JESUS WEPT!
There is so much going on in this incredible piece of journalism by Guyon Espiner you don’t even know where to begin…
Transparency International has set up a secret group of lobbyists to provide advice on improving ethics in the lobbying industry – sparking claims it is being captured by the forces it seeks to contain.
Questions are also being raised about whether the open government and anti-corruption watchdog is compromised by its sources of funding and support.
Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ) receives funding from several government sources, including the clandestine state intelligence agencies the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
TINZ, a registered charity, also receives business support from a number of big consultancy firms including KPMG, Deloitte and PWC.
Transparency International plays a key role in shaping perceptions of New Zealand’s international reputation, as its corruption index consistently ranks New Zealand as one of the least corrupt countries.
Business consultant Ernie Newman, who himself worked as a lobbyist in the grocery and telecommunications sectors, said he severed ties with TINZ over its lobbying strategy.
Newman first approached TINZ in May after Labour MP Kris Faafoi joined a lobbying firm within weeks of leaving Cabinet, underscoring his concern at the revolving door between the Beehive and the lobbying industry.
Unlike most of the developed world, lobbying is unregulated in New Zealand.
There are no obligations on lobbying firms to register or to disclose their clients and no stand down periods for government officials becoming lobbyists or lobbyists taking government jobs.
TINZ offered Newman a role as a ‘member with delegated authority’ – which allows experts to share their knowledge and represent TINZ at forums.
But he was then told that would mean joining a group of lobbyists who would be providing expert advice to TINZ – lobbyists that TINZ refuses to name.
“My initial reaction is astonishment that TINZ would rely on a team of 4-5 lobbyists to lead its response on such a crucial issue,” Newman wrote in an email to TINZ on 30 May.
“Consulting them is fine but putting them in charge is altogether different – a bit like the police recruiting gang members to determine new rules on pursuit of fleeing drivers.”
He declined to join the group and told TINZ that, “as an organisation you have been caught in a culture of complacency and captured by the very system you are charged with overseeing.”
In an interview with RNZ, Newman said TINZ was not doing its job.
“I think they have been sucked into the very system – captured by the very system – they are there to protect the public from and I think they are doing New Zealand a great disservice by continuing to tell everyone that we are a relatively uncorrupt country. I don’t believe we are anymore.”
He said it was vital TINZ was strong and independent because lobbying and consultancy firms had taken over much of the work that career public servants used to do.
“We have actually handed over, to a large extent, the soul of the New Zealand government machine to the private sector without putting any apparent constraints around them, how they share information and how conflicted they may become.”
A ‘conversation’ with lobbyists
TINZ CEO Julie Haggie said the charity was simply talking to lobbyists about how a code of conduct for the industry might work.
“Why wouldn’t you have a conversation with lobbyists about what they think would work for them? They’re the ones who know the lobbying sector best.”
She would not say who the lobbyists were.
“I’m not going to tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to say it but I’m not going to put people up to be shut down by other people.”
Haggie also rejected the idea that TINZ was compromised by its funding.
She said government agencies funding TINZ had an interest in combating corruption.
“GCSB and NZSIS have a strong interest in fighting corruption – that is one of their primary issues, the things that they do.”
TINZ received $30,000 a year from the SIS and GCSB (reduced to $15,000 from SIS this year), $25,000 from police and $20,000 from Inland Revenue.
It receives $250,000 from a three-year contract with the Ministry of Justice to promote transparency and good governance and to fight corruption.
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Public Service Commission also contribute to that fund.
Haggie said business support was largely in the form of corporates allowing TINZ to use meeting rooms, providing food and drinks and pro bono legal advice.
“Those companies, as well as working in the lobbying space, like Deloitte and KPMG, are also working in the anti-corruption space,” she said.
“KPMG runs a report on fraud analysis and they have a lot of expertise in the area. A lot of them are working in compliance around anti-money laundering and a lot of them do company law and so they have a good deal of knowledge.”
…Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Let’s try and unpick everything that is going on here because what has been revealed and alleged is gasp inducing in its audacity!
These business ethics would make your average South American Cartel blush!
Let me get this straight, Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ) receives money from the NZ Deep State to tell everyone internationally that we are the least corrupt country on the planet WHILE they host a secret panel of Professional Managerial Class Corporate Consultants who are secretly plotting ways to circumvent the new restrictions on Corporate Consultants???
And it has been ‘audited’ by KPMG who were busted for being corrupt???
KPMG to be fined £14m for forging documents over Carillion audit
KPMG will pay one of the largest fines in UK audit history, after former staff forged documents and misled the regulator over audits for companies including the collapsed outsourcer Carillion.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) – which regulates accountants – confirmed the £14.4m settlement at a London tribunal hearing on Thursday, and said KPMG would also face a “severe reprimand” over the “extremely serious” misconduct related to employees’ false representations to the watchdog.
What the fuck is this?
As the whistleblower points out…
“Consulting them is fine but putting them in charge is altogether different – a bit like the police recruiting gang members to determine new rules on pursuit of fleeing drivers.”
…how on earth can an Organisation with deep ties to the NZ Deep State, who are tasked as a propaganda tool to tell the world we are the least corrupt, also have a secret panel working to side step the new consultant regulations which has been ‘audited’ by an organisation busted for corruption?
Corporations joining with the Deep State to proclaim we are the least corrupt country in the world while they secretly plot to further their influence on policy is a convergence of unchecked power that reveals the true nervous system of capitalist domination in this country.
This may well be the most important political story of the year, yet Kiri drink driving is the dominant headline.
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This isn’t just a bungle. It’s not a “conspiracy” – it is how the system works. It’s as much a conspiracy as the chicago school birthing Rogernomcs and the neoliberal revolution was a conspiracy. And all the consultants tie back into the global corporates serving the most powerful clients with the biggest bank accounts and their fingers are everywhere, “aligning” and creating “consensus” on policy so the things like the TPPA and WHO treaty become inevitable. So you have one global governance regime, which controls people an limits their ability to resist, and everything else is left to the market.
That’s why Fortress Aotearoa will not happen until you comprehend the reality of the “conspiracy” that is the facts on the ground.
@ paul. Bullshit. The ‘system’ you believe is working isn’t a system and it’s not working politically which is where everyone gets a fair share. I.e. Democracy and that’s our system. NOT a cadre of smarmy crooks taking advantage of another’s ignorance. The system you mention is of criminals doing crimes and that’s not democracy. It’s only because our political neo-liberals have enabled swindlers who have laid down the pathways to free farmer money with well oiled escape routes and very clearly signposted escape clauses and I don’t mean Santa. Or do I ?
100% Paul and its been happening for almost 20 years.
I’d been living in Aus for a couple of years and came back to a job in the Govt Sector on the Terrace. I began to see this then. The unbridled power of senior bureaucrats and in some departments the unhealthy relationships between Ministers and Senior Public Servants. Not too much later I joined the anti TPCCA movement and was gutted that successive governments went ahead with it and sought to expand it. It was the first inkling I had of the “Stakeholder Capitalism’ that was to come and this is effectively what Espiner is describing. A bunch of powerful elites who have gobbled up everything so that they work with governments and businesses and quangos and academics to ensure their own ends.
NZ has fallen into it hook line and sinker and while both sides of the political spectrum got us here, it is the Left who has provided the ideology and ground for it to really take off on. 3 Waters is just another brick in this road and the implications are horrendous.
Basically our democracy has been subverted as has most western democracies and the truth is – is there realistically anyway back from here? I see it getting worse not better. The future is a corrupted version of authoritarianism and democracy is all but meaningless. We are just sitting ducks.
How did we get to 3Water reform. Granted, Municipal water services need better direction.
But “corporate capture” played a significant role in the development of the original 3Water reform model.
The capture of the New Zealand Water and Waste Association culminated in Water NZ and then infiltrated LGNZ.
I was going to explain but I decided I was talking too much. The funding model in 3 waters is very risky and we will enter into a minimum 15 yr contract with a massive multi national finance company. Meanwhile Thames Water and a few other places have the same funding and they have had constantly skyrocketing prices and are now nearly bankrupt. With the funding model they are using it will be very difficult for NZ to keep up in the long term and our unique ToW situation will add another layer of uncertainty and risk.
To describe it better than I can there are a variety of pieces written about it online but you should look at Thomas Cranmer on Substack probably at least 12 months ago and he sums up some of the risks. If you know a bit about the CPPTA? (never get the letters right) you will see the same kind of clauses and stuff in there. Basically your sovereignty’s gone and even ToW provisions get overwritten if you default or breach a clause etc. They can seize all our water assets and the ratepayers and users can do absolutely nothing to stop it. The amount of the borrowing I think is going to be about $200 Billion?? so that effectively doubles NZ’s current debt which we are struggling with at the moment. So the idea that the Govt will just bail 3 Waters out may not even be an option.
The local kind of corporate capture becomes small beans when put up against the multi nationals operating this new form of capitalism being espoused by the WEF. The idea is that the countries are smaller and less powerful than the MultiNats and they will call the shots via their network of elites (effectively influencers – lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, industry bodies etc) and then they will dictate the terms to governments across the globe. If you need their money or product then you sign away the rights of your country and your citizens in the process.
Actually, I got that wrong, NZ’s debt is already about $800 Billion rather than $200 Billion (But you get the gist).
The only way to make lobbying ethical is to ban it
Yes let them line up like any citizen to a meeting at their local MPs office.
Ordinary people aren’t loaded with cash…and that’s a major difference. Perhaps the only difference.
TBH I’m impressed with TINZ’ character, as a New Zealand charity to be a corrupt entity is a step up from the usual blatently fraudulent.
Martyn – Sad, but true…this is how parts of the Government works
What!? Are you fucking kidding us @ nathan? You’re effectively writing “Never mind, move along!” Are you fucking joking? I know you’re one of the yada-yada-ada clones but you’re being ridiculous.
This is huge and it explains the rich urban elite. ” Sad but true” ? What would you fucking know about the truth?
“…this is how parts of the Government works” Is it! Well, it fucking shouldn’t. How can you write that unless you’re one of them? You and your fucking cronies, little wasps dripping toxic logical fallacies here and there.
It’s time for the Fly Spray Baby! The problem I have personally is that I watched winston peters get all bristly about the Wine Box Inquiry. Off he went, “yap, yap, yap!” And came back empty handed. No fur in his teeth, no blood on his collar. He’s a lawyer and a one time Natzo.
I would not be surprised if this wasn’t yet another white wash. But where there’s life there’s hope, right? I prefer the old Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers saying : “Where there’s dope there’s hope.” And ” Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.” Way before the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers there was a fellow called George Orwell who wrote “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
Here’s one of my favourites.
“So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern…Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, * gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”
― George Orwell, 1984
* I’ve pondered Lotto briefly.
This could be bigger than jenny shipley’s ankles.
countryboy – you are reading a bit too much into my comment…Various Governments simply refuse to move on this issue…therefore it is a bit sad….from those Governments
This is how most humans operate. Look for opportunities and then utilise the opportunity to make “money” or a living.
There are few humans willing to go out into the desert, sit on a rock and think, if there was no personal gain to be had somewhere down the line.
But some choose to always be victims. Many are encouraged to choose victimhood.
It is not necessarily evil to work towards building wealth and long as it is off the bat of an attempt to create a better society without corrupting part of society, that is OK.
Oh My God! Soooooooo surprised! Who’d a thunk it. Not me, I’m not the guy who’s been writing about this shit here for more than 10 years. Oh. Wait? Yes I am.
Our primary industry is being blatantly ripped off by a vast counter-culture of sharp crooks, I’ve been alleging that for years.
Here’s what you do. Be very, very careful how this is handled. And this is exactly why we AO/NZ’ers need a very public and independent of Kiwi-As Old Boy influence, royal commission of inquiry.
AO/NZ with a scant few 5.2 million people, 3000 of which are of voting-earning age. Land area 29 thousand sq km larger than the UK which carries 60 million, give or take. We also have 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires with net wealth exceeding $50 million each and four now foreign owned trading banks taking $180.00 a second in net profits 24/7/365.
But wait, there’s more! No one seems to know how or gives a fuck. Especially odd that we now have over 400 people living in cars with their kids and Blow Job bennies turning tricks to buy fags, oatmeal and sausages.
Where does all that money go, much less where it all came from? Our primary industry is agriculture and yet if a townie sees a cocky driving a new 4×4 ute you’d think the world was coming to an end and yet if townies see another townie drive by in a Ferrari to an office where the fucker likely screws the ignorant on every deal going THEN FERRARI-BOY’S A FUCKING HERO TO THEM.
Guyon Espiner, if you really rip into this I’ll be amazed. Are you pulling a winston peters? Are you running in the opposite direction to bark up the wrong trees in the wrong forest in the wrong country on the wrong planet in the wrong universe and surprise-surprise, nothing to see here after all so moving along now.
My excitement is tempered by my mistrust of anyone anywhere near the MSM and frankly, I don’t want to be disappointed yet again. Seeing my hopes go up only to come crashing down again is depressing, frustrating and boring.
A royal commission of inquiry into Old Boy influence sounds like an oxymoron.
whyn is our govt doing any business with organised criminal organisations? and that’s what they are
That’s why have to move Parliament out of Wellington. To Palmy or Tron or Tok. Some where the lobbyists hate.
Indeed. And move the American spies in sheepdog’s clothing of the GCSB and SIS to be with their real masters in Washington DC and Northern Virginia and then strip them all of citizenship.
and they wouldn’t just move to chase the big bucks….just ban it make it all corruption…let’s be honest that’s what it is
Financial crims. I wondered when Lehman Bros went down in the USA – how come? Why only them? Why did they get knifed in the arras – such a painful place! Corruption is deep in our fabric now I think. While we are cynical about it, must keep looking at it and trying to limit it.
What did the Lehman Brothers do that was unethical?
The use of Repo 105 by Lehman Brothers to hide their assets and liabilities from the public and show a favorable financial position has raised the question of the legal and ethical duties of fiduciaries to their clients and the public. Repo 105 constituted a conflict of interest and serious breaches of ethical conduct.
How Lehman Brothers Used Repo 105 to Manipulate Their Financial …
montclair.edu https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu › cgi › viewconten
Lehman Brothers was a global financial firm that provided investment banking, trading, brokerage, and other services. It was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States. Its collapse is regarded as deepening the 2008 financial crisis and is considered one of its defining moments.
Lehman Brothers: History, Collapse, Role in the Great Recession
investopedia.com https://www.investopedia.com › terms › lehman-brother
What are the 5 factors which causes Lehman Brothers to collapse?
Lehman Brothers | Program on Financial Stability
Many factors have been identified as contributing to the demise of Lehman Brothers and its ultimate failure. These include –
(1) high leverage,
(2) poor controls and risk management,
(3) high real estate concentration,
(4) questionable accounting and poor disclosure, and
(5) weak government oversight.
Lehman Brothers | Program on Financial Stability
yale.edu https://ypfs.som.yale.edu › lehman-brothers
Ding dong – does that strike a familiar note here at the bottom of the world.
” There is so much going on in this incredible piece of journalism by Guyon Espiner you don’t even know where to begin… ”
I do.
Another sacred kiwi myth shown for what it is. Crap !
I’ve longed believed and said so on this site how corrupt the little tax haven is at the bottom of the world.
The corruption is so widespread and acceptable in a kiwi context and marketed that way that its accepted as normal ..nothing dodgy here mate.
We have joined the rest of the world with corrupt behaviour hidden from view but occasionally it is focused on then back in its box.
When New Zealanders voted to endorse dirty politics and a foreign corporate blackmailing us about making films here and the government of the day broke our sovereignty by changing our laws to appease them and the soon to be Prime minister lied about his shares in a state owned asset and other breaches with the “almost legal ” government of National , ACT , Maori party and Peter the prostitute it was all down hill from there.
Its become so dirty right in front of our eyes we don’t recognise corrupt behaviour in our own governments of any colour and the rotten state of our establishment and Wellington has become.
” …how on earth can an Organisation with deep ties to the NZ Deep State, who are tasked as a propaganda tool to tell the world we are the least corrupt, also have a secret panel working to side step the new consultant regulations which has been ‘audited’ by an organisation busted for corruption ”
If I was Hipkins , LINO and its MP’s as a New Zealander I would be seriously concerned. But by not taking decisive action around this they send the message like not taxing wealth or wealthy corporates and multi property millionaires like them they are fully in support of what Espiner has uncovered here and won’t act against it.
It was always going to go this way with our lacklustre she will be right mate attitude and so many enjoying their greed and subjugation of their fellow New Zealanders including members of the plutocracy that is our parliament and economy that makes it all the more acceptable.
” This may well be the most important political story of the year, yet Kiri drink driving is the dominant headline. ”
This country is two operating lands.
The one that operates for the privileged backed by the state and its parliamentary representitives to protect their monopoly including your mate Bomber the current PM.
The other land is New Zealanders who aren’t privileged and are far to interested in trying to survive unregulated corrupted capitalism and are on a hiding to nothing with respect to their rights and aspirations in their own country who only value them as cheap labour and sub human beings.
This corruption Espiner has decided to highlight so that it gives the wealthy an opportunity to read about in their Sunday papers and say how awful it all is and surely not in God’s own to ease temporarily their shock and surprise but Espiner is well known for his history when he was part of the media that worked to destabilise and undermine the Clark Cullen government on behalf of the Shyster led National party that helped create the environment he is currently highlighting in 2005-08.
For someone who never hid his bias is he really surprised that the system he helped support into government was instrumental in the corruption he is now talking about.
“Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.” — “……..example Guyon Espiner
Storm in a tea cup?
At local level perhaps but it is a symptom of a very nasty Cat 5 hurricane on the horizon
once again out aspirations to be ‘lil oz'(which is a cesspit of corruption)betrays us
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