Last year, the government set up an anti-corruption taskforce to look at the processes New Zealand had in place for dealing with corruption and fraud.
Peter Nicholl
The reason was that for a long time, New Zealand had been first or second in the annual global corruption index prepared by Transparency International but in their 2025 index we had dropped to fourth behind Denmark, Finland and Singapore.
The Taskforce report should cause even more concern.
It revealed we had significant gaps in the detection, prevention and intervention in fraud and corruption issues. The report also found many government agencies tried to deal with issues rather than refer them to law enforcement agencies. Part of the motivation for that was trying to avoid publicity.
What this Taskforce report shows is that New Zealand sailed along as one of the least corrupt countries in the world not because we had strong anti-corruption processes but because most New Zealanders are, or at least were, inherently honest.
Lobbying is increasing as a feature of our political landscape. Some would say that shows our political scene is becoming more sophisticated.
But in a report on New Zealand prepared by the OECD last year said New Zealand was well away from international best practice when it came to regulating lobbying.
It said allowing short cooling off periods between work in the public and private sectors and allowing widespread lobbying carries risks of ‘excessive politicisation, nimbyism, inaction and regulatory capture’. These are characteristics of corrupt societies. I find it worrying how many former politicians end up with positions with lobbying firms or on government boards and agencies.
It seems to me that such appointments have become much more common in recent years.
The appointment of Judith Collins to the position of president of the Law Commission while she is still in parliament is a recent example.
Judith Collins clearly has the legal qualifications and experience for this job. But the commission is required to give ‘independent’ advice to the government.
How can someone who has been actively and prominently involved in politics for a long time and has shown she has strong views on lots of issues be considered to be ‘independent’? Also, the appointment process didn’t allow anybody else to apply.
Some countries have shown how quickly corruption can increase if inherent attitudes change and strong anti-corruption policies are not in place.
For example, the United Kingdom was ranked as the 10th least corrupt country in 2020. In 2025, it ranked 20th. The United States’ highest ranking was 14th in 2000. They stayed around this position in the rankings for the next 15 years. But since then, their ranking has declined steadily and in 2025 they were ranked 29th.
New Zealand needs to ensure it doesn’t emulate the UK and US and have our slide down the corruption rankings continue and accelerate.
It’s a slippery slope. We are at the top of that slippery slope.
