OPINION
Andrew Bydder
Trumped – To have been attacked by the left/woke/bureaucracy/deep state using a weaponised judicial system
I would not normally put myself in the same category as greats like Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Russell Brand or our heroic Kiwi doctors and nurses who are still being penalised for speaking out against mandates. However, like them, I have fought against corrupt institutions and been targeted for cancellation.
A year ago, I was elected to Hamilton City Council thanks to my reputation for challenging both local and central government on various issues in which I have expertise, such as Kiwibuild (I have been designing affordable houses for thirty years) and the Resource Management Act (I have written more than 100 resource consents for construction projects and it has been an incredible waste of time). There soon followed a series of media hit pieces, revealing that certain people in power were worried about me. The hits seemed to increase my popularity, so I wasn’t surprised when tactics changed and I got Trumped in December 2022.
The ludicrous charges against Donald Trump deserve a new word. Whether you like him or not, the prosecutions are not about winning the case, but rather to tie him up, drain his money with legal fees, and sully his reputation with allegations while he is gagged from defending himself. It is politically motivated.
I was served with a summons at my home, in front of my partner, for a breach of the Architects Act 1963. If you think this is a bizarre and obscure piece of legislation to use in a political attack, you would be right, not least because it was repealed in 2005! I know, because I helped to repeal it.
I lobbied for its replacement, the Registered Architects Act. Appearing in court, I was charged with an offence under section 7(2)(b) of the new Act. Having helped draft section 7, I was rather shocked at this. There is no 7(2)(b). Anyone can easily look this up with a Google search.
The Act is administered by the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB). I was there when the board was created. The disappointment started immediately when the previous volunteer organisation was replaced with the usual over-paid civil-servant chief executive with no architecture background. He promptly hired a team of six employees to maintain the register that University of Victoria Professor of Architecture, Allan Purdie, had done in his free time. The next action was to rent expensive central Wellington office space and commence a million-dollar fit-out.
This led to my first run-in with the chief executive when I was chairman of the Waikato branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. To pay for the corporate fantasy, the NZRAB tripled fees for graduates to sit registration exams. The obvious result was to put a lot of young architects off the profession.
The whole purpose of registration is to ensure that architects are competent, which is why I had lobbied so hard for the new Act. Shamefully, the Board promptly came up with a system where 80% of architects could simply pay a fee each year and be automatically registered as competent.
After three more run-ins, all related to council failures, I chose to quit architect registration in 2020. The Board was being used to punish architects who stood up for their clients.
It is rare for professions to have alternative systems of governance, so I took advantage of the Licensed Building Practitioners to become a licensed architectural designer instead. The LBP system has a superior two-yearly check of competence on 100% of members, with a much better training program in between. It was rather embarrassing for the NZRAB to lose a high-profile member to the opposition, and it put a target on my back.
The NZRAB alleged a legal breach during my election campaign, and they sent this claim to another candidate before contacting me.
This is now the subject of an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner. It is a truly astonishing breach, as the other candidate could have used it to sabotage my campaign. I assume this was the NZRAB’s intention but, to his credit, the candidate rang me instead.
I contacted the NZRAB with evidence that no offence existed, backed up with a decision by Justice Barber in 2011 that rebuffed their chief executive in a similar case. Not many architects keep close track of such cases.
Despite this, three months later, long after the election was over and the whole matter irrelevant, they spent a large sum of architects’ registration fees on lawyers in such a careless way.
The details of the breach, a category 1 offence (the lowest charge in the court system) is sub judice. This is frustrating because I have a solid defence – which is why I feel Trumped. I am not allowed to speak, yet we all know that the mere existence of a charge will be used to imply guilt, which is potentially damaging to me.
Turning up at court to get a date set to turn up at court (the Justice system also needs review), there was a reporter waiting for me. Another breach of privacy with a tip-off to embarrass a sitting councillor. Incredibly – or deliberately – she had been told the wrong charge, believing I was practising architecture without a licence. I promptly produced my government-issued LBP licence card and referred her to the Ministry’s website where she could search my details. No story eventuated.
It is not sub judice to state that the NZRAB has refused to answer Official Information Act queries. I can also say I sent them details of three other architects who had done exactly what I did, yet (as expected) no action was taken. They even put the reasons for their refusal in writing, which will add to my defence.
It is not for me to say what the outcome of the case should be – that needs to be left to the judge.
However, it needs to be said that in other cases, the growing trend of Trumping people must be stopped. The bureaucrats use other people’s money to pursue vendettas while getting paid for their time. When they lose it is the public purse that pays any damages or costs. They do it because they will get away with it. Maybe it is time to make the consequences as personal for the wrongdoers as it is for their victims.