MEDIAWATCH: Astounding Corporate Capitalism Corruption from Consultants – Guyon Espiner at his best!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Storm in a tea cup?
At local level perhaps but it is a symptom of a very nasty Cat 5 hurricane on the horizon