The Honourable Rodney Hide was a Member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1996 - 2011 and was the first President and leader of the Act Party. He also held the Epsom seat in Auckland from 2005-2011. Currently he is best-known as a radio host on Reality Check Radio and an outspoken critic of many current governmental policies, and in particular the current Relationships & Sexuality Guidelines in schools.
Most importantly, Rodney is a father of four, with two daughters and a son currently in the education system. This is the latest in Rodney’s efforts to get the school and parents to know what is happening. Rodney is also an active dad in the Let Kids Be Kids Community.
You can share this video from YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, X, Telegram.
Guest contribution by Rodney Hide:
My Presentation the School Principal Did Not Want the Board to Hear
Sex Ed in New Zealand schools hypersexualises kids and further confuses them in their identity and sense of self.
My approach has been to tell parents what is happening and to plead to Let Kids Be Kids.
In theory school boards in consultation with parents decide what is taught. In practice what is taught is decided by the Ministry of Education with parents and Boards completely in the dark.
Weirdly, what is taught follows what UNESCO says should be taught, and more weirdly, New Zealand committed to teaching the UNESCO curriculum when we signed up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Crazy right? It starts with the UN.
NOTE: In 2024 during the Let Kids Be Kids Roadshow, Penny showed this video, which is included in the NZ Ministry of Education website:
Speaking to the school Board
For nine months I have been trying to get 10 minutes in front of the Wakatipu High School Board of Trustees to explain the curriculum they have supposedly agreed to.
The Board Chair and Principal have not been at all keen for me to present.
Finally, I got the opportunity Monday 17 February 2025. I took a great deal of time to get my speech to time and to check and double check accuracy. I decided to record my presentation so parents could get to see what is being taught to their children. That, after all, is how boards and schools are supposed to work.
Getting the right advice
I checked with the New Zealand Board of Trustees Association. The Association exists to advise school boards on governance. The Association confirmed that School Board meetings are held in public and, of course, I could record my presentation. They suggested it would be courteous to advise the Board of my intention.
The week before my presentation I emailed both the Principal and the Chair that I would be recording my presentation. On the Monday morning of my presentation the Principal Oded Nathan emailed to say I was not allowed to record my presentation. I replied saying that I was and would be and that I had checked with the New Zealand Board of Trustees Association.
Just as I was leaving for the meeting I received an email from Board Chair Adrian Januszkiewicz that I would not be allowed to record my presentation. He cited section 131 of the Act as giving the Board that power and said he wanted to protect the privacy of Board members. He suggested that as a consequence I may choose not to present.
I double checked with the New Zealand Board of Trustees Association. They explained that section 131 provides the board with “complete discretion to perform its functions and exercise its powers as it thinks fit” but obviously that discretion is “subject to this Act, any other enactment, and the general law of New Zealand”.
It would be odd that a Board could do away with the need to meet in public! But that in fact was what the Board Chair was proposing. And he is a lawyer taking, as it turned out, legal advice.
And what about privacy?
The Board Members serve as officers of a crown entity and in that capacity have no expectation of privacy. Our schools aren’t supposed to be run in secret. Openness and transparency are the hallmarks of good government and democracy.
A reasonable person might well ask why I was so intent on recording my presentation. It’s because I realise what is happening to our kids is happening in darkness away from the light. There is no openness or transparency. There is no accountability. There is no informed consent. There is no democracy.
It seems to me parents are kept in the dark because the invisible agents hypersexualising our kids know that parents rise up if only they knew what is happening. My experience is students are too embarrassed to talk to their parents about what they are being taught in school. And who can blame them?
My aim is just to let parents and boards know what is happening. I wanted to record my presentation so parents could be informed of what their Board is up to.
Indeed, I wanted the Board to know what they were up to. I am certain they have no knowledge. Certainly the Chair had no knowledge of the curriculum when I first met him one-on-one. He said he knew nothing of it. He didn’t seem all that keen to learn either. Or to do anything.
Back to the Board meeting
The principal met me outside the boardroom to say that I could not record because it was against the tikanga of the school. I was now getting exasperated. I had heard all the excuses for why I could not present to the Board and now it was a laundry list of reasons why I could not record my presentation.
I explained I would be presenting and I would be recording. The Chairman then was sent out to talk to me. He explained they had legal advice. I suggested their legal advice was not much chop if it suggested that the Board could meet in secret.
The principal then said that I could not record my presentation because they had a 16 year old student rep on the Board and discussing sex ed in front of her was not appropriate. The irony of me discussing what they were teaching my 13 year old being inappropriate for a 16 year old seemed entirely lost on them. And also that the student rep could hear my presentation, but not if I were to record my presentation. It was bananas.
The upshot was that I did not get to present to the Board. I stood outside the School and gave my presentation to camera. It’s the presentation that the School Chair and the School Principal did not want their Board to hear - or at least have a record of their Board hearing it.
So please share, far and wide.
Coming up in our next Substack - Rodney’s Board Speech
Previous guest post by Rodney:
Share this post