New Zealand has a good reputation for lack of corruption, though this has started to slip in recent years. Nevertheless it's still high. So how corrupt is the New Zealand government?
Comparable Western countries have anti-corruption commissions. It's a recognition that governments are monopolies and bad monopoly practice always happens in monopolies. A well-run, adequately funded and independent anti-corruption commission helps protect a population against inevitable government overreach. New Zealand needs an anti-corruption commission.
Below I've listed types of corruption in my 9-year case with government agencies, mainly the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and the Social Security Appeal Authority (SSAA). My case is only one instance, but a revealing way to answer the question: How corrupt is the New Zealand government? I'll add details over coming days.
Fraud
17 July 2017 review of decision
MSD:
- Deeming an email to be an application for statutory review of an MSD decision when it obviously isn't an application.
- Failing to withdraw the deemed application when the email's author says he hasn't applied for a review of decision.
- Continuing with the review against the author's wishes.
- Refusing to accept a coming genuine application by the email's author for a review of a different decision.
- Failing to acknowledge, reject, accept or mention the valid application for review, but receiving it.
- Faudulently finding fully in favour of itself.
Defamation
MSD:
In a statutory report, stating that a person had been to Australia three times for a holiday, which provably false statement damaged the person's credibility in the eyes of a statutory Benefits Review Committee. MSD under the Official Information Act later admitting it had no evidence the person had been to Australia for a holiday.
Fraud
In the matter of a request for an exemption due to trauma, MSD:
- concealed for six years its policy allowing trauma as a ground.
- failed to inlcude its policy document in two statutory reports which the Act said must include all relevant documents.
- refused to accept trauma as a ground of exemption even though policy allowed trauma.
- In a case about trauma, in its over 3,000 words of communication in 2017, failed to use the word trauma.
Fraud
25 November 2025 review of decision
MSD:
- Deeming a letter to be an application for statutory review of an MSD decision when it obviously isn't an application.
- Failing to withdraw the deemed application when the letter's author says he hasn't applied for a review of decision.
- Continuing with the review against the author's wishes.
- When the letter's author asked under the OIA for a copy of his (alleged) application, taking over 50 days to provide a copy of his letter which obviously wasn't an application, when the Act allows 20 working days to reply to an OIA request.
- Deeming the letter to be an appplication for statutory review of a decison made 8 years ago when the Act allows only three months to apply for a review of a decision.
Fabricating evidence
MSD:
- Issuing official documents on offical MSD letterhead saying a person applied for a review of decision when MSD knew that was false.
- Issuing the official document "Report to the Benefits Review Committee" saying that on 17 July 2017 a person applied for a review of a decision when MSD knew that was false.
- Issuing the official document "Report of the Benefits Review Committee" saying that on 17 July 2017 a person applied for a review of a decision when MSD knew that was false.
NOTE: on 5 March 2018, MSD officers as indviduals said in MSD's 12K Report to SSAA that its 17 July 2017 review was unlawful, thus avoiding section 113 of the Crimes Act, Fabricating evidence.
Bribery and fraud
SSAA:
- Ignoring the individual MSD officers' statement in their 12K Report to SSAA that the 17 July 2017 review was unlawful, and finding, without mentioning the 12K disclaimer, that the review was lawful.
- Offering a bribe to the appellant to abandon their appeal.
- When the bribe was not accepted, issuing a certificate of non-prosecution preventing further appeal allowed for in the Act, to the High Court.
Whatever the wrong is
MSD:
- Maliciously causing economic harm and unreasonable stress by repeatedly demanding a person perform a certain action on pain of losing annual $22,000 in benefit, when failing to perform the action would cost the government $25 a week.
- Intentionally causing a person economic harm and unreasonable stress by repeatedly demanding they perform a certain action on pain of losing annual $22,000 in benefit, which MSD knew was their only source of income, when MSD has not yet decided for or against granting the person an exemption from performing the action.
Being unreasonable
When MSD's internal policy titled "Overseas pension testing - guidelines on reasonable steps" says, "The person experienced trauma in the testing country: ... we should consider their reasons on a case by case basis":
MSD:
- In a 9-year case including 8 hearings about a request for exemption due to trauma in a testing country, failing to ask for the reasons for trauma, and once known, failing to consider the reasons in the sense intended by policy: as preliminary to deciding for or against exemption.