The following is the submission which I have made with regards to the Mixed Ownership Model Bill .
The fact that our government even considering such a move without consideration to ant corruption measures shows that there is a need for an independent commission against corruption hence my petition.
The Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee
I am a licenced Private Investigator , former Police Sergeant and an anti-corruption specialist.
New Zealand was amongst the first to sign the United Nations convention against corruption in 2003 and since that date we have done little to honour the treaty.
Here we are again poised to transform a bill into legislation and I have to ask what anti-corruption measures have been considered in writing the bill.
Caution has to be taken in creating legislation from the moment the first bill is drafted. I have documentary evidence of persons with vested interest writing legislation for their own business plan and their own financial growth. In that particular case the person became an employee and advisor of the select committee through the transition of the bill. Yes it happened in New Zealand but we prefer to keep this quite.
It is therefore important for the select committee in the interest of corruption known as state capture to consider
- Who wrote the bill
- what interest have they declared
- What prompted the need for the bill in the first place.
- is the writer of the bill involved in its transition stages
- What purpose does this person have for the bill/ resulting legislation ?
Ideally the bill’s author should be truly independent and have no future aspirations as to the fruits of the bill or the legislation arising from it.
The party the author of the bill is connected to also warrants consideration , what is his/ her connection to the party . In the instance I use as an example the writer/ advisor utilized the legislation for self-enrichment and to facilitate it this person had the opportunity to heavily edit the caucus papers of the minister whose portfolio the legislation directly related to. Whilst treasury and ministry opposed the approval for the establishments of a law enforcement authority under that legislation, approval was given by caucus on the strength of the caucus papers .
My next issue is with the definition of person referred to in the interpretation act and relied on for this bill.
Person includes unincorporated groups. This is a very loose term and gives provisions for person and persons unknown to become involved in the ownership model. see Anthony Molloys QC article on trust busting
When we allow for invisibility we open the door to corruption. The persons need to be real and legally definable. Unincorporated trusts are a vehicle for of corruption , the deeds are not visible and not recorded. No unincorporated body which does not have true transparency should be considered.
This also implicates companies , as we often don’t know who the owners of New Zealand companies are , due to our very loose processes with the company registrations and before we even consider sharing public assets with third parties we have to be certain that we know who they are.
Currently a New Zealand company can be owned by foreigners but because the company is registered in NZ we consider it a legal NZ person even if we cant see beyond some names which could very well be fictional directors and a overseas registered company of which we have no proof of registration or control of continued registration. .
Further there are the provisions of the United Nations Convention against Corruption itself. What considerations have been given to the terms and expectations of this treaty ,which we signed and then relegated to the bottom draw? What articles of this treaty have been considered in the drafting of this legislation and what consideration has been given to transparency and the right to access information from the third parties who through this legislation could become part owners of our national assets?
And what of the power companies themselves, will we still be able to seek accountability under the state sector act? Or any other provision? Or will the companies be deemed private and the information they hold will no longer be available under the official information act and will they still come under the jurisdiction of our public watchdogs such as the Ombudsmen and auditor general?
Power is already a monopoly. The definition for corruption is monopoly & discretion – accountability.
I fear that this bill will diminish the accountability of the power companies further, giving greater scope for discretion in already well-established monopolies what this bill is doing is opening the door to corruption even further, the only people who stand to lose are the New Zealand citizens who currently own the assets through the crown.
This bill has not considered corruption, it is a vehicle to asset strip the county.
We appear to be hell bent on profit, what is wrong with a model where by the people are the owners and shareholders and the benefits of their shareholding is that in return they receive economical gas and electricity bills .
The profits for that third party shareholders will seek, has to be paid by someone . The people who will pay for this initiative are the consumers, the people of New Zealand.
Have we not learnt from the sale of telecom, the sale of the rail ways, the rich get richer the poor are left to foot the bill we should be looking at closing the gap not continue to increase it.
Where there are shareholders there is an expectation of profit . There is a radical notion one which we adopted in the past and one we have lost sight of, and that is service .
We could have a power service but only if the assets remain those of the people and the profits are fed back into the asset.
Lastly where is the cost benefit analysis in this? Where is the need to consider partial privatisation what studies are there to show what serves our country and our people best.
It appears to me that this bill is not one that will serve in the interest of the country, it will serve well for a small group of people who are already anticipating personal wealth creation as a result of this bill passing into law.
We should be legislating for accountability and transparency not be creating laws that will allow our assets to pass into unseen and unaccountable hands.
Yours sincerely
Grace Haden
Licenced Private Investigator
Anticorruptionnz's Blog 