"The Network Behind Janet Dickson: Who's Connected to Who" - 6 September 2026
Don Brash Pays the Lawyer. The Lawyer Represents the Agent. The Minister Changes the Law. The Lobby Group Backs Them All. Here's the Map.
The Story in One Sentence
Kia ora whānau.
A real estate agent refused a Māori culture course.
She didn't fight that battle alone — a small, connected group of political figures and lobby groups took her case and used it to fight their own long-running war against Māori institutions.
Who's Who, and How They Connect
Janet Dickson is the real estate agent at the centre of this. She refused to complete Te Kākano, a 90-minute course on te reo, the Treaty of Waitangi, and Māori land, which the Real Estate Authority made compulsory in 2023.
Catherine Hutton
She lost her case at the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and finally the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal on 1 September 2026, as reported in the NZ Herald.
Don Brash runs Hobson's Pledge, a lobby group he founded in 2016.
Hobson's Pledge raised $50,000 in donations to pay for Dickson's legal case. Brash has a long history of this kind of campaigning — his 2004 Ōrewa speech is where the "Māori privilege" argument started in New Zealand politics, and I've documented his group's spending pattern before, including $283,899 in 2023 political activity, in Civilisation Was The Weapon.
How Brash connects to the next person: Brash's own personal lawyer is Stephen Franks.
Stephen Franks is the lawyer who ran Dickson's court case.
He's a former ACT Party MP (1999–2005) and runs the law firm Franks Ogilvie.
This same firm sent legal warning letters to healthcare workers over youth gender-affirming care, which got Franks a misconduct finding from the Law Society — a finding that was later overturned on review. I'm reporting both the finding and the overturning, because that's the fair thing to do.
How Franks connects to the next person: Franks was an ACT MP. The minister who changed the law relevant to this case is also from ACT.
Nicole McKee is an ACT Party MP and Associate Justice Minister. The same week the High Court ruled against Dickson in February 2025, McKee introduced a bill to cut the maximum penalty for missing this kind of training from five years down to one year. That bill has passed Parliament but isn't law yet.
How McKee connects to the next group: while McKee was working the case through Parliament, a separate lobby group was working it through the courts.
The Free Speech Union, led by Jonathan Ayling, tried to join Dickson's Court of Appeal case directly, asking for permission to argue alongside her lawyers. The Court of Appeal said no, ruling her existing lawyers didn't need the help. I've written before about how Ayling operates and who funds him, in The Wolf in the Pulpit — he's personally donated $32,500 to ACT.
How this connects to the last person: while all of this was happening in courts and Parliament, one more politician used it for public messaging.
Winston Peters, leader of NZ First, publicly called the course "totalitarianism" the day the tribunal ruling came out — despite his own party sitting in the same coalition government that presided over the course being introduced, as reported by the Auckland Times.
The Deep Dive Podcast
Listen to a lively conversation between two hosts, unpacking and connecting topics in the sources of this essay. I apologise in advance for the AI's very harsh pronounciation of reo. Please dont shoot me, :).
Youtube Video
Like video? Here is a short video suppporting the essay. Again, don't shoot the messenger please because of AI's pronounciation. 😄
Koha Consideration
You might ask who is paying the Māori Green Lantern to trace a $29 real estate course all the way back to Don Brash, Stephen Franks, an ACT minister, and a lobby group's donor list. The answer is you do. There are no corporates behind this mahi — no Hobson's Pledge donor base, no law firm retainer, no ministerial office. Just koha.
Every koha signals that whānau are ready to support the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide — the same accountability that mapped who funds Janet Dickson's case while Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi's mahi gets called devil-worship for free.
It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to support our own truth tellers.
Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues.
If you are unable to koha, no worries! Subscribe or follow The Māori Green Lantern at themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz, kōrero and share with your whānau and friends — that is koha in itself.
Four pathways exist:
For those who wish to support this mahi directly with a koha (voluntary contribution), please visit the Koha platform:
Koha — Support: app.koha.kiwi/events/the-maori-green-lantern-fighting-misinformation-and-disinformation-ivor-jones
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The Simple Map
Brash funds the campaign → Brash's lawyer Franks runs the court case → Franks's old party (ACT) has a minister, McKee, changing the law at the same time → the Free Speech Union, tied to ACT donors, tries to join the court fight → NZ First's Peters adds the political noise on top.
Five different names, one small, connected circle, all reacting to the same event within days of each other.
What the Course Actually Teaches
Dickson says the course makes agents "bow down to Māori gods" and "worship them."
No court that read the course — High Court, Court of Appeal, or the Tribunal — found that in it.
What the course actually contains, confirmed by its own published outline, is three simple parts: basic te reo and tikanga, the history of the Treaty, and how Māori land ownership works. It costs $29 plus GST and takes 90 minutes.
Three Plain Examples
One - Relevance
They say the course is irrelevant to real estate.
It isn't
— agents deal with Māori land and Treaty settlement land regularly, which is exactly why the regulator built the course in the first place.
Fix: keep the course, fix the penalty.
To a Western reader: this is training for the job, not a request to change your religion.
Two - Punishment
They say Dickson is being punished worse than agents who actually hurt clients.
That part is true — some agents found guilty of real negligence keep their licence with just a fine, per the Tribunal's own case records.
Fix: McKee's proportionality bill already addresses this — no need to scrap the course to fix it.
To a Western reader: the punishment should match the harm; missing a training session isn't the same as harming a client.
Three - It's A Funded Campaign
They say this is one woman's independent stand.
It's a funded campaign — I've documented the same lobby group running the same playbook before, in The Hobson's Pledge Production Line: write the fundraising email, fund the case, place the political rhetoric, repeat.
To a Western reader: always ask who's paying, before you decide who's brave.
Where That Leaves Us
Dickson's grief is real, and I'm not questioning it.
But the network around her case is also real, documented, and connected in ways the average news story never shows you.
Five names, one small circle, one small course that never asked anyone to change what they believe — just to spend ninety minutes learning about the country they work in.
Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right
Disclaimer: This is investigative commentary and opinion, current to 5 September 2026. It is not legal advice.
