the first time since the suburb was brought under city administration since the local government reforms of 1989 – it had always been part of Heathcote County Council before that time).
A party of lawyers, preachers, academics and journalists, Labour went completely off-course when elected to government in 1984: “it was easily seduced and flattered by big business support. … the Labour Party’s old trade union base was largely ignored but kept modestly quiescent… Treasury, the Treasury Ministers and big business colluded to restructure much of the economy on the basis of a thoroughgoing neo-classical ideology misleadingly called Rogernomics. … corporatisation of state trading entities … in 1987 … the vote was well up in the wealthier suburbs and well down in the old heartland … [making] New Zealand … more socially divided, with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, an inadequate consensus around social goals.” – The 1st Term of the 4th Labour Government, Michael Cullen speech, 30 April 2004.
More of the Labour-aligned criminality was seen within the Cashmere Residents’ Association itself. Long-servers Murahidy and Roden, in partnership asserted a level of ‘ownership’ over CRA committee doings – these had waxed and waned through the last two decades, under their involvement more or less, never progressing. Theirs was total editorial control over the CRA newsletter, which ultimately they treated as control over the CRA committee – without having to take on its other major and formal obligations. Murahidy hosted Labour signage on her front fence at election times and gave unprincipled column space to the party’s local interests, in a preference deal. For example Mautner, for the Labour-owned community board, claimed lead of a river water quality improvement group, strategically – once the issue had been popularised loudly by the regional left. Despite Cashmere being a major contributing catchment it was actively refused entry alongside all other neighbourhoods along the river (where Labour held sway), yet Murahidy provided free publicity of annual events. The outright corruption did not end there.
Benefits for Murahidy, and thus Roden, from doing Labour dirty work included stocking the wine-rack and meat freezer with goods donated for CRA purposes, once enough of the purpose had been duly served. So they defended their CRA newsletter monopoly by stealing the emergency drill release of February 2018 – as funded by the Red Cross and belonging to the Cashmere residents, not to them! As Labour support, Murahidy has made fools – of both the police and the district court, by lying the way through these events, denying the event permit CRA had existed when as evidence it does – and also of Roden, for being the one left to the perjure at court. Justice must follow, eventually. Part of the deceit was claiming event preparedness was in parts insufficient, when it had been their offered promise that the parts would be! Dishonest sabotage eroded but could not stop Cashmere’s CREST exercise of February 2018, nor these very long but essential lessons drawn since.
The same reason there was no community preparedness before earthquakes shattered Christchurch is the same reason preparedness currently cannot be built after them – Labour party fracturing and exploitation of communities; their primary method is to instil apparent dependence upon them, by any means necessary. Their actions have never been this well-documented, for balancing them towards community safety.
The cover-up of the Labour-presbyterian crime against Cashmere extended beyond the church circle documented above, to involve city council parties – deeply.
When residents petitioned to recover their torpedoed Association mid-2018, these few were surgically drawn aside and utterly, destructively inveigled and robbed – leaving the rest of the community outside, uninformed and unrepresented.
Former CRA chair and council staff officer Blatchford proposed three trustees take power over CRA affairs – the aforementioned presbyterian Leete, along with Tait and Morrell. Democratic process eludes the trio to this day, at the 2019 CRA AGM most recently, leaving them unelected Labour dictator plants over Cashmere neighbourhood; and robbers too, in that they proposed squandering residents’ funds to disperse them – in another feting party, of course! This proposal would divert a good measure of the CRA reserves to the in-house Labour/city appointees running the loss-making Sign of the Takahe venue, ‘to hire the venue grounds’ etc. Only Covid-19 lockdown could stop this outrageous scam of 22 March 2020.
Tait is an associate of Blatchford, who worked with Richardson to feed her $12,939 as consultant for updating CRA for the digital era based around survey mandate in 2009.[4] Both then walked away, into good council jobs – Richardson to the mayor’s office – but the CRA got over this stall and managed healthy, steady growth and momentum through community earthquake recovery response 2011-17, which is what the 2018-19 robbery has largely and criminally seized back. Richardson has gone on to greater scandal, incidentally.[5]
Morrell is a former 2021 Labour local campaign colleague of Clearwater, so is not an impartial, reliable or respectable actor in this situation. Residential politics must be neutral and apolitical to be inclusive and representative. Instead, this lot have plainly robbed all their neighbours of independent advocacy right.
In 2015, Richardson – on behalf of the city council – oversaw falsification of an official record. A minor matter, but enough to confirm Labour’s corrupting influence upon Christchurch 100%. The issue was a seconder for a motion at community board, that the Labour representative (Potter) wanted changed to give this minuscule ‘credit’ to another Labour rep – it was their motion after all, but this isn’t what happened when the recommended motion had been passed. So the board, under McMahon at the time, falsified their minutes to produce the record that they wanted – 100% credit – with Richardson’s support. A corrupted CCC top to bottom? At least it is the major influence there, to this day. An overt hazard to the public at large, through misplaced values and actions.
The Labour corruption rot does not stop at the Christchurch City Council. Here we find a 2019 new candidate for ECan defrauding voters, by openly stealing a competing brand – that which had upset Labour incumbents in Christchurch for overt conflict of interest around irrigation water development in 2007 – SaveOurWater.org.nz.
. The theft was committed over the Labour campaign authorisation of Jake McLellan, an incoming city councillor (through highly suspicious attack on incumbent Dion Swiggs where cooption of naiive and ambitious youth and their organisations, to any purpose, is hallmark Labour subterfuge organising). Evidence of the Labour ‘Save Our Water’ brand theft is seen in a competing billboard on display in Christchurch at the same time: 
Hughey’s theft (for Labour campaign traction) was a repeat of Lownde’s in 2016, where election rules explicitly prohibit campaigning using the target council’s logo (ECan’s at top left here): 
Although formal complaint to electioNZ.com returning officer Morton goes precisely nowhere, indicating how deeply the New Zealand state is wedded to social-fascist criminality and unreliability as a functioning norm.
Egregious and corrupt governance error has been made, in relation to:
“There is no simple cookie cutter solution when it comes to emergency management and response planning. Every scenario is different and every business is different.. But looking after your people is key“ – Emergency response plans need to put people over profit, Crombie Lockwood, Nov 2019. Our community has been abusively weakened, when re Coronavirus: We need a new vision, based on co-operation not competition, The Press, Apr 2020.
Typical aggressive pettiness failing to reduce a Labour opponent was seen in
Two Dunedin MPs, McDonald’s and a sizzling Twitter beef 14 Feb 2020
Example of the worse-than-hopeless presbyterian clerical link with Labour was seen in the mishaps of David Clark MP, one-time Minister of Health during CoViD-19 pandemic crisis.
Was more Labour ‘insider trading’ at play here, when Police called to calm tensions at Christchurch refugee event, 20 Jul 2020? …
… See facebook.com/CommunityVoice.NZ/post 7 Aug 2020.
[1] ‘Aotearoa’ is a nineteenth-century colonial construct, for a nation that was formerly firmly divided along iwi rohe / tribal boundary lines and with separate north and south island names.
[2] CREST was the Cashmere Residents Emergency Support Team.
[3] Not Wanted: Cashmere frauds – NZLabour Christchurch CREST, blog post, Nov 2018
[4] OUR project 2007-2009 Cashmere Residents’ Association website
[5] Top council staff ‘manipulated’ reports to hide bad news from councillors and public, Stuff, 14 Nov 2019 + Secrets and lies: Will the public ever know what Christchurch City Council was hiding?, 23 Nov 2019.
[6] Boundary changes put 62,000 people in new electorates across the South Island
[DRAFT #2 – more editing to be done.]
CREST 