The current big Anglican story is the court appearance of the ex-Dean of Dunedin Cathedral for theft.Rev Kirkpatrick took a leading role in the pro-homosexual debates in NZ. He is an ex-partner of a former high profile Labour MP Tim Barnett - the partnership being at the time of his being Dean in Dunedin.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/national/5350737/AUT-resignation-amid-investigation

Rev Kirkpatrick’s behaviour was also highlighted in a rather nasty but very high profile documentary about the dismissal of the director of the Cathedral’s all-male choir for “the inappropriate behaviour of the Director of Music in relation to young men in the choir”.

The TV3 programme was somewhat over the top, but did point out that the Canon and Dean were also gay ... and it had footage of the Canon in particular making very suggestive comments to young men while he was clearly extremely drunk at a 21st birthday party. The claim was that the wrong person/people had been dismissed. The Dean among others appealed to the standards authority and largely won the case. The nature of the allegations and the findings of the authority can be found here:
http://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/show/4097

Thanks for the link, Margaret - what terrible travail the Anglican Church in New Zealand must have been through. How did someone manifestly disagreeing with the Church’s teaching on sexual behavior end up as Dean of a Cathedral? How did he become Vicar of a leading Anglo-Catholic parish as well?

Clarin
Sorry I don’t know enough of the background, other than Dunedin is a very Presbyterian town, so the Anglicans are a real minority and they have always been somewhat “strange” down there. (Dunedin was settled by Scots who named it after Edinburgh—Dun and burgh both meaning town). In recent years the strangeness seems to have got even stranger.

Though it doesn’t relate to the post, that is an extremely interesting if sordid development, MargaretG., and thanks for posting the link.  I will slowly digest that TV script and the commentary.  And it didn’t mention at least early on that Jamieson was also the first woman (‘bishop’) to bankrupt a diocese…..
When we toured South Island 10 years ago I made it a point to stop in Anglican churches and cathedrals everywhere possible, starting in Christchurch.  When we got to Dunedin we were enraptured with the quaintness of the town, the uni, and the lovely Otago Peninsula, so much so that my husband dropped hints to a colleague in an attempt to develop at least a sabbatical opportunity!  I also remember clearly standing in a Whitcoulls, somewhere, reading some of the literature on offer and laughing hysterically at the send-ups Kiwis manage of the Aussies, as we had been living in Oz for about 10 years at that point.
But this Anglican mess is nothing funny, in fact it really sounds as if the devil was active and busy in the remains of that church at that point. I remember also the distinct impression that a parish church in Christchurch was already under Affirming Catholic gay clergy, and also an odd sense of spiritual vacancy when I spent a little time in St. Paul’s Dunedin. It was only at the Cathedral in Nelson I really sensed an Anglican faithfulness, and who knows what has happened there since.