JR Bruning
JR Bruning is a sociologist (B.Bus.Agribusiness; MA Sociology(Res)) based in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Her primary research focus is on the relationship between governance, policy, and the production of scientific and technical knowledge for public good.
New Zealand’s Attorney-General Hon Judith Collins has secured the responsibility for six ministerial hats, rather than the conventional two, or perhaps three, hats.
I keep waiting for a prominent journalist, or public law expert to query this concentration of power, but crickets.
The Attorney-General Hon Judith Collins has not wasted time since National came to power in 2023. Collins moved swiftly to lock in policies to reform the science system and genetically modified organisms (GMO) regulation.
Collins is the Minister for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); the Minister for Space; the Minister for Defence; and the Minister for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS). Early this year, just weeks after finishing the science system overhaul and sending the Gene Technology Bill to select committee, the Hon Judith Collins swapped her science minister hat to become the Minister for New Zealand’s Public Service.
Within a couple of months Collins announced that she was overhauling the 2020 Public Sector Act. Collins is now aiming to:
Really? A five-year-old act is already out of date? Is this the opinion of many, or just whirlwind Collins? Some picturesque resources have been produced, but there do not seem to be wholesale calls to overhaul this act. What is happening here?
As the Minister for Digitising Government, Collins is acutely aware that, “It’s a portfolio that goes hand in glove with the public service.”
In 2016 Otago Professor of Law Andrew Geddis remarked that the system was working and that “New Zealand has managed to combine unified and intensive forms of public power with a genuinely free and open society,” noting that New Zealand:
hardly has plunged the nation into a nightmarish vista of totalitarian authoritarianism, ruled over by the fiat of a handful of individuals in central government.
Where are we 10 years later, after a pandemic that required 13-year-olds to be vaccinated with a novel gene technology that never promised to prevent hospitalisation and death, in order to attend sporting events? Where are we 10 years later, watching the Attorney-General oversee legislation that demonstrably lacks scientific credibility, before pivoting swiftly to work on breaking open the Public Sector Act, while she strengthens digital government and controls the NZSIS, GCSB and the Defence budget?
Collins’ strategic position is all the more startling because of the capacity for digital scaling and oversight by relatively small numbers of individuals, using secretive, black-boxed technologies that remain out-of-sight of the public.
This concentration of powers appears to be metamorphosing at the very time that Kiwis are becoming poorer and sicker.
SCALING UP EXECUTIVE OVERSIGHT POWERS
New Zealand’s executive government is charging full-tilt into maximising the opportunities provided by the scalar potential of digital and surveillance technologies. No – New Zealand doesn’t have a high rate of fraud which would entail increased ID security measures:
New Zealand has the lowest fraud rate of our partner countries (Australia, Canada, United States of America, United Kingdom and Ireland. For 2023, 11 cases of fraud were detected, representing 0.0023 per cent of the 472,872 passports issued.
There is no real reason to compulsorily require a Digital ID to access jobs, services and resourcing. It’s a political decision.
Much of the herding, or corralling onto digital ID tech through a series of policy nudges is all ‘voluntary’. You don’t have to get a digital ID if you don’t want one. However, life can get inconvenient. The policy nudges are undertaken in full awareness that as a social species, we will comply.
Without a digital ID there are barriers to government jobs and specific services, such as arbitration services or government funding grants. A digital ID is compulsory for a gun licence. It may not be compulsory to access tertiary education, but if you have one, it’s much easier to slip into the tertiary system.
Then there is the quiet work by StatsNZ on a statistical register, called the Integrated Statistical Data System. StatsNZ’s plans for a unique identifier for every New Zealander should be unthinkable for anyone keen on limiting administrative over-reach.
Journalist Bonnie Flaws, who used to work for the accredited media, has recently published a four-part report, on how StatsNZ would have oversight and access to a massive real-time database where all Kiwis have a unique digital tag. She’s outlined how the relatively unknown system has potential to accumulate fine-grained information on every individual, how privacy and data matching is a real problem, how this work extends way beyond the normal production of statistics, involving extensive access to a proliferation of data streams, and how the 2028 Census will become yet another contraction point for the merging of private data into a centralised database.
Most people are unaware of the secretive approved information sharing agreements (ASIAs) between our government agencies. The department tasked with formulating trust in digital identity services in New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), is pretty much accountable to itself. The Privacy Commissioner doesn’t stand a chance.
The latest ‘oops, you’ll need an ID for this’, is a members bill to ‘protect’ under 16s through bans to designated social media platforms. Incidentally, the technicalities would necessarily entail proof of ID by everyone. It’s yet another example of a policy that harmonises with other Anglo nations, where policies consistently grant the government even greater powers of oversight.
Most recently Collins, with tourism Minister Louise Upton, released an app for tourists that ‘signals step toward modern digital identity system’. Necessarily, the App, which is currently only marketed for tourism purposes as a convenience to prove a foreign driver’s license, will be tied to revocation lists. Last year the app for a digital New Zealand driver’s license was released.
In a time of increasing opacity – please understand that revocation lists can be configured en masse.
Flaw’s work adds to PSGR’s 2024 research, which showed how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) would necessarily be interoperable and toggled to your own digital ID. The extent to which orders can be sent from a distance and impact groups of people should be alarming to anyone who appreciates how swiftly emergency powers can be put in place in this country.
CBDC are a technocrat’s dream. Three-party locks can be programmed whereby a third party could specify functionality. Several actions can be bundled into one executable package (referred to as ‘composability’). In human language, discrete instructions could come from an unknown (but internally verified) source, identifying and tagging groups for the same action. Bank accounts of not just an individual, but groups of people could be frozen, or CBDCs withdrawn.
CBDCs may or may not come into force, but we’re watching governments freeze bank accounts with increasing impunity.
Make no mistake, digital IDs, biometric camera data and the related technologies are enabling governments to have much greater powers of oversight over us. By comparison, there has been no commensurate scaling up of oversight powers over the agencies who will hold the access to the technologies and our private information, and therefore the oversight over us.
We now have generations of government officials who are schooled in the merits and culture of ‘innovation’, ‘efficiency’ and cost cutting. But were they ever schooled on constitutional and administrative law?
Collins intends to embrace innovation in her public sector overhaul work. If you are a regular reader of my Op Eds, you might recognise the buzzword ‘innovation’. It’s a signal that more tech will be integrated into system frameworks.
Alas, innovation has nothing to do with transparency and accountability, and everything to do with efficiency. We can speculate that ‘innovation’ is a signal that operative capacity and service delivery will be enhanced. This will most likely involve the scaling up and integration of technologies that effectively and inevitably concentrate power.
When it comes to digital government which overlaps neatly with the public sector portfolio, and surveillance and intelligence portfolios, collaboration is key.
WHEN POWER CONVERGES IN ONE PERSON
The Attorney-General is powerful and influential. As Professor Philip Joseph has succinctly outlined, the Attorney General (A-G) is the senior law officer, the ‘channel of communication between the judiciary and the government’. Right. That’s a lot of power.
Let’s start by drawing from the biblical in proportion Joseph on Constitutional and Administrative Law tome, to highlight the powers of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General (A-G) is both the senior law officer and a cabinet minister discharging portfolio responsibilities, the ‘channel of communication between the judiciary and the government’. Public Law expert Professor Philip Joseph explains:
The Attorney-General has four primary areas of responsibility. These involve the roles of senior law officer of the Crown, principal legal adviser to the government, named plaintiff/defendant representing the Crown in litigation by or against the government, and liaison and link between the government and the judiciary.
The Attorney-General must act always in the public interest. The senior law officer stands in a special relationship with Parliament, the courts and the executive. [1]
As well as holding six ministerial portfolios, the A-G holds a unique position in Cabinet:
as senior law officer, the Attorney occupies a special relationship to his or her cabinet colleagues. By convention, the Attorney must exercise independent and impartial judgment, without exception for party political considerations or policy goals. The Attorney’s law officer decisions are exempt from collective cabinet responsibility and cannot be overridden by Cabinet’s collective will. [2]
The A-G also represents the Crown when ‘rights of a public character’ are raised:
The Attorney discharges this role in any of three ways: by bringing actions in the Attorney’s capacity to enforce public rights, by authorising relator proceedings to enforce public rights, or by intervening in private litigation to protect the public interest… The Attorney may intervene, upon invitation or with leave of the court, where a private action might affect the prerogatives of the Crown or raise questions of public policy. [3]
As part of A-G powers, the A-G has the responsibility to select judges.
In the past 50 years, New Zealand Attorneys-General have had two, perhaps three ministerial portfolios. The Hon Judith Collins, KC, has six, and they strategically overlap. That is tremendous centralisation of power.
It is not normal for an Attorney-General (A-G) to hold six ministerial portfolios.
By contrast, in the United Kingdom, for example the Rt Hon Lord Hermer KC is the Attorney General (A-G) for England and Wales. The UK A-G for England and Wales is not an elected member of parliament and does not hold ministerial positions. The UK A-G is a member of the Privy Council and the National Security Council and attends, but is not a member of Cabinet. As Attorney General, Hermer also holds the position of Advocate General for Scotland.
In Australia, the A-G, the Hon Michelle Rowland is an elected member of parliament. Rowland is also the minister for communications.
The A-G for Northern Ireland is Dame Brenda King. King is not a politician and does not hold ministerial portfolios. The A-Gs for Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India are not a politician.
In Canada, the Hon Sean Fraser holds the position of A-G. At only 40, Fraser has three ministerial positions, Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Fraser is also Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Parliamentary secretary positions are directly appointed by Canada’s prime minister. The role is a liaison role between a Minister and Parliament and viewed as a training ground for future advance.
Our A-G outpaces them all.
CABINET HEGEMONY AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS
New Zealand’s democracy problem is not just an A-G with too many portfolios. Like the frog in the boiling pot of water, events that lead to the concentration of power and a diminution and erosion of accountability and transparency principles, provisions and conventions can be difficult to appreciate in full (which is why this article is too long but could be longer).
I believe that New Zealand’s precarious democratic situation leaves us open to potential abuses of power from emergency events and false flags which can threaten human rights and basic freedoms. New Zealand is precariously vulnerable to despotism because it is relatively easy to change stuff on the run. Centralise power. Create laws. Claim scientific facts (without due process). Ignore convention. With only one House of Parliament, laws can be passed very quickly. The overnight Covid-19 legislation enabled officials to chase infection and cases, ignoring legal obligations to abide by principles of infectious disease. In late 2022 the Labour government passed 24 bills in one sitting.
Limited government works on the premise that government power is restricted by conventions and processes. A weaving of principles, precedents and guidelines that consequently aim to ensure that laws will protect essential rights and freedoms and prevent tyranny (or the abuse of power) by government officials.
The conventions and processes act as a framework to assure that officials are publicly accountable and transparent in their duties. We can then trust that ‘black letter law’ (statute) is therefore produced according to tried and true (trustworthy) processes. We then consent to be subject to the rule of law which includes constitutional and administrative (or public) law, and black-letter law (statute).
Discouragingly, New Zealand is a democratic outlier. We have a highly centralised, indeed, concentrated system of government and “formally unlimited legislative power and strong executive dominance of the activities of the nation’s parliament”. [4] We don’t have two houses of parliament or a written constitution that sets out the core values that then drive government officials.
We hear about the ‘separation of powers’, the legislature (parliament), the judiciary (the courts) and the executive (our ministries and agencies) to prevent the concentration of powers. Yet this is:
less an attempt to describe the actual nature of government than a conscious and determined attempt to control it: it was necessary to “divide” government in order to limit it. The powers of government, having been separated, ought to be vested in correspondingly separate organs so that each can act as a counterbalance on the others. A separation of powers, even if imperfectly instated, is a necessary condition of liberty and the rule of law. [5]
Thus, the separation of powers is less a rule than a maxim. The “courts proclaim the functional separation of powers as a formulaic representation of the legitimate spheres of activity of each of the branches”.
Then there is Cabinet hegemony. Ministers in Cabinet are privileged with complete secrecy in their Cabinet discussions and conversations are outside the powers of the Official Information Act. When laws are being drafted there are secrecy privileges, and we cannot see the discussions between ministers and the Crown Law Office.
Cabinet meetings can be tiny. The fewer members required to make a quorum, the more influence individuals can hold. The Executive Council only requires two attendees. Cabinet meetings require half the full membership of Cabinet, plus one, and Cabinet committee meetings require, perhaps, just three members.
In New Zealand, because of the extraordinary concentration of ministerial powers in individual people, we have only 14 ministers. Individual members of New Zealand’s Parliament can hold six portfolios while other members of parliament hold none. Eight people can make major decisions exceptionally swiftly. Then there is the power of the party ‘whip’ who is in place for administrative support, and to ensure party discipline.
Cabinet’s almost total hegemony over the House’s processes – power obtained by virtue of the guaranteed majority support delivered by inter-party discipline – severely limited the practical efficacy of such controls. [6]
However, many shifts in the past decades signal that the separation of powers may be less a maxim than a notion. Legislation can be drafted with poor consultation and without any in-depth media coverage. The minister and the executive can decide on a policy direction and legal ‘overhaul’ and formulate, and even reverse-engineer the process to ensure the outcome that has been set by the minister and the executive, is achieved with minimal outcry.
MPs can vote against bad law, but how can they appreciate poor policy formulation, and unfit legislation, if the report to the select committee is drafted by the agency invested in the law change? The executive branch that is seeking a policy change can pre-select early-stage consultation, and shape consultation around narrowly formulated choices. This occurred with recent gene technology reform processes.
When a new bill has been presented to parliament, that same agency or ministry seeking the policy change is by convention the entity tasked with reviewing public comments and producing the report at the select committee stage.
Unfortunately, the agency or ministry making the report to a select committee can use a tried-and-true technique of dismissing public complaints on the basis that their comments are outside the subject-matter of the bill. We saw this with Covid-19 and fluoride law changes which both involved compulsory medication, a potential breach of rights. During Covid-19 the extent to which a 2021 law change would pave the way for increased powers of compulsory vaccination was unaddressed in the regulatory impact statement. The report to the select committee then dismissed public concerns about vaccine mandates. At the same time that minister was producing legislation on vaccine mandates.
In this maelstrom, our MPs are time-poor and under-resourced, reliant on the claims of the ministers and agencies that want the new policies and laws passed, and susceptible to rule by party whip. The courts are similarly poorly resourced and tend to defer to executive knowledge. The executive knows that the common law tradition of judicial deference will weigh in their favour in an emergency. [7]
Democracies work if the checks and balances work. But for a democracy to ‘work’ the government must remain accountable to the public, so as to prevent the arbitrary taking of powers, and to protect and uphold human rights.
PROCESSES OF APPEAL: OUR DILAPIDATED CHECKS AND BALANCES AGENCIES
What happens when the technical capacity to centralise data on people and communities through digital identities and agency records, and when governments have the power to efficiently aggregate knowledge of people, and tie that knowledge to controls and permissions? What happens when select committee processes deflect public concerns about breaches of human rights?
What happens if, at the same time, the public-good organisations tasked with oversight over agencies and ministries, are so disproportionately under-resourced that they offer no salient threat to any escalation of executive power. They simply do not have the capacity to address complex manifold issues across manifold departments and agencies that amount to the erosion of what we think of as democracy.
Government watch-dogs, including the Ombudsman or Privacy Commissioner, are under-resourced, in comparison to the escalating power and incomes of agencies and ministries. For example, the Privacy Commissioner has a pitiful revenue stream while the budget of the DIA, who is responsible for Digital IDs, has expanded exponentially.
With limited budgets, New Zealand watch-dogs will be hesitant to take on more nebulous and complex cases which involve erosions of process and convention, and/or over-reach and abuse of power.
The threat of judicial review is also an important antidote to executive power. [8] However, for this to work the judiciary must be resourced and protected from improper influence. This arises through the separation of judicial power, and the maintenance of judicial independence.
The separation of the functions of government, although interlocking and merging at the margins, is a necessary condition of the rule of law and limited government. [9]
But how does that work for example, if the Attorney-General not only appoints new judges, but also holds six ministerial portfolios, creating a swathe of legislation? Will the judge bite back if there is over-reach or a failure of good process? It’s been very clear in recent years that judges will deal with technical points of law, but resist exploring the veracity of scientific-fact claims by the executive, and steer clear of addressing knotty issues of risk.
Parliament (the legislative) has full law-making power. But when members of parliament vote along party political lines rather than reflect the ideas and values of their constituents and when legislation is fast-tracked, or introduced that undermines constitutional and administrative principles, but reflects the fashion of the government of the day, perhaps we might witness more activist judges.
New Zealand has an acquiescent ‘accredited’ media. We’ve seen a decline in long-form journalism where there is courage to discern and challenge political agendas and hold the government to account. In addition, very few people get a critical Op Ed article past accredited media editors if they contradict key agendas or want to discuss broader governance failures. You’ve usually got to have a Sir or a Dame or be a retired professor. I know so many people whose Op Eds have been rejected, that we no longer try to get into the accredited media.
When the accredited media construct firewalls against content that challenges mainstream agendas or the political status quo, judges and courts, long used to ‘reading the room’ based on outrage in the media and feet on streets, can struggle to ‘read the room’. In this climate, there is increased risk that judges might typecast groups that seek judicial review on topics which contradict or challenge the so-called consensus position as troublesome outliers.
Perhaps it is no surprise, with declining accountability and increasingly concentrated powers, that the public sector would be cracking down on the unauthorised release of information to third parties. In a recent email to public sector chief executives to discourage departmental whistleblowing, Commissioner Sir Brian Roche urged that:
this behaviour goes against the core values of the Public Service and must stop. If individuals within our employment feel strongly on issues there are mechanisms they can use but leaking of information isn’t one of them.
Sir Brian’s response zeroes in on the ‘look’ rather than the reasons for whistleblowing. The prime minister later urged that a ‘politically neutral public service’ had to accord with the government of the day, stating that:
when you start to have a culture where leaking is acceptable, it really does undermine a politically neutral public service and then you start to politicise the public service.
If frustrated officials raise questions about evidence-based policies and lack independent resourcing, and higher tier management are more interested in keeping to a policy deadline rather than questioning the merits of the policy or the information supporting it, we need to question what political neutrality really means to those in power.
It is dawning on increasing numbers of us, that the public service values (s16) of impartiality, accountability, trustworthiness, respect and responsiveness, are undermined and set aside when policies are fast-tracked, secrecy agreements abound, and when statute over-rides public law. In a time of increasing authoritarianism and the concentration of powers, notions of accountability and trustworthiness need only be an oblique, theoretical construct.
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION FOR LAWFARE
The prime minister’s focus on the ‘government of the day’ and political neutrality can mislead us into believing that every policy decided on by a government is ‘politically neutral’. Information is socially and politically produced. The eternal question is for whom? The public good? The long-term interest of the nation? This is why it is important that early-stage policy consultations are not biased to lock-step fulfill a so-called electoral mandate, why lobbying should be limited and transparent, and why agencies tasked with protecting human and environmental health, with inquisitorial and complaint mechanisms must be resourced enough so that they actually work.
The funding of science is highly political. New Zealand scientists are limited by policy in what they can choose to research and understand.
Science funding is structured to fund innovation. New Zealand doesn’t fund scientists to undertake long-term research in understanding the toxicological effects of agricultural pesticides, polypharmacy harms and risk from non-ionic electromagnetic radiation. Our agencies are uninformed and ignorant on the latest data on cholesterol risk, how dietary obesogens potentially exacerbate risk for breast cancer, how high-dose nutrients reduce hospitalisations, and how dietary deficiency might be a greater driver of dental decay than fluoride in water.
Often the laws are based on scientific claims. Yet when a lot of scientific information won’t and can’t be funded, when it comes down to it, government bureaucracies can make science say whatever they want it to say because the information hasn’t been researched and we lack scientists and science institutions who have broad, independent expertise.
When we lack independent experts in a matter, the executive can defer to offshore institutions who rely on dubious claims. New Zealand can harmonise with offshore ‘best practice’ which has been developed by international organisations who are funded by dubious actors with financial conflicts of interest. Secret trade agreements can erode statute and/or public law principles and lead to the undermining of human health, natural resources and assets.
Laws can create medical mandates that undermine human rights. Judges didn’t seem to understand that by mid-2020, there was compelling data that Covid-19 represented a similar risk to the elderly and vulnerable as a severe flu season but in 2021, waves of secondary legislation could demand compulsory vaccination, no matter the risk.
A judge recently considered that groups bringing a case on the topic of the neurodevelopmental toxicity of fluoride simply “reflected the special interests of its members”. The judge wasn’t able to weigh the import of a globally relevant study on the neurodevelopmental toxicity of fluoride against reports by politically appointed chief science advisors that lacked scientific rigor.
Currently we have the ministry who funds scientists, relying on the scientists that they fund, and the organisations who have financial interests in gene technologies, proposing to take over the administration of the legislation that would regulate gene editing technologies and organisms. That ministry ‘forgot’ to undertake scientifically valid and robust risk assessment and economic analysis on whether the proposals would in fact be risk proportionate and safe. The minister who put this in place? The Attorney-General.
What a mess.
‘POPULAR ACCOUNTABILITY’
Much of what had worked historically had coalesced, as Andrew Geddis noted in 2016, around “government capability leavened by popular accountability”. This worked because processes and conventions largely worked – they were accountable and could be trusted. Political disagreements could be resolved, the rule of law was maintained, there was less corruption than elsewhere and there was generally widespread public support and trust in government. In this world there was little need to place formal constraints on government power (which would then be overseen by the judiciary).
Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that New Zealand’s ‘style of government is already authoritarian’, and take steps to prevent further decline. Worryingly, the concentration of powers from access to private information, and the digital capacity to track and trace individuals using surveillance, automatically enhances the power of the government.
I do not believe that our Attorney-General should hold the extraordinary range of strategic portfolios that she currently holds.
We’ve watched the Hon Judith Collins, as minister-in-charge, direct officials not to consult widely on a politically charged issue. What else is happening behind the scenes across the surveillance, digital, defence and public service portfolios?
As Attorney-General, Collins clearly states a preference for black letter law. Yet there is substantial evidence that we have witnessed an extraordinary short-circuiting of policy and process in recent times. ‘Black-letter’ statute can be drafted quickly and secretly, the public can be excluded, and then at select committee time, the public can be roundly dismissed because they’re outside the bill, and judges can favour the expert witnesses for the Crown.
What a game.
Government funding can encourage media bias. The accredited media is unwilling to take on politically controversial issues that might threaten established ‘consensus’. It’s no wonder that MPs have no language to deal with constituents who disagree with the claims of executive government when media are resistant to carrying content that contradicts a so-called consensus view.
It’s no wonder that trust is declining and polarisation is increasing.
It’s time to take a step back and look at the big picture. Maybe you disagree with this article? Go on, disagree but explain why, kindly but firmly! Just let’s start talking! Truth can never come from one set of facts produced by one person. Truth should never be rushed through in the name of efficiency.
There are so many ways the current situation can be turned around. List them in the comments below. Make it positive.
Notes:
[1] Joseph, P. (2021). Joseph on Constitutional and Administrative Law, 5th Ed. Thomson Reuters. 27.8 Law officers of the Crown.
[2] Joseph, P. (2021). Joseph on Constitutional and Administrative Law, 5th Ed. Thomson Reuters. 27.8 Law officers of the Crown.
[3] Joseph, P. (2021). Joseph on Constitutional and Administrative Law, 5th Ed. Thomson Reuters. 27.8 Law officers of the Crown.
[4] Geddis A. (2016). Parliamentary government in New Zealand: Lines of continuity and moments of change.
[5] 9.1 Introduction.
[6] Geddis A. (2016). Parliamentary government in New Zealand: Lines of continuity and moments of change.
[7] Geiringer C and Geddis, A Judicial deference and emergency power: A perspective on Borrowdale v Director-General.
[8] “Judicial review is the review by a judge of the High Court of any exercise (or any refusal to exercise) of public decision-making powers, in order to determine whether that decision or action is unauthorised or invalid. Although most such powers derive from statute, judicial review may also extend to public powers that do not have a statutory basis, including decisions under the Crown prerogative.” The Judge Over Your Shoulder. A guide to judicial review of administrative decision. Crown Law 2005.
[9] Joseph, P. (2021). Joseph on Constitutional and Administrative Law, 5th Ed. Thomson Reuters. 9.8 Utility of the doctrine.
This article was originally published by the Daily Telegraph New Zealand.
