William Kenneth Hastings (born 1957) is a Canadian-born judge who served as the tenth Chief Censor of New Zealand from October 1999 to July 2010.

[citation needed] On 9 August 2021, Hastings was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Republic of Kiribati, a position he held until 8 December 2022.

Born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada in 1957, he attended Lord Roberts Public School, and graduated from Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute.

He was also the Video Recordings Authority in 1994, a member of the Indecent Publications Tribunal from 1990 to 1994 and Deputy President of the Film and Literature Board of Review from 1995 to 1998.

[7] In 1998, he was appointed Deputy Chief Censor at the Office of Film and Literature Classification by the Governor-General of New Zealand on the recommendation of the Jenny Shipley-led National coalition government.

In 2003, Hastings again appeared in the public eye when the computer game Manhunt was banned by his office, making its possession in New Zealand illegal.