Welcome to the Friday "end of the week wrap-up" for The Integrity Institute.
Lobbyists and the Beehive revolving door
I published just one Integrity Briefing this week – about senior Beehive staffers moving straight from helping the Government run the country and regulate business, to working for corporate lobbyists help business shape the Government’s decisions – see: The Revolving door from Luxon's Beehive to lobbying.
My column was mainly about the shift of Christopher Luxon’s former chief press secretary (Hamish Rutherford) to a lobbying firm, as well as other lobbyists such as Stuart Wilson of Act to join the firm run by Neale Jones, and Simeon Brown’s senior press secretary, Ben Craven, to the BusinessNZ-adjacent lobbying firm Iron Duke Partners.
But the column did also mention former Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash, who angrily took to LinkedIn to tell me: “I would like you to send a retraction and correction to everyone you have sent this document to”. He says he’s never done any lobbying, and clarifies what he means by this: “I have never ever spoken to any MP – govt or opposition – in my role as Commercial Director of RW”.
Nash refused, however, to say he doesn’t lobby government agencies on behalf of his company. Incidentally, Nash is clearly labelled as a “lobbyist” in news articles run by RNZ, NZ Herald, Stuff, and Newsroom. And although he insisted on The Integrity Institute retracting the use of the term, he refused to answer why he hasn’t taken action against those media outlets if he was innocent of being a lobbyist. This is possibly because one of these news articles quotes Nash’s boss explaining the lobbying that Nash carries out, as the firm is the biggest provider of contracting services to New Zealand government agencies.
Pushback from vested interests
The Integrity Institute’s funding partnership with Newsroom continues to make a splash. The first story we funded, by Newsroom’s David Williams on Federated Farmers and the Government’s freshwater reforms, was mentioned in Parliament this week.
During question-time yesterday, MP Steve Abel asked the Minister of Agriculture: “What steps, if any, is he taking to guard against perceived influence by the dairy lobby on freshwater policy?” and then: “Does he dispute the findings of the Newsroom investigation that showed the dairy lobby has enjoyed privileged and disproportionate access to Ministers and officials, that led to the removal of freshwater protections?”
Todd McClay answered this by pushing the same attack line of Cameron Slater, saying he thinks “that private money going into news organisations to run stories in itself is something that should be considered”.
The Platform media outlet has also been providing similar criticisms, and giving Cameron Slater more airtime to accuse us of “Dirty Politics”. Michael Laws has also broadcast a diatribe against us. And they interviewed Federated Farmers about us as well.
Some say that we should ignore these critics, and maybe they are right. But I want to front up to criticisms and be fully transparent about how we are operating. So, I went on The Platform on Monday – you can watch this 18-minute interview here: Bryce Edwards On Why The Integrity Institute Funds Newsroom
We have been going out of our way to be transparent about our funding partnership with the media. Even back in February I discussed our approach of commissioning journalism investigations, when I went on RNZ’s Mediawatch. In the interview with Colin Peacock, I stated the following:
“I'm talking with different media outlets at the moment trying to commission some of them to do some of our work if you like. This will be in a kind of hands-off, arm’s length relationship whereby we identify areas that we feel the media aren't covering or scrutinizing enough, especially in terms of vested interests. We will fund outlets to do research whereby we don't have any sign off on that. We don't tell them what to do. They'll do it with journalistic integrity and publish those things on their own sites. And so, where possible, we want to enhance the media landscape”.
In Defence of funding public-interest journalism
Lobbyists and some amongst the more Establishment media continue to suggest that we are trying to “buy” favourable coverage or are using a model of “pay-for-play”. However, the “pay-for-play” model that Nicky Hager highlighted in his Dirty Politics book was about hiding the payer and dictating the story; we do the opposite — full disclosure and zero editorial control.
In terms of our funding for Newsroom, the relationship is not one of a lobby group buying coverage; it is a non-profit, charitable foundation philanthropically funding public-interest journalism. This is a fundamental distinction. The Institute’s stated goal is not to promote itself or its own brand, but to enable in-depth investigative work on topics of mutual public interest that a resource-constrained media sector struggles to cover.
Indeed, the arrangement with Newsroom explicitly stipulated that the acknowledgement of funding should not be an advertisement for The Integrity Institute, with no logos or promotional material, but rather a simple, transparent statement of the funding source. This fact directly contradicts the notion of "buying press."
Our critics have suggested that our funding partnership is “sinister” or something new. This philanthropic funding model is neither new, sinister, nor unique. It is an increasingly standard and celebrated practice for sustaining high-quality journalism in New Zealand and globally. As I’ve already stated, there is one domestic precedent that has partly-inspired what we are doing – the 2023 investigative series "Hardship & Hope" by respected journalist Rebecca Macfie, published in The Listener. This series was transparently funded by philanthropists Scott and Mary Gilmour. This precedent is crucial; it demonstrates that what The Institute is doing is not an outlier but part of a respected tradition of philanthropic support for journalism in New Zealand.
There are also significant international precedents – the philanthropy funding model is a cornerstone of best practice in global journalism. World-renowned, award-winning news organisations operate on this basis. Examples include ProPublica, which receives funding from the Ford Foundation, Knight Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation to produce investigative work it then shares with outlets like The New York Times; The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which directly funds journalists to cover under-reported global issues; and The Marshall Project, which focuses on the criminal justice system with philanthropic support. In the UK, similar models are used by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and supported by entities like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy has publicly and unequivocally stated this week: “The grant we received from the Integrity Institute came with no strings attached”. And as I’ve said, The Institute has zero contact with the journalists, Fox Meyer and David Williams, and we exercise no editorial control or sign-off on the content they produce. In fact, the first time that I see the articles is when they are published, the same as any member of the public.
David Farrar's central accusation is that The Integrity Institute is hypocritical for decrying the influence of money in politics while using money to influence the media. But this is a fallacious argument based on a false equivalence. There is a fundamental, categorical difference between a secret, undeclared donation to a political party intended to achieve a specific, private policy outcome, and a transparent, publicly declared grant to an independent news organisation to investigate matters of public interest. One is an action designed to subvert democracy for private gain. The other is an action designed to strengthen democracy through public knowledge. Our critics are deliberately and dishonestly conflating the two.
Critics like Richard Harman and BusinessDesk have seized on a clause in our Trust Deed that mentions the possibility of funding an investigative journalism “sting operation” against lobbyists. This clause in our foundational document reflects the seriousness with which we take our mission. Covert recording is a long-established and sometimes essential tool of investigative journalism, used by major news outlets around the world to expose serious wrongdoing that would otherwise remain hidden from the public. An organisation that is truly serious about uncovering corruption must be prepared to support journalists using the full suite of legitimate investigative tools.
At The Integrity Institute we are hardly worried about the attacks coming from the likes of Cameron Slater and The New Zealand Initiative. The volume, intensity, and source of the criticism are the clearest possible indicators that we are correctly identifying where power lies and we are already perceived as a credible threat to the opaque systems of influence in New Zealand. We are being attacked by the very networks we were created to scrutinise.
When you establish an institute to challenge the influence of powerful lobby groups and partisan media operatives, you do not expect applause from them. You expect attacks. The fact that figures like Cameron Slater and Eric Crampton are leading the charge against us is the strongest possible endorsement of our mission. Such critics are, in effect, proving the necessity of the Institute through their actions. The attacks are a predictable and defensive reaction from an established order that feels threatened by a new, independent watchdog.
Finally, in Australia, the Centre for Public Integrity has launched a groundbreaking research paper this week revealing alarming evidence of Australia's deepening transparency crisis. The main problem is with Australia’s version of our Official Information Act – see their report here: “Still Shrouded in Secrecy”. For media coverage of this, see the Guardian: Albanese government worse than Morrison era at producing documents for public scrutiny, report finds.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of The Integrity Institute
Wow Bryce, well done. We really need you in Parliament! We deeply appreciate the work you are doing on our behalf.
Bruce. Why bother with debate and a select committee process if you can lobby and buy influence? If it’s all ok with our democracy and Wild West access and influence operations then why are trust levels so low as per Edelman Acumen Trust barometer. ? Capitalism and competition works best with a level playing field not one where a favoured few tilt it in their favour by playing political parties. Adam Smith talked about this - meetings in coffee houses.
Singapore overtook us long ago arguably because of their tough stance on corruption and public education about it. We seem to elevate the mediocre based on access and influence and connection. Hardly surprising then our economy and productivity is declining.