ABUSING POWER AND ITS MALCONTENTS: DEMYSTIFYING NEW ZEALAND

          Being an outsider to New Zealand, looking in, I can attest to the positive images portrayed by New Zealanders about New Zealand to the rest of the world: New Zealand is a multicultural society, accentuated by reticent landscapes and inhabited by equally restrained people eager to share space and stories with strangers. I also often hear this self-characterization from people here: Kiwis like to help people. In small strokes, perhaps New Zealanders are helpful, but when it really counts, the well-being of the average everyday Kiwi is stymied by this inexplicable, understated desire to undermine others. Or, at least, that is what I interpret in the conduct of those in authority, after learning from people victimized by abuse of power, who relayed to me their experiences with institutions of power. I have to admit that the stories of Kiwis willing to share their personal challenges with me reveal behavioural patterns of authority that are telling of an underground narrative that belies corruptions in many forms, albeit not readily discernible to the unsuspecting stranger.

            I happened upon a book, Dirty Politics (Hager, Craig Cotton Publishing 2014), which sheds some light on a psychology proudly brandished by the characters the author highlights in the book that got me thinking about some of the underhanded ways in which Kiwis operate using authoritative channels. The author highlights the people, who have inherited power through political party affiliations, using their prestige to influence public opinion, even if their representations are based on lies. The book’s author will have one believe that the culture of New Zealand integrity is gripped by the loose morals of National Party acolytes. He names several individuals with birthrights in or loyalties to the National Party who can easily influence institutional politics – and even people.

            I had initially discarded the contents of this book as unconnected to the deceptions with which I had had to contend at both universities, Massey and Auckland . . . until I read page 60 of the book, in which the author names a member of the University of Auckland Council (whose contract ended in December 2014), who has served as a National Party lawyer. This bit of information got me thinking about how deeply into the operations of these educational institutions the tentacles of the National Party reach. And how much their influence disturbs the system of checks and balances normally guaranteed by laws protecting civil and human rights.

            When I learned of this lawyer’s political connections, I knew my suspicions about the education at the University of Auckland as being more political than educational had merit. This attorney, being schooled in the law, has the authority to advise people – I would even conjecture – incorrectly on the specifics of the law. As today's blog will eventually inform, other authority figures in various circumstances have similarly failed to scrutinize the legality of advice or conduct of professional peers. Because there are impacts on the individual – the victim, if you will - if accountability is not upheld; failing to exercise accountability also signifies violations of human rights standards in New Zealand, as elsewhere.

Words, such as respecting one’s dignity, autonomy, and integrity are included in such doctrines to prevent anyone in authority to have unilateral control over the life of another. Freedoms of choice and from suffering are considered inalienable rights, as is the freedom to pursue a qualification that could potentially open doors is. Under human rights conditions, these freedoms are supported and fostered through law. And so, when anyone in authority is engages in wrongdoing, the systems holds that authority figure accountable. Checks and balances are, understandably, regarded to be integral to human rights.   

Yet, when I think back to the number of times in which deception had influenced my decisions and resulted in financial and time losses to me, I remember feeling no sense of autonomy. Moreover, at no time during the 29 months of studying here, filing informal and then formal complaints with the appropriate authorities, and asking for assistance with changing supervisors so that I could make progress on my doctorate thesis, could I remember when either university had been forced to take responsibility. Take, for instance, the false scholarship letter from Massey University sent to me, which influenced my decision to attend Massey. Only later, after arriving at the school, did I learn that the person who had signed the letter did not exist. There were no offers of an alternative scholarship to replace the alleged offer of a scholarship with a real one. When I complained about the assaults on me by my primary supervisor while at Massey, this concern was treated with humour by those in authority. The other staff, who had accompanied this supervisor to the lounge, had thought the abuse to me was simply funny, revealed through the snickering of some staff in the 3^rd floor lounge, because the personal development of my primary supervisor there was closer to that of a child, so her academic friend had opined.  

And then, the efforts I made to replace my current PhD Committee with two academics, who took their responsibilities more seriously, fell on deaf ears. Despite filing three separate forms requesting a change of supervisors, I received no answer from the Graduate Centre. And when I asked for a more objective review of my academic work, I failed to get that – only more loyalties from the other workers. I wondered if someone in greater power was pulling strings and influencing the people, who had the power to affect my doctoral candidacy. In the end, they did.

In the US, breaching civil and other laws, as well as university statutes carries penalties. The university, for instance, will lose federal funds, including the chance to compete for government-funded grants. Professors acting against the educational interests of students are generally punished by being forced to go on a leave of absence or are terminated. Academics overall do not retain their job if they do not take their responsibilities seriously. Deception, moreover, is not tolerated at any level. The university takes responsibility and the student is generally compensated if complaints are filed. There are examples of cases in the US, where punishments due to regulatory or legislative violations have been carried out.

My alienation from New Zealand, I have since learned, is shared by others, some more rooted to New Zealand than even those who proudly call themselves Kiwi. What happens when accountability and thereby human rights principles are not upheld? Their stories reveal a more accurate truth. There is the story of a Maori man convicted of rape and murder in the absence of DNA evidence directly linking him to the crime. The victim had not this convicted man’s DNA on her body, but that of another. The prosecutor and police knew this about the evidence, but the Maori man was convicted anyway. Because of the refusal to accept the more truthful evidence, public sentiment was that the person whose DNA was found on the murdered victim was a police informant.

This verdict further conveys that anyone can be fingered for a crime and be found guilty even in the absence of physical evidence.

New Zealand is free from accountability – and in some instances I have learned about outright refusal to take responsibility to the extent that they will create new interpretations just to suit their purposes of covering for another entity. My friend calls it double speak – or finding excuses to circumvent responsibility. My friend has been victimized by this double speak witnessed by me. Over the last eight months, we have been in a dispute with an energy company, which refused to accept responsibility for the money laundering it experienced by two of its employees. The white collar crime made the New Zealand Herald, albeit not front page news. (Only rugby news gets that honor). Instead of addressing the crime in isolation of its customers by taking the loss, but investigating ways they could cushion it using the full extent of the law, I deduced that the company tried to compensate for the money lost in the laundering by charging debts to their customers. We questioned the truthfulness of the debt, reviewed his receipts and asked for invoices from the energy company so that we could corroborate their information with ours. We learned that he did not owe any money on the large portion of the debt and are now disputing the amount of the other portion. Not to ask for compensation, mind you, but so that my friend can pay what he truthfully owes rather than pay a fabricated amount. Up to now, the energy company has not responded with the correct amount of his debt despite reassurances that someone will "get back to him."

This same energy company refused to pay him his annual dividend, guaranteed to anyone who is a member of the energy company, although he was sent a letter some months ago telling him to expect one. My friend phoned to enquire after it a few days after the disbursements ended, and he was told by a clerk at this organization that his address had been listed as “vacant”. (But, the letter of dividend notification safely arrived at his house). This latest action indicated that someone was playing games, and possibly punishing my firend for complaining about his outrageous bill.

In another case, a Hungarian immigrant cum Kiwi, who helped me get my pay in February from the onion contractor, told me that he had lost $35,000 on a house deal. How does one lose that kind of money if the paperwork is in place? I didn’t get the impression that this immigrant was innocent about business dealings. Another family from the Middle East also lost a considerable amount of money following the signing of papers to invest in New Zealand. This family owns a resort in the Pacific and is I assume knowledgeable enough about business investments to be able to read the fine print. So, how did they lose money on this investment?

After my experience with these two universities, in which the leadership has demonstrated only the ability to find excuses and a governance in the country that refuses to respond constructively and lawfully to laws that protect individuals from being swindled, I can only guess that those in authority choose not to act.

To get away with swindling, defined by the Oxford English dictionary as the “use of deception to obtain money or possessions from someone,” one would either have to outright lie or reinterpret the terms of, for example, a contract or a written agreement without accountability. In other words, those in higher authority would have to enforce the law when breached, but what happens when violations are merely ignored? When government officials fail to enforce, they participate in the deception. This is called racketeering.  

             Based on the number of stories I have heard from others regarding their doctoral experience and with authorities in New Zealand, and on my experience with the University of Auckland and Massey University, I would classify the failure to uphold the law and protect victims from suffering the financial and emotional consequences of deception as racketeering. This is because the New Zealand system tends to misrepresent itself. The New Zealand legal system misrepresents its commitment to human and civil rights. The universities misrepresents its capabilities ad services. Misrepresentation of services or academic capabilities is reflective of the dishonesty exercised by these universities to attract both domestic and international students. The same has been evidently true with other business dealings, according to the testimonies of others, who have been burned by the Kiwi system. Double speak, indeed.