Anti-Corruption Pilot A 'Too Short, Too Narrow PR Exercise'. How About A Definition That Exposes Corruption In ALL Its Forms?
Jordan Kelly • 22 July 2025

Definition of 'Corruption' MUST Include Dishonest, Seedy, Cruel, Underhanded & Highly Damaging Practices of Ministers & Ministry Management and Personnel

Lies, lies and more damn lies. Has Collins's and Mitchell's "Anti-Corruption" Pilot brief been engineered to cover the real source, and more immediately injurious forms, of corruption?


Concern exists over this week's announcement by Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Public Service Minister Judith Collins, that a short, sharp and shiny six-month "cross-agency Anti-Corruption Taskforce pilot" is more of a PR exercise to facilitate shutdown of any criticism (past, present and future) that Parliament has done nothing to maintain New Zealand's (delusionary) "clean and green" image in the corruption and ethics space.


The announcement, says the press release, "highlights the Government’s commitment to protecting public funds and upholding integrity across the state sector", "will be led by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), supported by NZ Police and the Public Service Commission", and "participating agencies are the Department of Corrections, Land Information New Zealand, Inland Revenue, ACC, Ministry of Social Development and Sport New Zealand".


The pilot "will inform" the Government’s future approach to counter-fraud and corruption capability across the state sector, with a "public report" to be released following its completion.


Just what the New Zealand public needs: Another report. (As an aside, you'll read in this article I published last week, what former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer KC, thinks of the New Zealand Parliament's report production fetish i.e.: “New Zealand is really good at doing reviews, reports and inquiries, but no good whatsoever at implementing any of them.”


'Too narrow: Politicians exempt from scrutiny'


Especially concerned about the likely nothingburger that the almost-certainly PR initiative will turn out to be in actual practice, is Dr Bryce Edwards,   Director of The Integrity Institute, who was quick to produce an analysis of the broader Parliamentary documents that will guide the "pilot" (and keep it conveniently constrained):


"The most glaring flaw in the Taskforce Pilot is its limited focus on the core public service, to the exclusion of elected officials and government ministers. (Corruption) often emanates from the pinnacles of power – the politicians and political insiders who set the rules and make the decisions.


"By design, the Taskforce will scrutinise six departments for their fraud controls and any detected wrongdoing . . . but will not be examining the conduct, systems or vulnerabilities of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, ministerial staff, or local government, nor the interfaces between money and politics – party financing, lobbying, contracting, and favouritism in appointments.


"These political arenas are exactly where recent New Zealand corruption scandals have erupted, and where oversight is weakest. Any serious anti-corruption strategy must include politicians, not just public servants.


"Consider the litany of incidents in recent years that have undermined public confidence in our 'good governance' reputation: the Stuart Nash affair, in which a Cabinet Minister was sacked for privately briefing donors on confidential Cabinet discussions; the persistent political donation scandals involving multiple parties; the 'wild west' lobbying industry that thrives with zero regulation; the revolving door of officials becoming lobbyists; and allegations of ministerial cronyism in public appointments.


"None of these problems will be touched by a one-off survey of a few agencies’ internal fraud frameworks."


Especially, he points out, when the exercise amounts to little more than a self-assessment survey by the Chief Executives of said departments.


'Too Little: A Six-Month Window & Risk of PR Tokenism'


"The second major concern is the limited scale and timeframe of the pilot. This is a six-month exercise set to conclude by the end of 2025. After the participating agencies file self-assessments this quarter, the Taskforce will spend October–December analysing the data and writing a public report and ministerial advice.


"By design, this is a short, sharp project – understandable as a proof of concept, but hardly the sustained effort needed to counter entrenched corruption risks. There is a real danger that once the pilot report is published, ministers will declare 'job done' and move on, without any structural change. A one-off stocktake is not the same as an ongoing strategy. The Government needs to convincingly show that this pilot will feed into continuous improvements, not just produce a glossy report that gathers dust.


"The language from officials is promising but non-committal: the findings 'will set a baseline' and 'inform advice' on potentially extending the assessment to more entities. It’s good to establish a baseline, but what comes next?"


What About the Places Where Corruption of Procedure & Corruption of Ethics Intersect?


But there are far more places and far more people to investigate, far more broadly and in far more depth . . . if New Zealand's current crop of Parliamentarians are in any way serious about corruption in the Public Service and (to say nothing of - as The Ethics Institute alludes to) the rampant corruption in Ministerial suites and the Ministerial (sometimes called Parliamentary) Services suite.


I've covered a few good examples (but that don't even begin to melt the tip of the iceberg) right here in various articles I've written on The Customer & The Constituent  - the most recent of which I published last week:    DIFFERENTLY ABLED . . . & Definitely Able and Willing to Expose the Decades-Long Incompetence, Malfeasance & Cronyism of Two Deeply Corrupt Government Agencies and Their Parliamentary Enablers.


This was one interview that really rattled the usual lassez faire ("go your hardest, no-one can ever hold us accountable"), smirking attitude of the powers that probably shouldn't be, with the feared and revered professional thorn-in-the-side of the Ministry of Social Development and Oranga Tamariki, one Mr Graeme Axford.


He had just released an updated, Version 2.0 of his best-selling 2020 book, 'Differently Abled', in which he outs the seedy, cruel, and corrupt behaviours of large sections of the Parliamentarian sect and their Ministry minions, along with the "blind eye" modus operandi of "watchdog" agencies (like the Ombudsman, the Human Rights Commission, and the Privacy Commissioner) meant to genuinely and neutrally (and actually) investigate and prosecute their public sector colleagues' wrongdoings (but rarely doing so). (Axford's revelations over past decades have proven to be something even the likes of Oranga Tamariki's annual $2 million spend on in-house departmental spin doctors, I mean, err, Comms Team, can't sufficient muzzle or damage-control.)


Upon my publication of the interview, Axford was promptly contacted by a prominent member of the Parliament's Uniparty and enthusiastically invited to SHUT TF UP.


He replied by firmly advising of his refusal to be silenced, responding in kind, by cordially invited the Uniparty representative and his broader Parliamentary cohorts to go to hell.


Which, if I may momentarily inject my own opinion, is where any politician supporting the corruption and cruelty in these two Ministries richly deserves to reside. (See my recent piece on Upston and her Ministry's Unpublicised Soft-Kill Policy and associated heinous practices.)


A Few Tiny but Choice Examples from Previous Coverage Here on The Customer & The Constituent


How Wellington REALLY Works:  The '5Ds'


The Heinous Secret Practices of An Unaccountable Ministry & Its Off-the-Chain Staffers


Ministry Staffer Sends Client's Personal, Health & Financial Information to Journalist


Do NZ Politicians Care If their Govt's Infamous '5Ds' Destroy Health & Life? Not (Allegedly) If You're Chris Bishop or Todd Muller.


What If We Ranked Government Ministers by the Ethical Standards of their Ministries?


Is It OK to Weaponise A Government Agency Against A Disabled Individual for Speaking Up About Victimisation & Bullying?


Update on the Weaponisation-of-MSD Saga


Woke Government Agency’s Staffers Luxuriate their (Maori) Favourites & Screw their (White) Non-Favourites



And There's More Where That Lot Came From. The Public Service & the Ministerial Clan Provide No Shortage of Fresh Material, Unfortunately.


There were more. And there are more coming - including one on why two names keep cropping up so regularly in these accounts and the correspondence I've been furnished with: one bloke from Ministerial Services, and an uber nasty-sounding woman from MSD's Central Region Escalation Unit. Not good. They need looked into, and if the "honorable" Minister won't do it, I know just the investigative journalist for the job.


I'm also working on exposing yet another seedy and despicable Ministry of Social Development practice that's been recently brought to my attention:  the practice of mysteriously axing or cutting beneficiaries' legal entitlements (with a particular fetish for targeting bona fide disability beneficiaries) without explanation and then putting them through a one-sided, outnumbered "courtroom"-style hearing to fight to get said legal entitlements back.


Despicable. But not the worst of it. Because what is often also rolled in to the "process" is the production (by Ministry staffers) of a "report" on which said hearing and outcome relies, into which the beneficiary (treated like a "defendant" when the actual perpetrators are the Ministry staffers) has nil input, with the report signed off by the staffers as being a "true and fair" account of the beneficiary's side! Astounding. In what court of law is that remotely acceptable?!


But it gets worse: This "evidence" is very commonly falsified, according to both my research and my sources. My forthcoming article will call for a public apology from two Levin staffers for the distress (financial and emotional) that their falsification of evidence wilfully caused the beneficiary in question.


Meantime, here's just a few blowing the whistle on corruption in Local Government - that, to be noted, has been excluded from any mention in the "Anti-Corruption Pilot":


Taupo Councillor Blows the Whistle: The '5Ds' of Bureaucratic Sabotage At Work in Local Government


SHAME, Tararua District Council: The Story They Thought I Wouldn't Survive to Tell (Part One)


Oh, and will someone PLEASE look into all those rampant road cone breeding colonies all around the North Island?

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by Jordan Kelly 27 February 2026
Readers following the coverage of my attempts to get to the bottom of what happened to my beloved little papillon, Harry, with whom I was extraordinarily closely bonded, will know that: (A) The rot in Massey University’s Companion Animal “Hospital” (CAH) runs deep. (B) Honesty and transparency is not their policy. Denial, dismissal, stonewalling, legal threats and intimidation are. (C) Animals aren’t safe there, with cruelty embedded in “care”, and your property (as your pet legally is) not considered your property at all, as far as Massey, its CAH staff and management are concerned. Your pet is theirs ; to do with as they please, according to their mindset and their modus operandi. And if that involves catastrophic levels of unauthorised, contraindicated, convenience sedation to facilitate their use of your pet in monetised student video collections (including on private cell phones, and to which you will be given no access), this too, according to Massey, is its own God-given right and “best practice” Standard Operating Procedure. (D) “Informed Consent” has a very different meaning in the Massey playbook to that which is generally deemed its accepted definition. (E) “Accountability” is a foreign concept and not one with which they have any intention of becoming acquainted. (F) Laws – including those governing animal welfare, property conversion and more – are not only optional, in Massey’s case, they simply don’t apply. In fact, they appear blissfully ignorant of them according to my (and Harry's) experience. You know all that. You’ve read about it here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and in most of my other now 30+ articles covering the numerous different sub-atrocities within the overall atrocity that was the demise and disposal of my precious little Harry. Actually, "atrocious" doesn't come anywhere near to being an adequate adjective. Despite having been a professional writer since I was 16 and having upwards of 25 published books under my belt, I don't actually have an adjective that's adequate for the pure evil that was perpetrated upon Harry . . . and, by extension, me . There is not one word or one phrase that can sufficiently convey the depth and breadth of the sheer, unadulterated wickedness that festers without restraint within the walls of Massey University's Companion Animal "Hospital". What you, my readers (or those of you not on Massey's massive legal team payroll) didn’t yet know – because I didn’t yet know – is that record and evidence tampering (which, for any other New Zealand citizen would attract jail time of up to 10 years under the Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 (Altering document with intent to deceive) or Section 260 (Falsifying registers) , and/or a $10,000 fine under the Privacy Act Section 212(2)(b) - appears also to be included in the “we’re exempt” culture of Massey and its veterinary “hospital” staff. Note to Readers: The above laws aren't some hypothetical, bottom-drawer, dusty old legal tracts in archaic library textbooks. They're real, "living" laws that apply to every individual in our country. And today, they are being made to apply to Dr Stephanie Rigg and her "colleagues" who falsified Harry's records to create a cover-up of what they did to him . . . and to me. I will, duly, see Dr Rigg and her associates in Court. Dissecting the Cover-Up: Massey’s Metadata of Deception But back to what readers do know for a moment: You’ll know that I’ve been in the battle of battles for the past two months to extract Harry’s full records (or anything approaching them) from Massey’s Legal and Governance department. HOWEVER . . . there was one thing I hadn’t known how to decipher that they actually had finally drip-fed to me. It was File Name: Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) . I’ve been learning a lot about veterinary science, record-keeping, and law in general lately. Not because I wanted to. But because if you want to figure out how deep the rot really runs at Massey, you kind of have to. So I’ve learned a bit about how to decipher clinical metadata. Just e nough to realise that this Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) is exactly where the digital fingerprints of a cover-up are hiding. Despite the fact that this document has as much redacted as it shows (probably more), with ALL staff names and positions blacked out, for example -I still found four distinct “smoking gun” entries in these otherwise heavily-redacted metadata logs. BIG. FAT. SMOKING. GUNS. that amounted to one undeniable overall conclusion: This document isn’t a clinical record so much as it’s a literal crime scene . There were already so many dodgy inconsistencies in the few items I'd managed to pull out of Massey to that point (as I've documented in various of my preceding articles). But this document is where, undeniably, the bodies are buried. You just need to know which clod of dirt to look under. Hidden in Plain Sight . . . In A Little Thing Called the Metadata (That the Average Pet Owner Wouldn't Even Know Existed ) There are four hidden but key findings demonstrating that the entire timeline of Harry’s “experience” in that hellhole were was orchestrated, and the sudden "neurological event/decline" exit strategy planned for him were a total fabrication. And that fabrication had a start time. (For this start time we will initially revert our focus back to Massey's previously-supplied "Clinical Summary" (in all its dodginess) . . . We will then lead from the immediately below into the afore-mentioned "Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit)". Bear with me. I promise not to let this get boring). Well, one of two start times. Either: (1) The 8.38am disconnection of his (with, by-then, the TWO 750% overdoses of the renally contraindicated convenience sedative with which the "crying dog"-sensitive ICU staff had plied him overnight) now life-essential IV fluids (8.5 hours into the prescribed 24-hour protocol that they charged me for). And/or: (2) When the day shift ICU "vet" arrived at 9am and decided a THIRD 750% overdose would be a strategic way do deal with a clearly already massively overdosed little 3.8kg, 15-year-old, dehydrated dog. Now WHY would any vet take such a decision? Well, for legal purposes, of course (remembering that the Venerable Dean Jon Huxley and the obviously not- so-new-broom Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter, have all the money in the public purse to pay their top-tier external legal counsel . . . and by gum, there are enough of the buggers, if this site's analytics are anything to be guided by), I will precede the following by stating that these are my conclusions, made on the basis of the collation and evaluation of the information before me. That said, what I know of my readers is this: You are no intellectual slouches. Feel free to let me know if you can come up with any other conclusion from the information (complete with now numerous "receipts") that I have thus far presented, most especially here and here , and most tellingly of all, in today's expose. R emember, though, I held the ultimate evidence in my arms at 6pm on December 1 . . . and, some 45 minutes later, I let them take it (safely, for them) away from me, just like Harry's (the literal body of evidence) life had just been taken from him. Little Numerals that Tell A BIG Story The plan for Harry's manufactured exit is not so much written into the records, as it is revealed by the tampering with the logs. They lay bare the lead vet’s apparent plan that his life would come to an abrupt end by the pre-scheduled time of (well, they couldn't quite get consistency in the logs regarding the exact minute, but by the absolute latest time of) 17:00 hours i.e. 5pm . . . assumedly, the end of the day shift on December 1. Just in time to mark him "Deceased" and seal off the records of this catastrophically overdosed patient, before the next shift came on, saw his records, and someone started asking the immediately necessary, and certainly appropriate, questions. And those questions would (0R SHOULD ) have included , but would certainly not have been limited to: How long has this dog been in this state? Why hasn't any rescue and remediation protocol been undertaken? Why was he given yet ANOTHER administration of 50mg of Gabapentin at 09:00 hours after the preceding two during night shift? Why is he disconnected from his IV fluids? Who approved that and why? (And if they knew he'd starred in a multi-video student film festival that morning): Was he taken out of his cage and handled in this state? When did he last drink? Was he given any food before he entered this near-comatose state? Does the owner know of the overdoses and the state he's in? Have you filled in an incident report? Have any emergency specialists been called in for advice? and, no doubt, many more questions. OR . . . maybe not. It depends if the rot in that ICU is fully immersive, or if it's concentrated on Dr Stephanie Rigg's day shift and the ICU shift staff of the preceding (November 30) night. But none of those questions could be asked and none of that could happen. The day shift - led by "Dr" Rigg ("Steffi") - wasn't about to let it happen. Thus, the pre-timestamped, just before end-of-shift, Time of Death entered into the "Euthanasia Authorisation" form that they had all queued up for me long before I ever arrived at that Godforsaken facility that fated December 1 afternoon.
by Jordan Kelly 17 February 2026
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FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS: GO HERE . My Precious Little Boy Died Needlessly, In Intense Physical, Mental & Emotional Agony . . . After Massive Overdosing, Intense Cruelty & Intentionally False Diagnosis by Massey 'Vet' (So Called) to Enable His 'Disposal' After Lab Rat-Style Experimentation
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While my focus is on the 750% overdosing of my precious little dog, Harry, with an unauthorised, contraindicated convenience sedative, his conversion from patient to live specimen, and the subsequent destruction of evidence (HIM), Massey’s focus is on deploying a taxpayer-funded legal hit squad to 'profile' me.
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An Expert Contributed Commentary (FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE .)
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