• The Employment Relations Authority awarded $5000 and six weeks pay to a worker who was fired for taking sick leave to go fishing.

The authority found Mr McNeill’s conduct amounted to a misleading and/or fraudulent misuse of his sick leave. However, Solid Energy did not follow the correct procedures in dismissing him, something a “fair and reasonable employer” would do.

The authority said Mr McNeill seemed “almost to see it as an imposition to be required to attend work if it did not suit him” and believed he had done nothing wrong.

If you think work is an imposition, you should WANT to be fired.  More to the point, what kind of sick and evil system would describe someone as “misleading and/or fraudulent” and then reward them $5000 plus six weeks of undeserved pay because his employers didn’t “follow correct procedure”?  If you can’t fire someone on the spot for being “misleading and/or fraudulent”, what can you fire them for?

• A NZ Post employee sent 30+ unwelcome text messages to a girl after copying her number from a parcel. The Police won’t give issue a restraining order because the victim doesn’t know his last name. NZ Post won’t give out his last name because of “privacy reasons.”

NZ Post spokeswoman Fiona Mayo said it had to consider “the privacy of the complainant and the privacy of our employee” and would only give over the surname to the police.

Asked how Miss Connell could be sure the man would not invade her privacy again, Ms Mayo told the Weekend Herald he had been “apologetic and contrite” during discussions with NZ Post and had assured it no further contact would be made.

Privacy for the criminal, none for the victim, then.

• Fishermen have been fined after using Ministry-approved rulers – apparently printed incorrectly – to measure fish, which turned out to be undersize.

Now, embarrassed officials have admitted that some of the Ministry of Fisheries printed stick-on rulers, embossed with the slogan, “Size Does Count” are faulty…

Northland charter skipper Captain Bucko (who does not want to reveal his real name) said he was “shocked and disappointed” after being fined $250 for keeping two undersized kingfish even though he “studiously” measured his clients’ catch against rulers provided by the ministry and found them to be of legal size.

However, when checked by local honorary ranger Harry Mahanga, the fish – which appeared to have been 5mm and 15mm above the required 75cm minimum size – were found to be 5mm and 15mm under.

Harry Mahanga is an asshole.  Apart from the incompetence of printing incorrect OFFICIAL rulers, it seems that the smaller the stakes get, the pettier the bureaucrats become.

How bad can bureaucracy get before people realise that we need less government and more freedom?

Posted by Luke H on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 3:49 am.