Andrea Vance thinks New Zealand’s halo is slipping:
Frequently topping global transparency indexes, the world believes Kiwis operate the world’s cleanest government. Its politicians are rated incorruptible: fraud, bribes and sleaze-free.
And yet, of late, domestic politics has been dominated by a series of grubby scandals. Take Taito Philip Field’s conviction in 2009 as the watershed. Since then MPs have been exposed for rorting their expenses to pay for blue movies and gluttony, golf clubs, flowers and massages, family holidays and bucketloads of booze. . .
She goes on to list various scandals, though misses two of the ones which best-fit the label corruption – Labour’s pledge card rort and Winston Peter’s dance around the truth of the donation from Owen Glenn.
However, bad as these are, it’s not the doing of dastardly deeds which puts a country’s reputation at risk. Even the best countries can’t claim a total absence of corruption from every citizen.
It’s the catching of the corrupt and fixing that really matter.
Our reputation is based on relatively few acts of corruption and a good record for catching the wrong-doers and making changes to close the loopholes through which they wriggled.
Fields was accused, tried, found guilty and imprisoned. Speaker Lockwood Smith has made MPs’ expenses public which has acted as a very effective restraint on their spending. . .
The halo is slipping, it’s not yet tarnished.
There is no room for complacency but our reputation for lack of corruption shouldn’t be threatened while those who do the catching and fixing keep ahead of those who do the doing.
Homepaddock 
Corruption is in the eye of the beholder, personally I think that a country that murders 17000 babies a year and that teaches that sexual deviancy is normal is totally corrupt, debased and worthless.
Our elites are utterly contemptible in their squalor
When the time comes to call upon my son and his generation to save this place they will give the middle finger and rightfully so – why give your life to preserve a degenerate and worthless elite
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NOBODY in NZ has the job of auditing for corruption risk
It’s not easy to find stories about corruption in the “corporate-owned” media of today. Corruption is often covered by news anchors as a break in between “important” news such as entertainment and sports, so the topic of corruption is rarely given in-depth quality and quantity reporting. Reporters rarely offer us insight into the negative effects of corruption.
Corruption is a term with many meanings, but generally it entails misusing one’s office for a private gain or unofficial end. It involves both a monetary and “non-monetary” benefit. Bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, cronyism, scams, fraud, ‘grease money’, and opportunism readily spring to mind.
Usually, the very work environment and culture either foster or discourage corrupt practices.
Corruption and power are closely intertwined and their links had long been recognised. In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher, Plato, argued in The Republic that only politicians who gain no personal advantage from the policies they pursued would be fit to govern. This is recognised also in the aphorism that those who want to hold power are most likely those least fit to do so. In the latter half of the 18th century, William Pitt, in a speech before the House of Lords said, “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”
Over a hundred years later, Lord Acton wrote a letter to Bishop Creighton with a sentence set to become one of the world’s most famous quotations: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The most obvious effect of political corruption is a loss of public esteem for politicians and political life. The cynical view that ‘politics is a dirty business’ becomes a reality -– people enter politics not from a sense of public service but in pursuit of personal power and advancement.
Once it infects an organisation, it spreads uncontrollably, and economic costs rise. Corruption is not an absolute condition. It can range from acts of violence to rules being bent and a blind eye turned to acts that a completely moral society would consider offensive.
The range of variations of corruption is as wide as the criminal minds that conceive them in today’s ever-changing world. Corruption undermines the legitimacy of central and local government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance’
If left unchecked, corruption weakens the very structures of an organised society as it undermines the forces of law and order, and reduces public morale. In the long run, both economic and political developments become crippled.
NEW ZEALAND DEFINITELY NEEDS ITS OWN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION!
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Since the legislators see a need to have an arms length oversight for Police, Real Estate Agents, Medical Ethics, Lawyers et al, why do they not see a need for a similar arms length entity to investigate their suspected short comings.
Hang on that could become embarrassing eh.
Some of the actions of the Privileges Committee are laughable and commissions of inquiry terms of reference that are framed for the answer wanted make the body politic one of the poorest regulated groups that enjoy exalted positions in New Zealand.
Sallyco’s last sentence+++++++.
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