Talk:Corruption in New Zealand

Off Topic

Alan Liefting twice deleted whole sections of this article before posting templates suggesting that some sections of this article are off topic. His justification for doing so was that corruption is not the same as fraud and that "As writers of an encyclopedia we should be rigorous with the use of words."

He is right that corruption is not quite the same as fraud. However, they are both forms of economic crime and both often involve an abuse of power - which is the essence of corruption. Note also that the Serious Fraud Office in NZ treats fraud and corruption as white collar crime and does not limit itself solely to the prosecution of "fraud". NZ is seen as a country with very low levels of corruption. To some extent this article challenges that view by showing that there are high levels of fraud in NZ, that tax fraud is widespread compared with welfare fraud, and that New Zealand's entire history in regard to Maori is a form of "grand corruption". Any comments? Offender9000 23:20, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I have suggested a Fraud in New Zealand article for the off-topic information. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:25, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Sexual misconduct by the police would obviously not fit into a fraud article. Why do you think that is off topic? Offender9000 18:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

You have entitled the page "Corruption in New Zealand". It is therefore irrelevant if corruption and fraud are both economic crimes or both white collar crimes. Fraud is not corruption. This whole page appears to me to be politically motivated and it would be better if it were just deleted. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 17:47, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

@KwikWikiKiwi: I agree, and have stripped this article back to a stub. Offender9000 created a series of articles like this, and has been trying to maintain and expand them since being blocked a couple of years ago. Their agenda includes pushing a view that NZ suffers from extensive corruption, and discrediting evidence which indicates otherwise. Nick-D (talk) 08:55, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

@Nick-D: Good work. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 10:39, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Corporate fraud

Do you think this section is off topic? Why?

Tax fraud and welfare fraud

Do you think this section is off topic? Why?

Sexual misconduct by police

Do you think this section is off topic? Why?

Political corruption & fraud

Do you think this section is off topic? Why?

Off topic - reprise

I have started a new thread because the one above is too confusing.

I tagged three of the sections since the article was veering off topic. Fraud, corruption and sexual misconduct are three separate topics. As pointed out there is sometimes a connection between fraud and corruption but that does not mean the article should be swamped with specific fraud cases. As suggested, the info could be spun off into a Fraud in New Zealand article. It should be realised that Wikipedia is not paper and if a topic is notable in its own right it is deserving of it own article. Fraud in specific countries is probably always notable. See Category:Fraud by country for example.

Offender9000, sexual misconduct in itself is neither corruption nor is it fraud. Can I suggest that you start a Fraud in New Zealand article. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:27, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be using very narrow meanings of each of these words. Corruption is derived from the Latin verb rumpere, to break. But its not just the law that gets broken. Trust is also broken in the institutions of government and authority (such as the police) by corrupt practices. There are different kinds of corruption - systemic corruption, sporadic (individual) corruption, political (grand) corruption, petty corruption, legal corruption, moral corruption and police corruption. A broad definition of corruption encompasses undue influence over public policies, institutions, laws and regulations by vested private interests at the expense of the public interest. Finance companies have vested private interests - especially when the directors commit fraud. In fact so many have committed fraud the problem is systemic in New Zealand.

Re your suggestion that fraud in New Zealand should have a separate section, I note that no other country appears to have a wiki article on fraud. It might be easier to condense it a little.

Police corruption also comes in many forms. When police sexually assault women to the extent described by the Bazley report, this is a serious abuse of power for personal gain/gratification. What gets broken is not only the law - but trust in the police - i.e. this is police corruption. Offender9000 06:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Offender9000, Sexual Misconduct in the police is a corruption of the police. It is neither accurate nor desirable to pigeon-hole sexual misconduct as being different from corruption. A simple study will show that the word corruption stems from the notional idea of an infection of body (in this case police). Furthermore the Police are those who uphold the policy or constituted wisdom (law). So sexual misconduct in the police is presents itself as an infection of their purpose and motive, hence "corruption" is a very apt and appropriate term to apply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Red660 (talk • contribs) 07:44, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Definition of police corruption

The episodes of "police corruption", including the KimDotcom case are not matters of corruption. Misapplication of the law by a govvernment agency is not of itself corruption. I am concerned that this list of activities is being used by one editor to push his point of view. VNTrav (talk) 03:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Its not misapplication of the law. Its deliberate breaking of the law in order to try and secure a conviction. That's corruption. Offender9000 (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with previous above comment and have removed the section on Noble Cause Corruption. It was a bunch of different cases which had been drawn together with a thin thread trying to imply that Police have been trying to catch criminals at all costs ignoring due process. None of references I checked said anything about Noble Cause Corruption. Plus there were remarks in that section which breached WP:BLP. Clarke43 (talk) 10:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Removal of material

I've just removed a large quantity of material from this article which was either not actually about corruption (the sources provided did not mention this or any equivalent words), was presenting the views of opinion articles as fact, or was a major violation of the core policy WP:BLP. Please see my edit summaries for explanations. Nick-D (talk) 01:12, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Revisiting removed material

It seems clear to me that there are a large number of areas where numerous commentators see "corruption" in New Zealand, and we need to have a framework to discuss this. I'm thinking particularly of "dodgy" decisions in the political or policy area being, allegedly, the result of large , often secret, monetary donations. This sort of thing when proven is clearly corruption. Thought? - Snori (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I removed this material in 2013 in my role as an admin, as it was part of a campaign of POV pushing. In particular, it contained multiple violations of WP:BLP and WP:OR and many claims not actually supported by sources. None of the sources should be assumed to actually meet WP:RS (especially given the heavy use of op-eds) or support the material in question. Note that material about living people, especially living people, which is not supported by a source or where the source is unreliable is a BLP violation, and some of the text was serious attacks on people without proper support for such statements (this was part of the POV pushing). If you add this anywhere on Wikipedia, including your user space, you will be held accountable. If you have an interest in this topic, I'd suggest starting from scratch as the material I removed is utterly unsuitable. Nick-D (talk) 09:59, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

See also User talk:Offender9000#Blocked, and note that BLP issues are taken even more seriously now than they were in 2013 when this editor was adding the material in question. Nick-D (talk) 10:12, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Currently the lede sentence is: "This article discusses the state of Corruption in New Zealand in both the private and public sectors, and the responsibilities of the various agencies involved in combating it." There is no discussion of the state of corruption in the article at all. Snori has a point. Wikiwoozil (talk) 09:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

As noted above, you'll need to start from scratch here. To put it bluntly, I (and likely any other admin who this is reported to) will block anyone who re-adds the BLP violations which were removed. The banned editor was also adding claims not supported by the references in their other edits, which it would be a silly idea to re-add. Nick-D (talk) 10:18, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Looking through the history I see you removed an enormous amount of material including a section on tax fraud and welfare fraud. The first para of that reads...

A study by tax lecturer Dr Lisa Marriott of Victoria University has found that there is 150 times more tax fraud in New Zealand than welfare fraud – but those who commit welfare fraud are more likely to go to prison. She examined three years of tax evasion and welfare fraud and found that welfare fraud was also significantly more likely to be prosecuted than tax fraud – despite substantially greater losses from the latter. In 2010 alone, tax evaders cheated the country of between $1 billion and $6 billion, while welfare fraud cost only $39 million. In 2012, 714 people were convicted for defrauding taxpayers of $23.4 million.

What was your objection to that? Wikiwoozil (talk) 15:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I imagine I removed it as part of mass-removal of the banned editor's edits, on the grounds that they were riddled with errors and misrepresentation of sources as well as cherry picking to fit their political agenda. Anything they added needs to be carefully checked against sources and broader research conducted to ensure it's usable. Nick-D (talk) 08:26, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

So is it OK with you if I add it back in? As far as I can see, the citations back up the content.Wikiwoozil (talk) 20:19, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

If you're referring only to the text above, the references don't seem to call this 'corruption' (the stories are focused on 'fraud') and there seems to be a bit of orginal research where unrelated stories are being presented as being related. This is the kind of problem with the non-BLP material this editor was adding I noted (and was raised by others in 2015 per the threads at the top of this page). Nick-D (talk) 10:24, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

You seem to be using a very narrow concept of corruption. WP describes three kinds of corruption: petty, grand and systemic corruption. Systemic corruption (or endemic corruption) is described as "corruption which is primarily due to the weaknesses of an organization or process;" and "Factors which encourage systemic corruption include conflicting incentives, discretionary powers".

Welfare fraud and tax evasion are both a form of dishonesty and criminal offences (which is part of WP's definition of corruption). The fact that welfare fraud is prosecuted far more vigorously than tax evasion (as documented by Lisa Marriott) is because the authorities have conflicting incentives and discretionary powers. Those who commit welfare fraud are prosecuted by Work and Income. Those who commit tax evasion should be prosecuted by Inland Revenue. The two agencies have different priorities, conflicting incentives and discretionary powers about who to prosecute - which, in 2010, allowed tax evaders to cheat the country of $1 billion and $6 billion, while welfare fraudsters cheated the country of only $39 million. That's systemic corruption. Isn't that worth a mention? Wikiwoozil (talk) 07:49, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

References