This is edition 2026/023 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
Why NZ’s integrity slide can no longer be ignored
Bryce Edwards
- 📉 NZ's Corruption Slide: New Zealand’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) dropped from 83 to 81, marking a consistent decline over four years. The country is now eight points behind Denmark, the top scorer.
- 🏢 Business Execs Speak Out: Senior business leaders expressed growing concerns about public sector misconduct, particularly in government contracting, bribery, and corruption.
- 🔍 Taskforce Findings: A report by the Anti-Corruption Taskforce revealed 446 internal fraud and corruption incidents across six government agencies, with a significant underreporting of cases. Misconduct was often treated as employment issues, not criminal acts.
- 💸 Financial Impact: Public sector fraud and corruption may cost between $823 million to $10.24 billion annually, based on a UK study's estimate. This highlights the large-scale risk to taxpayers.
- 🏛️ Lack of Action: Some government agencies failed to report serious corruption, and many internal fraud cases evaporated when staff resigned. A case involved a woman using forged references to get jobs and defraud the public sector of $2 million.
- 🧐 Media's Role: Journalist Matt Nippert called attention to New Zealand’s complacency, pointing out that the absence of foreign bribery prosecutions signals a lack of investigation and oversight.
- 🏙️ Tackling Corruption: Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ) issued a strong call for anti-corruption reforms, but skepticism remains about its past effectiveness, especially its failure to act during previous complacent years.
- 🇦🇺 Australia's Success: In contrast, Australia created a National Anti-Corruption Commission, leading to improved CPI scores, while New Zealand has lagged behind in implementing similar reforms.
- 💼 Lack of Regulations: New Zealand is still missing key anti-corruption measures like a lobbying register, cooling-off periods for ministers, and a beneficial ownership register.
- 🌍 Global Trend: Transparency International's global report showed a drop in CPI scores worldwide, highlighting a worrying global pattern of weakened democratic integrity, with New Zealand part of this decline.
