Archive for May 2014
Open letter to Mr Key – will you condone corruption?
May 20, 2014 | 
Author 
Open letter to Prime Minister.
I refer to the cabinet manual 2.53
“In all these roles and at all times, Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards.
Ultimately, Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.”
In 2001 the then minister of Agriculture, Jim Sutton gave approval for the Animal Welfare Institute of New Zealand to become an approved organisation under the animal welfare act 1999.
Section 122 of the act requires that the minister must be satisfied “by the production to the Minister of suitable evidence” that the “organisation “complied with the criteria as set out in sections 122 (1) (a) – (e).
It has transpired that the Animal Welfare Institute of New Zealand (AWINZ) had no legal existence, It had no members, structure or existence beyond that of only one man. There was no Organisation, no body of persons had held a meeting or made a decision to make an application for the coercive law enforcement powers.
I have over the years made a number of OIA requests from the MPI and have conclusively established that.
1. The application for approved status for the Animal Welfare Institute of New Zealand was fraudulent
a. Mr Neil Wells made the application on behalf of an alleged trust knowing that no trust existed .
b. The statement with regards to the trust having been formed by way of trust deed was false and known to be false by Mr Wells a statement he was to attempt to retrospectively cover up in 2006.
c. The persons named as the alleged trustees had never formally met together as a trust, signed a trust deed, or discussed the application for approved status under the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act 1999.
d. Section 10 of the application, the institute’s compliance with section 122, sought to mislead and deceive the minister as an organisation which does not exist cannot comply with the criteria.
2. The minister relied on MAF advising him with regards to the trust deed, the reality was that there was no trust deed and no signed deed was ever considered or sighted. This ensured that the ministry staff evaluated the application on a worthless and meaningless document which had not been consented or agreed to by any persons.
3. Mr Neil Edward Wells who had appointed himself as Manager (10.4 of the application) was the former Head of the RNZSPCA, in 1996 he wrote a business plan for his own personal ambition to integrate council’s dog and stock control with Animal welfare which was a central government concern. He called the service Territorial animal welfare service .
4. Mr Wells was well connected with the MPI (MAF at the time) and through this and his party connections (Labour) came to write the No 1 Bill for the new animal welfare legislation this bill was written with his personal business aspirations in mind.
5. Mr Wells served as an Independent Specialist Adviser to the Primary Production Select Committee during the consideration stages of the Bills but no record has ever been located of any declaration of his conflict of interest.
6. During 2000 Mr Wells and his associate Tom Didovich provided the minister and the ministry with information which appeared to be legitimate, however neither the minister not the ministry verified
a. The legal status or existence of AWINZ
b. The consent and knowledge of Waitakere council in providing funding, staff resources and infrastructure for the venture.
c. The knowledge and consent for the alleged trustees named on the fraudulent application
7. Records show that the policy advisors for the ministry of Agriculture were opposed to the granting of the application despite having previously assisted Mr Wells. MAF officials had voiced their concerns with regards to Mr Wells’s undeclared conflict of interest.
8. Consent was finally given after the application went to the labour caucus after Neil Wells was able to comment on and amend the caucus papers and allegedly briefed his former work colleague, Bob Harvey who at the time was the president of the labour party and Mayor of Waitakere City Council.
9. In 2006 as a result of an enquiry from a Waitakere dog control officer I established conclusively that
a. There was no legal person by the name of the Animal Welfare institute of New Zealand
b. Neither MAF nor Waitakere council who both contracted to AWINZ held a signed trust deed.
c. The law enforcement authority AWINZ was not identifiable.
10. Despite AWINZ not existing the then Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton did not consider that AWINZ no longer complied with section 122 and did not revoke the approved status, he too was deceived as to the existence of AWINZ due to a group of persons posing as AWINZ and despite lacking evidence claiming to be the law enforcement authority . These persons were Tom Didovich, Neil Wells, Graeme Coutts and Wyn Hoadley. Not one of these persons (other than Wells) had been a party to the application process or consented to it.
11. This deception continued through the next minister’s term off office and David Carter was similarly deceived.
12. In a series Official information act requests I have established that MPI do not know who the legal persons were who represented the law enforcement authority and it would appear from the latest response ,that they did nothing to investigate the consequences of having a fictional law enforcement authority .
I have recently discovered submissions by Mr Wells for the Animal Welfare Amendment Act , curiously he does not mention his involvement with AWINZ at all but in these he points out the seriousness of this situation by pointing out that New Zealand is only one of two countries to have a private law enforcement authority (the other is Australia).
Mr Wells in his submissions states “Legal commentators maintain that the enforcement and prosecution of criminal law (animal welfare offences are crimes) are the responsibility of the state and not private organisations that have no public accountability.”
He goes on to state “There are (in NZ) three types of enforcement and prosecuting authorities — the Police, the Ministry for Primary Industry, and approved organisations. “
And “MPI does not have the resources to be able to deliver national enforcement and prosecution services on its own for all animal welfare complaints and is totally dependent on approved organisations. This creates an enormous risk for government.”
AWINZ was an approved organisation yet it did not exist, no one knew who comprised it, ran it, apart from Mr Wells who was not given law enforcement powers in his own name but obtained it fraudulently in a fictional name and then acted on behalf of that fictional body.
The act, section 122, requires that the Minister must be satisfied – by the production to the Minister of suitable evidence – before declaring an organisation to be an approved organisation for the purposes of the Act.
For the decision of several Ministers to have been lawful evidence must exist which shows
1. Who the legal persons were who applied for the law enforcement powers and
2. The legal basis upon which the ministers granted law enforcement powers to a trading name for person or persons unknown and had belief that there was accountability to the public.
If that evidence does not exist then there is another option and that is that successive ministers were deceived.
If this is the case the government has two options
1. To condone fraudulent applications to the crown for law enforcement authority or
2. Instigate a full ministerial enquiry into the matter and hold all those who played a part in the deception accountable to the full force of the law.
The current Minister, Nathan Guy appears to have distanced himself from this matter despite repeated requests for him to conduct a ministerial enquiry into this deception. Every request I write to him is routinely handed over to the MPI. The MPI do not hold the evidence and quite clearly under the act it is for the minister to be in possession of the suitable evidence which satisfies him, it is therefore clear that if there is any evidence as to the legitimacy of the application of AWINZ and the existence of AWINZ then it must be held by the minister.
If the minister does not hold that information then the minister cannot condone a fraudulent act of this magnitude. It is also not a responsible action just to ignore the issue. (Ignorance of the law is no excuse Crimes act 1961)
Fraud is a crime and obtaining law enforcement powers for one of only two approved organisations is serious, it is even more serious when the law was enforced through this fraud and I have evidence that it was.
I did not intend to be a Whistle blower, I simply raised issues which I believed were in the public interest to raise in what was reported to be the world’s least corrupt country. I asked
1. Why did the minister give law enforcement powers to a fictional organisation
2. Why was the manager of a council dog and stock control unit contracting to himself in a fictional name
Those two questions have devastated my life and that of my family, I have had a total cold shoulder from the government for 8 years now. I have been treated like the villain in a tactic which I now recognise as classic Darvo where the roles of villain and victim are reversed.
I have been persecuted thought the courts on defamation claims for which I was denied a defence of truth and honest opinion, skipped formal proof and went straight to sentencing.
My crime has been to speak the truth and speak up on a matter of serious public corruption, it has been 8 years I have had every bit of spin and every bit of avoidance, it is painfully obvious that no one knows who the law enforcement authority was and there was no accountability to the public.
I should not be the scape goat. If New Zealand wished to strive to be the least corrupt country in the world then it would instigate a full investigation into this matter and see that whistle blowers are compensated as intended by the United Nations convention against corruption.
While New Zealand is still covering up corruption it will never be able to ratify the convention. We cannot continue to pretend that there is no corruption the only way to deal with it is to meet it head on.
I therefore ask for you Mr Key to direct that the minister for MPI conduct a full investigation into this matter together with lawyers versed in criminal law and Trusts.
I am happy to assist I am a former Police Prosecuting Sergeant and am currently a licenced Private investigator, the matter is already well investigated and researched.
Additionally I request financial assistance to relieve the financial hardship which I am experiencing due to having blown the whistle. I would not be in the position that I find myself in today if the government had acted responsibly and relied on evidence rather than hearsay.
I will soon be attending an international anti-corruption conference and hope that I can report that NZ is taking corruption seriously. I will also send a copy of this to the United Nations for their reference and also publish this on www.transparency.net.nz
I see this as a true test of the ethics of our current government.
Posted in 
Neil Wells distances himself from AWINZ
I have just taken time to look at submissions for the animal welfare bill and within the multitude of pages I find a submission by Neil Wells . Neil Wells evidence text [PDF 258k] and Neil Wells supp [PDF 141k]
In the submission he starts off stating
I agree with the general policy statement that the Bill will “improve the enforceability, clarity, and transparency of New Zealand’s animal welfare system.”
Transparency ? run that past me gain ? wasn’t it Mr Wells who made an application to the minister for approved status using a false name ?
Did he then not run this enterprise himself using the councils staff and resources while not disclosing that there was no one else involved ?
So why does he not list his experience of 10 years running an approved organization? and why did he not even mention the Animal Welfare Institute of New Zealand? ( AWINZ ) .
I rather suspect that he has not mentioned AWINZ because it would not read well saying
I was the author of a Private Member’s Bill presented to Parliament by Hon Pete Hodgson in 1998, which was later joined with the government’s Animal Welfare Bill (No. 2).
I served as an Independent Specialist Adviser to the Primary Production Select Committee during the consideration stages of the Bills.
I applied for approved status for an organization which did not exist and which was actually me using a pseudonym.
I ran the approved organization for 10 years using the Waitakere city council staff and resources , prosecuted and banked the proceeds into a bank account which I operated in the name of AWINZ .
I suspect that if he had written that some one might have said.. there is something wrong here.. perhaps conflict or interest even and some one might say “hey is it OK to write legislation for your own business plan and advise on it and implement it under a false name then cover up using the court. ? ”
At Point three of his main submission Wells states
A statute is only as good as the procedures available for enforcement of its provisions, the detection of offences, and the prosecution of offenders.
3.1 Enforcement and prosecuting authorities
There are three types of enforcement and prosecuting authorities — the Police, the Ministry for Primary Industry, and approved organisations.3.2 The Police
While every member of the Police is deemed to be an inspector the Police rarely take complaints related to animal welfare breaches and instead refer the complainant to the SPCA.3.3 MPI
MPI does not have the resources to be able to deliver national enforcement and prosecution services on its own for all animal welfare complaints and is totally dependent on approved organisations. This creates an enormous risk for government.3.4 Approved organisations
It appears odd to me that Neil Wells does not mention his own first hand experience with running an approved organization . but for once I find myself agreeing with Mr Wells he states
MPI does not have the resources to be able to deliver national enforcement and prosecution services on its own for all animal welfare complaints and is totally dependent on approved organisations. This creates an enormous risk for government.
It transpires the MPI could not even discern the difference between a legal person and a fiction, a truth and a falsehood . The falsehoods from Mr Wells as to the existence of AWINZ were swallowed hook line and sinker and each obstacle was overcome with another tall tale . he goes on to say
There is currently one approved organisation that is authorised to recommend the appointment of Inspectors and through those appointments, to enforce the Act and prosecute offenders — the Royal New Zealand SPCA.
But he doesn’t mention AWINZ Mr Wells using council staff which had been offered for use by his associate Tom Didovich without apparent authority from the council hierarchy . Wells points out how rare it is to have private law enforcement authorities
There are only 2 countries in the world that depend on a private organisation, the SPCA, to act as the enforcer and prosecutor of animal welfare law — New Zealand and the 7 states and territories of Australia.
Mr Wells using the council staff and resources prosecuted under the guise of the fictional AWINZ and pocketed the money into an account only he had access too, funds which he has since used to haul me through court so as to cover up the criminal activity associated with AWINZ.
If we were to adapt the model which Mr Wells had set up there would be no need for funding as it ensured that public assets were used for private pecuniary gain. I am sure that any accountant would tell you that there were serious flaws with Mr Wells model and to prosecute through an authority which has no legal existence ensures that there is no accountability to the public and no one can hold you accountable as there is no identifiable and sue able person to take on. the dangers of this relationship are expressed by Mr Wells in this comment
Legal commentators maintain that the enforcement and prosecution of criminal law (animal welfare offences are crimes) are the responsibility of the state and not private organisations that have no public accountability.
I could not agree more , when an organization can increase its income through prosecution and incidentally giving people a criminal conviction it becomes very serious , take that one step further and if there is no organization and the law enforcement authority is in reality just one person who has obtained law enforcement powers using a false identity then it has to be SERIOUS , especially when council, MPI, ministers, OAG all go out of their way to cover this up or turn a blind eye to it.
The statements he made in his submisson shows just how serious the matter with regards to the fictional AWINZ was
The Law Commission in its paper Delivering Justice For All (2004) commented that “the operation of the criminal justice system is the responsibility of the state.” Judge Garland in R v Balfour said that “the SPCA was effectively standing in the shoes of the government.”
In reality therefore Neil Wells was one person standing in the shoes of the government , so when I asked the question why AWINZ did not exist, it was far easier to crucify me than it was for any government department to say Oops we gave law enforcement authority to a fictional organisation.
AWINZ has proved that there was a lack of accountability , we still do not know who was regarded to be the organisation no one can identify the real people actually involved. we know that Wyn Hoadley, Graeme Coutts Neil wells and Tom Didovich posed as the organsiation and claimed the law enforcement powers as their own but there is not one document which can be produced from any legitimate source which supports that claim.
Incidentally it Was Tom Didovich who supported Wells application on behalf of Waitakere city council
When the application for approved status was made there was no trust deed, there was no group of people who had decided to apply for approved organization status, there was just Neil Wells and his own business plan for making money . In 2006 when I discovered that AWINZ did not exist , Neil Wells tried to contact four people who he had spoken to in 1998 who had been recruited by Didovich for the possibility of forming a trust with council to facilitate the delivery of animal welfare services.
Council paid for this through Didovich , but the persons never met as a trust. In 2006 there was not a trust deed ( it was claimed to be missing ) and I have conclusively proved that these persons did not form a trust until three months after the application for approved status was made and that they were not the approved organisation .
Graeme Coutts , Nuala Grove and Sarah Giltrap were all recruited because of their station in life or perceived station in life , they never met as a trust and never applied for approved status , they were not the law enforcement authority .
Under Item 17 clause 35 Mr Wells describes the pilot scheme set up by him to trial animal welfare in councils , he again fails to mention that it was set up at his instigation and that this led on to the fictitious AWINZ being created.
While I commend Mr Wells concern for little furry things he has had no such compassion for Humans especially when it came to me and my family. Wells has totally destroyed my family and financially stripped me. Mr Wells in my opinion is nothing but a criminal at large who has used the courts to pervert the course of justice so as to conceal his criminal offending.
I do not believe that any one can treat humans and animals differently , to be cruel to a human ( yes I have suffered at Mr Wells hands for 8 Years ) makes a mockery of the perception of being humanitarian .
If AWINZ had been legitimate ( it was not ) I would have expected Mr Wells to have made mention of it. His manner of dealing with AWINZ , or should I say avoiding it in his submission , to me at least proves his guilt .
I think that it is about time some one dealt with the reality that AWINZ was nothing more than a name Mr Wells had given himself, he had used others to cover up , when they realized how serious things had become ,they could not back out for they too had committed offences through him by being party to a raft of offences from being accessory after the fact to parties tothe the offence of using the court to pervert the course of justice.
this was done through a tactic called
DARVO – Acronym of “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender”.
I was the whistle blower and was made out to be the villain Wells became the Victim picked on by this deranged woman . It is a powerful strategy and it works in New Zealand especially when you can show that you are kind to animals.
Well I am kind to animals and to humans.. hasn’t helped me.
The victim stance is a powerful one . the victim is always morally right neither responsible nor accountable and forever entitled to sympathy
I can prove everything I say and I am speaking the truth , I will again send this to Mr Wells and draw this to his attention so that corrections can be made .
Again I will ask him to provide evidence.. that is the one thing that those who make things up always lack. If you want evidence from my side all you need to do is ask I have truckloads of the stuff.
A government for businesses.
In the famous Gettysburg address Abraham Lincoln stated
“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”
Well he was wrong , the year was 1863 and New Zealand was still in its infancy and no one would have thought that this would be the country where democracy would become a farce.
We vote for the members, in a competition where by money rules , those supported through secret trusts and large businesses have the biggest adverting budget and we all know how effective advertising is
Once into office the debt to the sponsors needs to be re paid . There are several ways of doing this so as to make it look like it is an open an transparent process
One way is through the New Zealand Business and Parliament Trust.
This is a charitable trust which was set up in 1991 by PATRICK LEDGER GOODMAN and DRYDEN THOMAS SPRING “To advance and encourage business understanding of Parliament and parliamentarians’ understanding of the business community of New Zealand’
( a quick look at their backgrounds shows that they are very well connected
GOODMAN one of the wealthiest families in New Zealand and Australia, with an estimated worth of $A770 million see also Goodman dynasty cooks up recipe for success
SPRING held a number of directorships including Nufarm Ltd., Maersk NZ Ltd., Affco Ltd., Fletcher Building Ltd., Sky City Entertainment Group Ltd., Northport Ltd., Deputy Chairman of Goodman Fielder Ltd., Chairman of Ericcson NZ Ltd. Chairman Of Tenon Ltd., Deputy Chairman Of Ports Of Auckland Ltd., Deputy Chairman of The Rural Banking and Finance Corp of New Zealand. He was formerly a member of The APEC Eminent Persons Group, which in 1993 drafted the APEC Vision of Free and Open Trade in the Asia Pacific, a member of APEC Business Advisory Council, Chairman of Asia New Zealand Foundation,
the members are listed here
Each business has an MP assigned to them ( called associate members ) they are listed here some companies e.g. Fonterra has several MPs .
So while we the mere mortals who believe we live in a democratic society have difficulty in accessing our MPS this is not so for big business.
There does not appear to be any legislation which supports MPs membership to this trust and I have done an OIA to clarify this .
I have also asked if we can set up an organization along the same lines which educates MPs with regards to corruption
until we get an independent commission agaisnt corruption we will have
Government of our businesses by those who have been sponsored by businesses to support businesses.
I also have to wonder why David Cunliffe was the only one to disclose his role in the New Zealand Business and Parliament Trust.