The July 2020 Groupthink webinar focussed on democracy under threat, as reflected in social media. Sanjana Hattotuwa spoke about weaponising social media while Josie Pagani focussed on New Zealand’s population dynamics. Kim Connolly-Stone was MC for this most insightful session.

Without transparency during the COVID-19 pandemic, human rights are compromised and inequality may lead to greater corruption.  This is profoundly affecting peace and security across the globe.

June Brain Food Webinar recap The aspirational outcome for this webinar is that we can build a team to bring about changes to the law, policies and practice around beneficial ownership, to better protect New Zealand from potentially massive impacts of international grand corruption.

As we rebuild we will need to consider far more seriously how we manage our net-debt ratios, in particular over the next 12-24 months where we will see increased volatility. We need to urgently find different ways of working focussed on maintaining the liquidity flow in our businesses.

Extended Open Government Partnership (OGP) timeline gives government agencies an extra year to fully tackle the social, economic, political, or environmental problems they initially identified in the OGP action plan and also take COVID-19 into account.

For the effectiveness of the Protective Disclosures Bill as it currently stands before Parliament, the proof will be in the pudding. It will be important to have more rigorous monitoring of whistleblowing events and outcomes to determine if the new legislation actually encourages more people to speak up.

The level of compliance of government agencies with the mandatory procurement rules needs significant improvement. All government agencies need to improve the quality of the information that they monitor and publish about contract award notices.

This year TINZ offers voters a set of open-ended questions to ask candidates in the run-up to New Zealand’s central government election on 19 September. They are about fighting corruption, integrity, accountability and transparency. These questions complement more detailed questions we have put to the main political parties.

We have a long way to go to redress the imbalance of importing rare earths in return for exporting corruption. New Zealand should consider a law similar to that being introduced in Switzerland. Applying New Zealand’s relatively high standards externally, could go a long way towards helping New Zealand move to a small but influential role in reducing the import and export of corruption.

The 2020 Doc Edge festival "Life Unscripted" is online in New Zealand from Friday 12 June until Sunday 5 July. International documentaries explore themes including political integrity, public sector and private sector accountability, and the challenges of upholding truth in journalism.

As we move past the COVID-19 epidemic and into recovery, there is an ongoing need for legislative and policy innovation. We must not forget our values in the excitement of doing new things.

Leaders of the anti-corruption movement around the Pacific region convened in early February to facilitate networking, information sharing and to enhance the resilience of Pacific island countries against corruption.