Fisking Poneke

Unlike many of his readers, I know Poneke personally. I have a lot of respect for him as a fellow journalist.

He and I have worked closely in the past, but he was always the yin to my yang in terms of his starting point and approach to issues. Poneke has always found it difficult to comprehend that 'corruption' exists in lil ol Godzone.

Poneke's latest attempt to sing the Pollyanna song about NZ is worthy of a small fisk. He quotes Transparency International extensively.

"You cannot bribe a New Zealand police officer. Anyone who tried would be arrested on the spot. Everyone knows this, which is why nobody tries to, not even the worst, most desperate or richest criminals."

Really Poneke? Do you REALLY believe elements of the police are incorruptible?

How then do you explain these comments from former criminals:

Among others we spoke to was another underworld figure, now a businessman, who is prepared to testify to a Royal Commission of Inquiry that police "shorted" drugs seized as evidence, criminal slang for a procedure where corrupt cops seize drugs and either don't enter it into the record at all, or otherwise remove a quantity of drugs from the deal bags before they are submitted and weighed as evidential exhibits.

The drugs are then sold by underworld figures like Bob Wood, controlled by police, with profits split between police and the drug dealer.

"I wasn't any angel myself back then," the businessman, Michael*, told Investigate, "but there were the likes of people being busted for marijuana, and like I went up to court myself – I got caught with 13 ounces and I got charged with 10. There was a lot of that going on."

Who was the arresting officer?

"It was a cop called Peter Gibbons," Michael said.

What happened to the missing three ounces of dope?

"It was put back out for supply," says Jack*, another former drug dealer turned businessman who saw a large amount of his seized marijuana vanish without trace between arrest and the typing up of the charge sheet. "The cops had their networks, people they used, and they made a fortune from seizing drugs and reselling them."

"They had their hands out all the time," Michael confirmed to Investigate. "I know people who were pulled up with heaps and heaps of drugs but they just left them alone if you fixed them up.

"They'd take all your money, or drugs, whatever, then say 'don't let us see you out here again', but you'd never be charged. That happened to me quite a lot. I got picked up a few times with amounts of pot on me and they'd just take the weed and say 'I won't see you again tonight'."

According to Michael, senior Dunedin Police were running a protection racket where drug dealers would be left alone provided they paid substantial money to certain police officers.

"There was people getting paid under the table. [Name deleted] was a bit of a drug dealer back then but the cops never went around to see him. I was working in with him as well and we never got touched hardly, then this Peter Gibbons would come in.

"I was probably making three or four thousand dollars a week selling drugs and stuff like that, and because they weren't getting anything out of it they were coming around and just ripping people off," recalls Michael.

Or this – the discovery that senior detectives in Dunedin were making far more money each week than the police salary paid:

Furious at being set up during Operation Sub Rosa, John Doe went to the trouble of doing a little research on Gordon Hunter. He hired his own private investigator, who did an asset search and found the detective owned substantially more property and assets than his meager police salary would appear to support.

"Hunter and Gibbons also had accounts at the same bank in South Dunedin, where I banked. One of the staff members there showed me printouts one day. On the statements I saw, Hunter was taking in thousands of dollars a week. The bank executive made the comment to me that Hunter's incomings far exceeded an ordinary detective's wages," says Doe.

Which tallies with information provided to us by Bob Wood's former girlfriend, who has also sworn an affidavit.

"I remember I had to go away and drop money off to Gordon Hunter, but I don't remember why. I had to take money out of an account and give it to Gordon Hunter in cash. It was $1500. I had to meet him, in one of the D cars. He came and met me at Lookout Point, and I was to just park there and sit and wait by the Fire Station, and I can't remember if I was the one to get out of my car or not. I was given all these instructions, do this, do that, do this, do that. And I had to do it in cash, out of the Westpac branch in South Dunedin. It was a lot of money. It was to be gotten in littler bills, not hundreds. It was a big wad of money."

To give Hunter the benefit of the doubt, perhaps there was an innocent explanation for the city's top car thief paying a police officer $1,500 in small bills at a remote location. But it's hard to think what kind of explanation that might be.

Or this story, confirmed to Investigate by a jewellery store owner who was robbed by Detective Gordon Hunter:

Nor is it the only question mark hanging over Hunter's conduct. When a central city jewelry store was raided in a smash and grab in the late seventies, a friend of the jeweler's saw Detective Hunter bend down and scoop up rings that had been scattered on the pavement. The raiders made off with around $90,000 worth of jewelry, but although some was later recovered and some of the offenders caught, mysteriously Gordon Hunter did not return the rings he'd picked up.

The jeweler, who'd been advised by his friend of Hunter's actions, was later stunned when a local criminal offered to "return" the items for a substantial reward.

For the record, standard police procedure at the time was to cordon off crime scenes, impose a police scene guard, and wait for the police photographer to arrive and photograph the rings where they'd fallen on the pavement, for evidential purposes. Additionally, where some of the rings may have been clutched in an offender's hand, there was always the possibility of fingerprints. Gordon Hunter's actions precluded that.

But it wasn't just Hunter.

"They all had their fingers in the pie," says Michael. "They're all pretty well off. They were worse than what we were, they were absolute backstabbing pricks."

Michael also recalls the police earning cash from insurance companies for retrieving stolen vehicles.

"Sometimes they were like bounty hunters. I stole a motorcycle one time and you'd think it was a Rolls Royce I'd actually pinched. They had cops out for it everywhere, and they were looking for the reward.

"Something went missing, the freezing works got their export meat pinched, there was a joker in there doing that, but they ended up getting onto that but the cops ended up taking all the meat home. None of the meat got returned, but they ended up getting something for catching him."

Poneke might like to dismiss it as 'conspiracy theory', but the sources are real people, some of them respected business leaders now, prepared to testify to a Royal Commission into police corruption.

But like the three wise monkeys, neither Poneke nor Transparency International can detect corruption in New Zealand life. 

Part of the problem is Transparency International's methodology.

Firstly, it relies primarily on reports from international quangos and ngos, most of whom have little or no intimate knowledge of NZ:

"Guidelines have been set up which govern the decision-making process regarding the selection of sources for the CPI. These guidelines include the actual criteria that a source needs to meet in order to qualify for inclusion as well as how the final decision is reached with the help of the Transparency International Index Steering Committee.

This process aims at making the final decision on the inclusion of sources as transparent and robust as possible. As a result of this it was decided that the CPI 2007 includes data from the following sources:

ADB, the Country Performance Assessment Ratings by the Asian Development Bank, compiled 2006, published 2007.

AFDB, the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment by the African Development Bank, compiled in 2005 and published December 2006

BTI, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Bertelsmann Foundation, 2007, to be published 2008.

CPIA, the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment by the IDA and IBRD (World Bank), compiled 2006, published 2007.

EIU, the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007.

FH, Freedom House Nations in Transit, 2007.

GI, Global Insight (formerly World Markets Research Centre), Country Risk Ratings 2007.

IMD, the International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne. We use the two annual publications from 2006-2007.

MIG, Grey Area Dynamics Ratings by the Merchant International Group, 2007.

PERC, the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, Hong Kong. We use the two annual publications from 2006-2007.

UNECA, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Governance Report compiled in 2005,  published 2006. New data for 2007 was not yet available.

WEF, the World Economic Forum. New data from 2007 was not yet available. We use only the data from 2006.

Then there's this:

"The index primarily provides a snapshot of the views of business people and country analysts". 

Forgive my less-than-Pollyanna cynicism, but most business people and 'country analysts' are not experts on the underworld or police corruption. Nor are they directly involved in decisions by police to prosecute National MPs but not Labour ministers.

It is probably entirely true that in terms of money-under-the-table business dealings, New Zealand is pretty clean. And that's really what TI measure. Police corruption and political dirty tricks, and the stacking of the public service with sycophants, are out of their league.

As if to prove the point, TI itself points out the kind of corruption it is looking for:

All sources generally apply a definition of corruption such as the misuse of public power for private benefit, for example bribing of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, or embezzlement of public funds.

Although arguably the $800,000 Pledgecard scandal should have put a major dent in our score on the "embezzlement of public funds" test, New Zealand consistently ranks at the top of the TI Index, it turns out, because the Index is designed not to take account of yearly scandals:

Such assessments as compiled by ADB, AFDB, BTI, CPIA, EIU, FH, MIG, UNECA and GI are conducted by a small number of country experts who regularly analyze a country's performance, crosschecking their conclusions with peer discussions.

Following this systematic evaluation, they then consider a potential upgrading or downgrading. As a result, a country's score changes rather seldom and the data shows little year-to-year variation.

   

TI relies quite heavily on foreign experts who deal with various countries to tick boxes depending on what kind of corruption they come across – kickbacks etc. TI says its use of foreigners to assess avoids what it calls a "home country bias", where locals might take a different perspective. Again, this approach is weighted to finding traditional corruption. It does not so easily detect cronyism (rife in NZ politics) or, again, police corruption.

The list of agencies TI sources intelligence from provide reports on whether a target country has laws discouraging corruption (we do, which boosts our brownie points) but they don't detect whether those laws are enforced or not. The existence of such laws, matched with the lack of prosecutions under them, is deemed to be prima facie evidence of low corruption, rather than prima facie evidence of the other obvious alternative, a failure to enforce.

A ranking of countries may easily be misunderstood as measuring the performance of a country with absolute precision. This is certainly not true. 

But according to Poneke, it is:

Let me emphasise this: You can't possibly do better than be the least-corrupt country in the world in Transparency International's list. We are not number two, we are not number three, four, five, six or seven. We are at the very top. No country scores better than New Zealand for being less corrupt. Not one.

Many people reading this will not want to hear this message and will take extreme exception to it. Some will claim Transparency International is wrong and itself part of the conspiracy they find at every traffic light, but they are deluded. Whatever the failings of New Zealand, corruption is very much not one of them and we are all the winners from this. May it ever be so.

Poneke is well-intentioned, but a big questionmark hangs on the issue of who is really "deluded"?

Comments

[Psycho Milt]

A few points:
1. I've lived in a country where corruption and influence-peddling were the norm and believe me, our Police Force and politicians are not corrupt. Not even close.
2. No doubt Transparency International's methodology leaves plenty to be desired. Nevertheless, they've applied it consistently across various countries, and we show up as least corrupt. That doesn't mean there are no corrupt public officials in NZ, it means there are fewer than in other countries.
3. Such corruption as we do have in our Police Force would be mostly eradicated by decriminalising recreational drugs. If we ask the Police to pursue people for such non-crimes, it invites corruption.

[AcidComments]

From my own 'sources'.

It's a minimum of $1000 to 'bribe' a NZ Govt official. I.E Police, Customs, etc!

The trick is. You have to know which ones are on the 'take' and only the main criminal 'underworld' seems to know that!

[peter]

Psycho Milt is, as usual, the voice of reason here.

Acid Comments - I have no idea where you got this idea from.

We are a small community and in the public service, we are remarkably transparent compared with other countries.

Just by comparison, look at the problem China is having in tracking down the melamine / milk scandal.

Their people are terrified of being put to death. NZ actually encourages openness. You can not get away with much here.

[dad4justice]

"Psycho Milt is, as usual, the voice of reason here."

But peter, as I have expressed on Poneke's blog I have a truck load of evidence that proves the NZ police to be corrupt!

[Alex Burns]

Yes, dad has loads and loads of evidence, but most of gets cleaned up each time he washes his undies.

Its a shame, isn't it Pete, that the corrupt system refuses to take your ramblings seriously.

How's the election campaigning going?

[AcidComments]

"Acid Comments - I have no idea where you got this idea from."

Peter,

FWIW. There's a nice 'cabal' of bent Customs officers on the ports of Auckland for starters. They turn a blind eye to all the 'illegal' weapons smuggling down there for $$$!

Hey it was bad enough in the 1970s. Ship loads of illegal weapons were openly coming into the country and some of the 'honest' customs officers were told to forget about doing anything about it or they wouldn't see their wife and kids, etc!

[peter]

Oh yes Acid Comments. And armed insurgents are all over the place reading to blow our heads off.

You are talking about New Zealand?

Hands up or I shoot. Lets play cowboys and indians. Pow Pow Pow!!!

Ha Ha Ha!!!

[ian]

Milt, it is Poneke who made bald assertions about the total absence of bent cops in NZ. That's what I was taking issue with.

You and I take a more pragmatic stance than Pollyneke, and I agree that the TI survey shows we are less corrupt than many other nations.

However, Poneke's boast about our 'number one' positioning is looking a little hollow, even on TI's explanation of events.

New Zealand is the only major Western police force not to have undergone a full inquiry into corruption, and based on the evidence now emerging, it is long overdue.

[AcidComments]

"Oh yes Acid Comments. And armed insurgents are all over the place reading to blow our heads off.

You are talking about New Zealand?"

Peter,

My father personally new some honest customs officers in the 1970s who confided what was really going on.

My Grandfather held a top position in one of the main Govt Depts in the 1930s and 40s. He was one of the few 'honest' individuals at the top level in the dept and he was well informed on the 'illegal' gun running/smuggling going on via the Ports of Auckland even in those days. My Grandfather was battling theft and embezzlement of taxpayer monies from the dept in those days to no avail. As soon as he had ratted out the crooks and caught them redhanded in his dept and tried to sack them,etc. He would find them back at the job in another branch of the dept up to the same old tricks again doing the same criminal practices as nothing had happened! They were completely protected species and immune from prosecution, etc. The same thing still applies today amongst the same crooked corrupt cabal who still work in the Govt system!

And I've met people in recent times who've also confirmed what's still going on, etc!

[AcidComments]

Peter,

Here's a question for you.

If there's no or hardly any corruption amongst the Police or various Govt depts and Politicians in the country as some would have us believe.

How come the police will not prosecute 3 underworld criminals in Auckland alone. They sell fake official govt documents (drivers licences for $300,etc) and they're drugdealers.

The answer Peter is simple.

They all have Police and Political connections. I know this for a fact!

[peter]

Acid .. even assuming what you are saying is true for one improbable moment I can tell you this ..

People who break the law take a RISK that the police or a citizen can make a move on them at any time!

The police the world over do weigh up whether it is best to make a pre-emptive arrest once they have one offender, or they may use this one offender (through phone tapping, visual surveillance, or other means) to pull in entire networks.

And that is typically what happens - you get co-ordinated raids that can pull in a couple of dozen at the time - including ring-leaders.

How did the Mafia carry on as it did for all those years?

That is why I say what I say. Petty criminals get away with petty crime, they move from drug usage to sales and distribution for example - then finally wham - they are all in clink wondering what happened to them.

Paul Holmes' stepdaughter is a probable example. For how many days and years has she been a "P" user? After her FIRST arrest, what has been going on since? Come to that, what was she up to when boarding at a swanky girls' boarding school? Maybe even earlier?

Here's a hint .. READ the biography of any major rock star and see how they seemed to take drugs with impunity all over the world when they were international stars. For example the 2007 autobiography of Eric Clapton - how could he get away with playing in something like the Concert for Bangladesh (including movie) when clearly so stoned in public? How could he offer to visit foreign countries on the condition that heroin will be supplied while he was there?

What about Africa, where bribery can be the only way to get through or out of the continent?

So drug users and criminals all the message is clear and universal - try your luck as long as you dare!

Extreme right wing Christian fundamentalists - do the classic Lord Horatio Nelson - keep the telescope over the non-seeing eye and tell us all what the facts are!!!

Ha Ha Ha !!!

[AcidComments]

"So drug users and criminals all the message is clear and universal - try your luck as long as you dare!"

Peter,

The individuals I'm talking about have been known to the police for years and they won't prosecute them.

The fact is some criminals are protected species regardless of their crimes.

The old saying: It's not what you know. It's who you know. Is so true!

[peter]

Acid Comments

You have been dropping too much acid lately - it is distorting your world view.

I am impressed by your connections to the underworld that other extreme right wing Christian fundamentalists would not have a bar of.

But it seems to me you are getting all carried away about a few guys that in their spare time are pulling wings off moths.

You simply can't find the space in the courtroom or gaols for guys that muck around a little. Much better to take the time as I said and then blow up complete networks and hierarchies.

Don't forget also once a person is criminalised once, so often a pattern emerges of a life of crime. Yes they know how to pick your number then.

I would give up these associations if I were you Acid Comments. I any case I thought it would give you a sour taste in the mouth!

Ha Ha Ha !!!

[dad4justice]

Mr Ha Ha Ha peter is obviously insane.

[AcidComments]

"Acid Comments

You have been dropping too much acid lately - it is distorting your world view.

I am impressed by your connections to the underworld that other extreme right wing Christian fundamentalists would not have a bar of.'

Peter,

You're obviously are very very naive individual. What's really going in this country I found out by going about my business lawfully and by pure chance. Plus as I mentioned previously honest people working inside the system have told me or members of my family what was going on.

Hey my mother was told by the Head of the Auckland MOT traffic cops back in the 1970s, They had a policy not to employ honest traffic officers!

BTW: Peter
I well know about serious corruption in this country because it affected me a nearly tore my family apart in the 1970s due to a cabal of crooked embezzling lawyers who were protected by the system for the serious crimes and perjury. One of those scumbag top lawyers worked for the 'Human Rights Commission at one stage.

It also involved an Aunt of mine who was deliberately starved to death in hospital and that was also coverup by the crooked system!

NZ is a very corrupt nation. Get you head out of the sand Peter and start looking around you. You might not like what you see once you've taken your rose tinted glasses off!

[peter]

Well Daddy 4 and Acid .. are you not the perfect pair. Were you born with a chip on your shoulder?

Look I simply do not seem to attract the shady type of people as you do. Where do you meet all these people - at church?

I have had to use lawyers in the past and found them to be extremely professional. In future Acid, why not take a personal reference so that you can get someone more suited to your needs.

I had friends who joined MOT and the process for selection was indeed rigorous, and I know they would both take personal offence if you accused them of such a thing.

The Ministry of Transport was a worthy organisation that did much to enhance our safety. It is still not clear to me that the police merger gave us pure gain.

When it comes to loopholes in tax avoidance, and monetary greed of prats like Petrovich - I agree there. Not easy to legislate to give flexibility and responsiveness to the good guys, while keeping these other guys at bay.

Rowan Williams, distinguished Archbishop of Canterbury, called this latter type "bank robbers"

[Red Rebel]

FFS Ian where do you find this crap? Have you ever traveled? ANYWHERE?

[Kevin]

"There was people getting paid under the table. [Name deleted] was a bit of a drug dealer back then but the cops never went around to see him. I was working in with him as well and we never got touched hardly, then this Peter Gibbons would come in. "I was probably making three or four thousand dollars a week selling drugs and stuff like that, and because they weren't getting anything out of it they were coming around and just ripping people off," recalls Michael.

[Kevin]

Let me emphasise this: You can't possibly do better than be the least-corrupt country in the world in Transparency International's list. We are not number two, we are not number three, four, five, six or seven. We are at the very top. No country scores better than New Zealand for being less corrupt. Not one. Many people reading this will not want to hear this message and will take extreme exception to it.

[Rick]

On one side we have the extremists:

There is hardly any corruption, so lets not look for it - stick our heads in the sand. It will never happen because NZders are supernatural beings. Hooray for US!

And on the other side we have:

NZ is rife with corruption! It's everywhere and must be stamped out. Every cop is bent!

What a bunch of myopic minds.

The article states there is an element of corruption in the police. It has proof, as much proof as can be found under the circumstances, to back it's claims.