Research Report August 2024
Aotearoa New Zealand's historically low levels of corruption have encouraged complacency and a reactive approach to policy making at top levels of politics and the public service.
This is the finding presented in our just released research report: An assessment of the effectiveness of anti-corruption institutions in New Zealand in deterring, detecting and exposing corruption. This research forms part of our National Integrity System Assessment work programme.
The research conducted by Dr Simon Chapple and commissioned by TINZ considered concepts and measures of corruption and whether perceptions match with reality. Chapple looked at changing threats, as well as progress against past assessments. He sought the opinions of experts to be able to comment on the effectiveness of core anti-corruption institutions.
Dr Chapple adapted Robert Klitgaard’s corruption formulation (conditions that make corruption more likely to occur) to inform this research. Klitgaard proposes corruption as a game of probabilities, the risk of being caught is rationally evaluated against the personal benefit. It is a crime of calculation not of passion or emotion.
In Dr Chapple’s adaptation of the Klitgaard model all three components (money, choice and transparency) are necessary for corruption. Using the 2013 assessment, his work covers some of the changes that have occurred in New Zealand and globally since 2013, to assess the applicability of the Klitgaard model to New Zealand. He notes many vulnerabilities and threats.
Dr Chapple’s analysis gives validity to the question about whether perceptions meet reality with the Corruption Perceptions Index. New Zealand remains high in that index, which is a sizable asset to our country. However New Zealand has also slipped down in that index and results in other surveys also raise concerns. For example, he notes that New Zealand is ranked 56th for the perceived risk of accountability for bribery in the World Values Survey. So whilst culturally we are against bribery, we don’t think there is sufficient accountability when it occurs.
“This is a wake up call,” says Debbie Gee, Deputy Chair of Transparency International New Zealand. “Our low level of corruption in New Zealand is a key asset from which we all benefit. We are not protecting it against rising corruption within and outside New Zealand.”
The report considers external threats and ‘imported corruption' as well as internal weaknesses. A greater proportion of our foreign trade is with countries that have high levels of corruption. We are also seeing growth in political polarisation, and a weakening of the general multi-lateral cooperative world. Internally the weaknesses identified in our 2013 National Integrity System Assessment remain - a dominant Executive and a weak Parliament, general complacency and considerable weakening in the media pillar.
Major recommendations in the report are:
- We need a zeitgeist shift in thinking about anti-corruption in New Zealand towards positive prevention.
- Government should appropriately fund a single agency with the primary and high-profile responsibility for anti-corruption monitoring, coordination, research and strategic operations.
- That agency should lead development of an overall anti-corruption strategy that is clear and drives action such as monitoring, sharing, early warning systems, and identifying institutional systems that are particularly vulnerable.
Other recommendations include a review of the Official Information Act, a public register of beneficial ownership of companies, limited partnerships and trusts and greater transparency of both political financing and lobbying. Media is also noted as an area of considerable weakness.
This report is the first of a planned series of reports contributing to our National Integrity System Assessment work programme.
Read the full research report: An assessment of the effectiveness of anti-corruption institutions in New Zealand in deterring, detecting and exposing corruption, and the summary brief: How Well Do We Counter Corruption?
