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

If I told you that walking amongst us, are employees and officials of a New Zealand government agency that is so heinous and unaccountable in its culture, that it celebrates its ability to push its "clients" (read: beneficiaries, including the disabled) to the point of - and to the execution of - suicide, would you believe me?

Well, you need to believe me. Because that is precisely the outwardly-unacknowledged culture of New Zealand's Ministry of Social Development - perhaps this country's most loathed, feared and unprincipled "public service" organisation.

This week, a reader emailed me a Radio New Zealand article from 2016, in which some errant Ministry bully had peppered a young woman (known to be already suffering from severe depression and anxiety) with letters containing (what the Ministry later confessed were false) accusations of fraud, followed by letters gloating that she had been "referred for prosecution" (letters which were also later found to have had no legal basis whatsoever).

The falsehood-ridden letters and the severe panic they threw the young woman into, exacerbated the stress of her existing situation to the point where she took her own life.

And did the Ministry give a shit? No. Not a tittle or a tot. How do I know? Because I have a good friend who has been acting in an unpaid support role for bullied beneficiaries (including disability beneficiaries) for now three decades. When I read the article my reader sent me, I was duly horrified. I called him: Did he know about this terrible situation from back in 2016, I asked, furious. Yes, he answered, but "you better sit down".

"Jordan, it happens frequently. It's their culture. It's considered a real achievement when they've been able to push someone that far."

You're KIDDING me? was my response. Why don't we see these articles in the media every time, then?

Because the Coroner doesn't allow them to be reported on, was his answer. Our conversation ended there for the moment, but he's promised it will continue, in more detail, at a slightly later date. So readers: stand by for that. I don't look forward to reporting such a "next instalment", but I think we all need to know exactly what really goes on behind closed doors in this patently wicked, patently unaccountable, and patently toxic culture-driven agency.

In the meantime, I'm going to list here just some of what I've been appraised of that bullied and targeted beneficiaries are experiencing at the hands of some of these twisted Ministry staffers. Especially heinously, there appears to be a particular and recent-times bent towards creating and maximising opportunities to bully, victimise and stress disability beneficiaries.

Here are some experiences - in summary form - that I have been made aware of. As I receive more communications alerting me to this sort of Ministry behaviour, I'll continue to bring you further commentary and exposes.

Disability Beneficiary Humiliated by the 'Spraying Around' of Medical & Financial Information

A disability beneficiary had their most intensely personal and private medical situation and financial information emailed openly to multiple different parties, none of whom had any business receiving, or reason to receive, the beneficiary's information. One of these parties was a journalist.

Beneficiary's Competitor Paid to Represent Ministry Against Beneficiary At 'Benefit Review Hearing'

Despite the "very large pool of 'Community Representatives''' the Ministry's website lauds as available for appointment to the "Benefit Review Hearing" process (that a beneficiary must apply for, if they have not been in receipt of their full legal entitlements), a staffer sought out someone from the beneficiary's professional sphere (read: a direct competitor), for inclusion on the panel of four - i.e. from the Ministry's side and whom the beneficiary must represent themselves to / against.

On the note of these "Benefit Review Hearings", yet another reader has sent me a document discussing the principles of "natural justice", written by a barrister. I'd like to quote a paragraph from it here:

"It is simply unacceptable for a Government organisation, employee or other person charged with upholding the principles of natural justice, to attempt to walk away from making fair and proper decisions, and to instead rely on reviews or the courts to put things right."

Interestingly, the same staffer that pulled this particular stunt was the same one behind the previously outlined act i.e. the spraying around of a beneficiary's personal information - one Marama Stewart of a "Central Region Escalations" division.

Correspondence indicates that the distressed beneficiary several times emailed the Minister, Louise Upston, to complain and plead against this vindictive act by Stewart (whose template letter indicated that the beneficiary had the "right to object to the appointment of any panel member", but was told by Stewart, when in fact they did object, that that right didn't apply to them - for some unstated reason).

Email trails demonstrate that the Minister's assistant - a Ceri Burke - conveniently "missed" the first several desperate emails pleading not to be openly humiliated in such a manner, before simply sending a response "from the Minister" that stated it was an "operational matter" and not of interest to the Minister. In a perfect display of the "5 D's" used by New Zealand government agencies to frustrate citizens, the staffer, Marama Stewart, in turn responded that she was operating in accordance with a Ministerial directive.

Maliciously Set Up to Have Benefit Cut Off

A disability beneficiary who was unable to complete quarterly paperwork due to neurological difficulties - and who lived alone with no support network - had the Ministry's previous assistance to do so, withdrawn after the beneficiary objected to the demeaning manner in which they had been spoken to by a staffer.

The beneficiary made three phone calls pleading for the continuation of the assistance previously given. Unbeknownst to those involved, the beneficiary recorded the calls - each with a different staffer, but each personally knowing the other members of staff involved in the matter. The recordings (of which I am in receipt) demonstrate the Ministry staffers intentionally tormenting the beneficiary by asking for the same justifications repeatedly (and I might say, in the most demeaning manner).

A "promise" was finally made that another staffer would call the beneficiary to complete the forms before the "cut-off" deadline. However, the call was never received and the benefit was cut off. A gloating letter was received from a Magnus O'Neill at "Ministerial Services" cruelly taunting that - when the beneficiary managed to work out for themselves how to get said forms filled in, the restoration of their benefit might be considered. Despicably, the "completely stuck" beneficiary was maliciously kept without a weekly benefit for a full six months, before the Human Rights Commission finally stepped in.

The beneficiary sent the recordings of the phone calls that demonstrated the malicious set-up by the group of staffers, to the Ministry, but they were returned "with a smart ass note saying they hadn't listened to them". The beneficiary went on to offer the phone call recordings to multiple other Ministry staffers, but without acknowledgement.

'Mercy-Seeking' Correspondence from Doctors & Medical Specialists Opportunistically Used Against Beneficiaries

Beneficiaries have been strongly advised by legal experts and experienced support persons not to - under any circumstances, have or allow their GPs or other medical service providers to produce correspondence asking the Ministry for consideration of their patients - including asking that staff not wilfully create undue and unnecessary stress for them.

In one particular instance, a beneficiary's GP was concerned that the extreme stress being created by Ministry staffers placed his patient at severe risk of experiencing further episodes of Atrial Fibrillation, which the beneficiary had recently been hospitalised for.

The beneficiary chose to communicate this to the Ministry and referenced the GP's willingness to produce correspondence (but that legal advice had been given to the beneficiary about the likely mischievous use of such correspondence by Ministry staff).

The Ministry staffer to whom this was communicated responded by "upping the ante" with an acceleration of the stress. (Readers: What this staffer did requires a whole new definition for the word "heinous" - but I have been asked not to detail it here as it is "too personal".)

OIA 'Unreadability' Strategy

A beneficiary sought their information and records through an Official Information Act request.

The information was sent such that the orientation of a large percentage of its pages, and the tiny type size used, made it unreadable. Thus the beneficiary was unable to read, extract, or even ascertain whether all their information had even been provided.

Open-Office Ridicule of Beneficiaries for their Disabilities

I received a particularly shameful account of a beneficiary who was ridiculed openly by Ministry staffers for their disability, and had a cruel joke played on them, in front of an audience of people - which staff, including the security doorman, thought was hilarious.

The disabled beneficiary did not. They were deeply traumatised by it.

Intentional Prevention of Beneficiary's Efforts to Work

In another instance, an enterprising disability beneficiary with physical disabilities, had been given assistance by several start-up agencies, to produce a business concept that would allow them to counter their specific debilitations and gradually be able to return to income independence.

Each agency advised of a specific and directly relevant funding program offered by the Ministry of Social Development, and referred the beneficiary on to the Ministry to take the initiative to fruition. However, the beneficiary's communications were simply "wholesale ignored" by Ministry staffers "at all levels".

The tenacious beneficiary phoned the office of then-Minister of Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, who instructed "Ministerial Services" to move on the matter. The email chain shows the same Ministerial Services staffer, a Magnus O'Neill (also as referenced under the above subhead, 'Maliciously Set Up to Have Benefit Cut Off') wrote to the beneficiary to say that management staff from a regional office would be tasked with working with the beneficiary to achieve the outcome instructed by Minister Sepuloni.

The beneficiary was duly summoned to travel to present to two regional management personnel. The 2.5-hour presentation was "very well-received" - with the managers indicating funding would be forthcoming.

The elated beneficiary waited, waited, and waited some more, following up relentlessly for two years, before finally complaining - by this time to the new Minister i.e. Louise Upston - of the "cruel stonewalling" that had followed the presentation. They finally received an email, falsely claiming that a letter of declination had been sent by post, some months prior. The beneficiary is adamant that the letter was retrospectively produced and certainly had never been previously received. Ironically, there was a further association of the same Ministerial Services staffer as had been tasked by the previous Minister to see the application brought to fruition - Magnus O'Neill - in the correspondence regarding the now strange and inexplicable declination under the new Minister, Louise Upston.

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO READERS:

As you can see, the experiences above are too numerous for me to bring them all to you in one piece of coverage. Some of them are worse still than you have read here. I will bring these to you progressively in future articles.

In the meantime, for those of you who have asked me to create a "Comments" section under the articles, I apologise profusely that the very basic platform on which The Customer & The Constituent is built (i.e. a platform that isn't actually designed to be blog-driven in the front end) doesn't provide this functionality.

However, please, please, continue to use the feedback form at the bottom of each page of this site, to send me your experiences, your cases, your comments, or anything you wish. I receive these inputs with gratitude, and - maybe even better than just a Comments section - this mechanism allows me to correspond back with you, to bring your experiences to light through actual full-blown articles - which so many of them thoroughly deserve to be.

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Editor’s Conclusion : Unqualified. Unsupervised. Unaccountable. And Still Accredited.

UPDATED 10.3.26: WAITING, MASSEY . . . Are You Going to Comply with Your Legally Required Information-Release Obligations?

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UPDATED: 10.3.26 Will This Badly Behaving Institution Finally Allow the Full Truth to Be Revealed?

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IN PROGRESS: How Massey 'Training' Produces the Low Vet Care Standards & Outright Contempt NZ Pet Owners Have to Tolerate

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Time for Change : New Zealand's Pet Parents Say NO MORE to the Poor Standards, Compromised Care & Outright Contempt We Put Up With from the 'Products' of the Massey Veterinary Degree Factory

MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED

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.

(UPDATED) PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It . . . & the VCNZ Has A MASSIVE Conflict of Interest

by Jordan Kelly • 17 February 2026

Harry WAS A Marked Dog. I Had Hoped Massey Vet Staff Couldn't Have Been Any More Wicked Than They'd Already Been Caught Out Being. But YES , Actually, They COULD .

CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSING & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey

by Jordan Kelly • 15 February 2026

This Is What Happens When Massey Thinks THEY Own Your Dog & Can Do With Him As They Please (You Just Pay the Invoice) At This Appalling, Unaccountable Veterinary House of Horrors (LATEST PROOF OF 'LAB RAT' TREATMENT HERE )

NOT ‘Euthanasia’: A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences

by Jordan Kelly • 12 February 2026

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

Massey University's Upside-Down Prioritisation of Taxpayer Funds: Fiscal Malfeasance & the TRUE Cost of Institutional Arrogance

by Jordan Kelly • 11 February 2026

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.

ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous?

by Jordan Kelly • 8 February 2026

An Expert Contributed Commentary (FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE .)

Seems to me, you'd have to be a very special sort of a cretin to work for an outfit like this . . . IMHO

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