Dave

A man leaving his home for work at 6.30am went to jump into his work van but unexpectedly found his landlord sitting in it, drinking a handle of beer.

On another occasion, the landlord, Jake Sim, left a note for the tenant on the bench saying: "It's fixed ya winging pr**k" after going to the property to fix a heatpump".

The incidents were a part of a bigger tenancy issue in which Sim turned up at the property intoxicated and banging on the doors, and on other occasions, unlawfully let himself in.

The tenant told the tribunal that on 23 April that year, he went to the rental, the location of which was redacted from the decision, and found a treadmill set up and a TV mounted on a wall.

Around mid-2024, the tenant changed the locks to the house.

He acknowledged it was a breach of his obligations as a tenant but said he felt he had no other option.

The tribunal ruled it would not order him to pay exemplary damages, given the context in which the locks were changed.

Sim then said he had used a lock-picking kit to let himself in on November 14. Then, on November 15, when he believed the tenancy had ended, he climbed through a window.

The tenant claimed that when he returned to the premises on November 16 to finish moving, his gun safe had been opened and $3000 in cash and two rings were gone.

He was ordered to pay the tenant, who was awarded name suppression, $2000 compensation and $1500 in damages.

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you

• Something humourous that happened to you

• Something frustrating that happened to you

• A quick question

• A request for recommendations

• Pictures of your pet

• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant

• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

TL;DR if you haven't already, please fill in the Lemmy.nz Census (even if your account is on another instance). Skip any questions you aren't comfortable answering!

This is a reminder post to please fill in the 2025 Lemmy.nz census survey if you haven't already.

You can see the previous post here.

None of the questions are mandatory. They cover questions about where you're from in the country/world, who you are (demographic info), how you use Lemmy and the fediverse, and some extras at the end. Skip anything you're not comfortable answering.

Everyone is welcome! If a question doesn't apply to you then just skip it.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Answer the Lemmy.nz 2025 Census

The Reserve Bank has revealed a dispute over funding was behind Adrian Orr's abrupt resignation as governor.

A raft of documents - released by the central bank under the Official Information Act - reveal an "impasse" as Orr argued Finance Minister Nicola Willis was not providing enough funding for the next five years.

In an accompanying statement, an RBNZ spokesperson said it became clear in late February that the board - chaired by Neil Quigley - was willing to agree to a "considerably" smaller sum that Orr thought was needed.

"This caused distress to Mr Orr and the impasse risked damaging necessary working relationships, and led to Mr Orr's personal decision that he had achieved all he could as Governor of the Reserve Bank and could not continue in that role with sufficiently less funding than he thought was viable for the organisation."

Both sides engaged lawyers to negotiate an exit agreement, resulting in an immediate departure and "special leave".

On 5 March, the Reserve Bank revealed Orr's sudden resignation, with three years still to run in his five-year term. At the time, Quigley said it was for "personal reasons" but would not be drawn on any details

Possibly related:

I also don't understand why every chat app needs 1GB of RAM to itself.

Widespread internet outages are being felt around the North Island, telecommunications company Voyager says.

It says it has identified an issue affecting "Chorus Wellington UFB (ultrafast broadband) handover".

"This handover services Wellington, Kapiti, Hutt Valley, Palmerston North and through to Napier."

Voyager said Chorus had identified the source of the issue and are working on a fix.

Currently around 90 percent of connections are offline.

Food safety officials are investigating the discovery of a dead larva found in a government funded school lunch in Auckland.

He said the larva has been sent away for testing and the results were expected back next week.

The lunch scheme was plagued by problems in term one, with criticism of late, inedible, repetitive or nutritionally lacking lunches, and even a case of a lunch containing melted plastic.

A group of satellites that Rocket Lab has helped put into space is poised to aid Ukraine's military in the war with Russia.

Rocket Lab USA launched its third mission for Japanese company iQPS at the weekend from its spaceport on Māhia Peninsula.

It has been widely reported Japan has agreed to provide Ukraine's military intelligence agency for the first time with advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from satellites run by iQPS (Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space).

"Another fantastic launch by the Electron team to flawlessly deliver another iQPS mission to orbit," Rocket Lab founder Sir Peter Beck said on 17 May.

This morning my kid asked the voice assistant to "Turn off the computers in this house".

I heard it, thought well that's a strange request but seems harmless because how is home assistant gonna turn off computers.

Me a little while later, "why is shit broken? What's happening!"

Turns out dumb me had adguard exposed to the voice assistant, it switched off all the adguard settings including the DNS rewriting that is the cornerstone of many of my self-hosted services.

I've since revoked that access.

On Wednesday, Parliament's Privileges Committee released its final report into the MPs who protested the Treaty Principles Bill with a haka in the House in November 2024.

There was surprise and shock over the recommended punishments for Te Pāti Māori MPs, which seemed both unprecedented and extreme.

In retrospect, considering this week's response from Parliament's Speaker, the advice now available from Parliament's Clerk, and Committee Chair Judith Collins' public defence of her own report, that the initial reaction was overly calm. The committee report now appears partisan, indefensible and open to attacks of racism.

On Tuesday, 20 May, Parliament's House will debate whether or not to accept the Privileges Committee Report and its recommendations for punishments, namely that Te Pāti Māori's two co-leaders be suspended from Parliament for 21 days and their junior colleague for seven days, all without salary.

Talking to RNZ's Morning Report, Collins gave her view of the actions and motivations.

"This is not about haka, this is not about tikanga. This is about MPs impeding a vote, acting in a way that could be seen as intimidating MPs trying to exercise their right to vote.

"After Te Pāti Māori had exercised their right to vote, they then stopped the ACT Party from exercising theirs."

That is not true.

ACT had already voted. Every party had voted before Te Pāti Māori did. As the smallest party in Parliament, Te Pāti Māori is always the last to be called on for their vote.

It has been that way all Parliament.

Judith Collins could not fail to be aware of that.

The vote tallies and outcome had not yet been declared by the Speaker, so the fuller voting process was incomplete, and disrupting it was disorderly behaviour; but the claim that the MPs were intimidating another party to prevent it from voting is entirely unfounded.

The answer Collins gave RNZ was either misinformation (perhaps Judith Collins mistakenly believes the MP's actions were more serious than they were) or it was disinformation (in the aftermath of the report, she might have felt it necessary to convince the country the incident was more serious than it was).

Whatever the reason for the untruth, the claim suggests that Collins has a more jaundiced view of the MPs' actions than is realistic or defensible.

Did she fundamentally misunderstand the MPs' actions during the investigation (which would cast the committee findings into doubt), or did political or other prejudice make those actions appear worse than the evidence showed?

Research has repeatedly found that in any justice system, dark-skinned defendants are treated more severely based on ethnicity.

Findings based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the sequence of events would be highly embarrassing. Findings tainted by political or other prejudice would bring both the committee and the Parliament into disrepute.

A company's plan to mine 50 million tonnes of South Taranaki seabed every year has cleared the first hurdle in the Fast-track process.

Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) executive chair Alan Eggers said he was "delighted" the company's application for its Taranaki VTM project had been accepted as complete and would now move on to the next stage of the Fast-track process.

Opponents, meanwhile, are "livid" and have vowed to continue their fight against the project.

TTR wants to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.

Eggers said the company had identified a world-class vanadium resource that could contribute $1 billion annually to the economy.