Politicians are under fire overseas. But New Zealand should take note too.

The US Justice Department’s release of more than three million Epstein files (including 180,000 images and 2000 videos) has blown the doors off the most protected social network of the late 20th century.

What these documents reveal is not just a catalogue of one man’s depravity. It is, as Helen Rumbelow wrote in The Times, like “taking the back off the world clock”, exposing how power actually works at the top of the Western world.

And the implications reach all the way to New Zealand.

New Zealand media has done useful work tracking the Kiwi names that appear in the files.

Paula Penfold at Stuff searched more than a thousand New Zealand references. Joel MacManus at The Spinoff, Ben Tomsett and Ethan Manera at The New Zealand Herald, and Steve Braunias at Newsroom have reported on the local angles — Peter Thiel’s investment relationship with Epstein, the New Zealand Defence Force couple who managed Epstein’s properties, Auckland academic Brian Boyd, physicist Lawrence Krauss and his pursuit of Epstein money for an Otago University role.

These stories matter. But the fixation on which Kiwis appear in the files misses the real story. The Epstein scandal is not fundamentally about which individuals had dinner with a monster. It is about what kind of political systems allow monsters to operate at the centre of global power for decades without consequence.

On that score, New Zealand should be paying very close attention, because our systems are weaker than those now failing spectacularly in countries around us.

The Mandelson masterclass
The most instructive case study is not American but British. The fall of Peter Mandelson (the architect of New Labour, the self-described “Prince of Darkness”) is a textbook case of how politics and money have gone rotten in liberal democracies.

The Epstein files revealed that Mandelson, while serving as “Deputy PM” to Gordon Brown, and in the position of Business Secretary, forwarded highly sensitive government tax plans to Jeffrey Epstein.

He told Epstein he was “trying hard to amend” a planned tax on bankers’ bonuses and suggested that JPMorgan’s CEO should “mildly threaten” the Chancellor to water down the policy. He gave Epstein advance notice of a €500 billion EU bailout before public announcement.

On Christmas Day, he wrote to a convicted paedophile: “I do not want to live by salary alone”.

So, a sitting Cabinet minister was leaking government intelligence to a convicted sex offender, lobbying against his own government’s financial regulation on behalf of that offender’s banking contacts, and angling for post-politics employment — all at the same time.

Within weeks of leaving office, his lobbying firm Global Counsel was chasing work with the Russian state investment fund and the state-owned China International Capital Corporation.

The Starmer government is bleeding credibility. Police opened a criminal investigation, Mandelson’s properties were searched, and yesterday Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned, saying the appointment decision “has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself”.

The Economist magazine has called it “Britain’s worst political scandal of this century”. UK Labour now trails Reform UK in the polls.

As former Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in The Guardian last Friday, in a remarkable act of public contrition: “I greatly regret this appointment . . .  He seems to have used market-sensitive inside information to betray the principles in which he said he believed”.

Brown’s piece was not merely an apology. It was a manifesto for integrity reform. Brown called for an independent anti-corruption commission with statutory powers, a fully accountable vetting system for major political appointments, mandatory parliamentary hearings for senior ambassadors and ministers, a five-year cooling-off period for former ministers entering lobbying, and the creation of corruption as a new statutory offence.

Brown argued for nothing less than a “century-defining rebalancing of power and accountability”, and he warned that without fundamental change, the revelations would be “acid in our democracy, corroding trust still further”.

Heather Stewart, writing in The Guardian, drew out the structural lesson: Mandelson’s personal disgrace is “deep and unique, and may yet bring down a prime minister — but by laying bare the dark allure of the filthy rich, it also underlines the need for tougher constraints on money in politics”.

Stewart documented how Epstein’s efforts to influence government policy — working to water down Alistair Darling’s bonus tax at a time when the banks had crashed the economy — “underline the powerful forces with which politicians are faced”.

She noted that Transparency International warned last summer: “We stand at the beginning of a new and dangerous era, where big money dominates in a way that has corroded US politics across the Atlantic”. The campaign group Spotlight on Corruption warned the current system is “full of major loopholes and gaps”.

The real takeaway is this: when it comes to money and politics, whether post-parliamentary employment, lobbying, or party funding, it is unwise to take honesty and decency as a given. As Stewart concluded: “It is not too late to pull up the drawbridge . . .  by introducing stringent new rules to protect British democracy from the malign influence of powerful companies, and dodgy billionaires”.

The global rot at the top
What is striking is the convergence. Left, right, and libertarian commentators from across the ideological spectrum are reaching the same conclusion: the Epstein network was not an aberration. It was a symptom of what happens when wealth, power, and access operate without transparency or accountability.

As Josie Pagani observed in The Post, “there appears to be a high degree of crossover between the sort of people who attend World Economic Forum jamborees at Davos, and the sort of people who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein”. The Economist noted the files read “like a ‘Who’s Who’ which has gathered only a thin layer of dust”.

These are not fringe figures being exposed. These are the people who run things.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political theorist at Princeton, described the files as “a sobering x-ray of some of America’s elites — immature, full of impunity, corrupt, venal, venial, and venereal all at once”. He warned that “an elite so needy, greedy, and now so vulnerable can hardly be trusted to exercise good judgment”.

Owen Jones put it bluntly: Mandelson is “the logical culmination of the career politician, attracted to government office not because of any commitment to a set of values or public service, but simply for power, position, and profit”. Jones asked the question that should haunt every democracy: “What is being done now by ministers and politicians to secure preferment and nice jobs later?”

The Economist observed on the Epstein-Mandelson scandal that “a weakened elite is also more vulnerable to populism” and that “public opinion is less tolerant of hypocrisy than of sex scandals or corruption”. A record 43 percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup now say they have “very little faith” in big business.

The political lesson people take from the documents is broader: elites protect elites. And once voters accept that as a general pattern, they start to look at their own politics differently. They see the local versions: the donor dinners, the quietly arranged appointments, the lobbyists writing submissions, the ministers lining up post-parliament careers. They start to interpret routine insider politics as corruption-by-another-name.

So what does this mean for New Zealand?
It’s easy to shrug this off as a foreign horror story. That shrug is the vulnerability.
New Zealand has no lobbying regulations. None. No register, no code of conduct, no cooling-off period for ministers who walk out of the Beehive and into lobbying firms or corporate boardrooms.

We rank 42nd out of 48 OECD countries on lobbying transparency. NZ is ahead of only Slovakia, Luxembourg, and Turkey. Yet Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has said lobbying reform “is not a priority”.

As The NZ Herald editorial argued on the Epstein scandal, “what this all reveals . . .  is how utterly certain those in power are that they will be protected”. That certainty, and that sense of impunity, is not confined to Manhattan townhouses and Caribbean islands. It operates wherever wealth and politics intersect without adequate transparency.

Our own political history provides uncomfortable parallels. Minister Stuart Nash was sacked in 2023 for emailing confidential Cabinet information to wealthy donors, a mini-parallel to Mandelson’s alleged leaking of market-sensitive information to Epstein.

But in Nash’s case, he lost his ministerial role without ever facing a police investigation. The structural failure is the same: the revolving door, the undisclosed lobbying, the donation loopholes, the absence of any meaningful cooling-off period.

If the Mandelson affair teaches one lesson, it is this: weak integrity systems do not just allow bad behaviour, they incentivise it. New Zealand has all of these mechanisms for embedding soft corruption, in weaker form than the UK. We rely on a “she’ll be right” attitude in place of the institutional safeguards that comparable democracies take for granted.

The example of Peter Thiel sharpens this further. Thiel is a New Zealand citizen. He is also a billionaire power broker in Silicon Valley and a funder of rightwing politics who appears prominently in the Epstein files.

That is a reminder: New Zealand has granted citizenship, and effectively social legitimacy, to a man who sits inside the very global plutocratic networks now being publicly scrutinised for moral collapse and elite impunity. Thiel is symbolic because he represents something New Zealand has not seriously confronted: the country’s relationship with the global super-rich, and the way money can smooth entry into our political community.

Meanwhile, public trust in New Zealand’s institutions has collapsed. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer showed New Zealand’s trust index falling below the global average for the first time: 47 percent compared to 56 percent globally. Political parties are the least trusted institution, at just 32 percent according to the OECD’s 2024 survey. And the anti-politics mood is deepening.

The recent McSkimming police corruption scandal, where a Deputy Commissioner’s misconduct was systematically covered up, has already forced a national debate about the “C-word”. The ground was prepared before the Epstein files even arrived.

An election-year wake-up call
So what happens when this mood hits an election year? November 7 is nine months away, and the Epstein scandal feeds directly into a public mood that was already getting toxic.
The danger here is not that the public demands accountability. The danger is that the public concludes accountability is impossible, because the system is so captured by insiders and vested interests that reform cannot come from within.

Scandals like this feed anti-politics. People conclude that “they’re all the same,” that it’s a rigged game, that power protects itself. But the same disgust can create reform pressure. When trust collapses, political promises about integrity stop being an optional add-on.

They become central. Voters start demanding answers: who is lobbying whom? Who is funding whom? Why do politicians leave office and immediately cash in? Why are conflicts of interest treated as personal errors rather than structural failures?

No party in New Zealand “owns” the anti-corruption space. That’s also both a vulnerability and an opening. The party or leader who takes integrity reform seriously in 2026 — who makes the lobbying register, the donation caps, the Integrity Commission a genuine campaign commitment rather than a footnote — will be tapping into something powerful and real.

The party that ignores it will be betting that public anger stays diffuse. That would be a bad bet.

The global mood of elite scepticism will shape this election whether our politicians like it or not. Voters are more suspicious than ever of cosy relationships between politicians and the wealthy. They are less willing to accept opacity, conflicts of interest, and the revolving door as the price of doing business.

Chris Trotter, writing today in The Interest, argues there are “heaps of lessons New Zealanders can learn from what is unfolding in the United Kingdom”. He is right. New Zealand has an opportunity to get ahead of the global backlash. We can build the transparency infrastructure — the lobbying register, the Integrity Commission, the cooling-off rules — that most comparable democracies already have.

Or we can keep pretending that we are too small and too decent for this kind of corruption, and wait for the next scandal to prove us wrong.

Starmer’s warning to his own cabinet, that “the public don’t really see individuals in this scandal, they see politicians”, applies here too. New Zealanders are watching the Mandelson affair, they’re reading the files, and they’re drawing the obvious conclusion: that the people who run the world are not to be trusted, and the systems meant to hold them accountable are broken.

A country can’t keep shrugging at unregulated influence while telling voters to trust the system. If New Zealand’s political class wants to avoid the kind of legitimacy collapse now unfolding overseas, the time to act is now. Not after the next (inevitable) scandal.

An immediate test
And here is the immediate test. Transparency International is releasing its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. For the last couple of decades, New Zealand’s showing in the index has been in decline. Our score has slipped from the mid-90s to 83, and our ranking has dropped to fourth globally, now seven points behind Denmark.

Will this decline continue? If it does, it will be one more data point confirming what voters already sense: that the gap between New Zealand’s self-image as a clean, transparent democracy and the reality of our thin integrity architecture is growing wider.

The Epstein files have taken the back off the world clock. New Zealanders can see the mechanism now. The question is what do we do about it?

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political commentator and analyst. He is director of the Democracy Project, focused on scrutinising and challenging the role of vested interests in the political process. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United States has designated two high-profile public office holders from Palau and the Marshall Islands for “significant corruption”, the US Department of State says.

Palau’s Senate president Hokkons Baules has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption on behalf of China-based actors,” while the former mayor of the Kili/Bikini/Ejit community in the Marshall Islands Anderson Jibas has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption and misappropriation of US provided funds during his time in public office”, the department said in a news release.

The designations render Baules, Jibas, and their immediate family members ineligible for entry into the US.

According to the State Department, Baules abused his public position by accepting bribes in exchange for providing advocacy and support for government, business, and criminal interests from China.

“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected US interests in Palau.”

Baules has dismissed the allegations, telling news media last April he was the target of a smear campaign aimed at ruining his name.

The department said Jibas abused his public position “by orchestrating and financially benefiting from multiple misappropriation schemes involving theft, misuse, and abuse of funds from the US-provided Bikini Resettlement Trust”.

Stolen funds
It added Jibas’ actions resulted in most of the funds being stolen from the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people who are survivors and descendants of survivors of nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s.

“The theft, misuse, and abuse of the US-provided money for the fund wasted US taxpayer money and contributed to a loss of jobs, food insecurity, migration to the United States, and lack of reliable electricity for the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people.

“The lack of accountability for Jibas’ acts of corruption has eroded public trust in the government of the Marshall Islands, creating an opportunity for malign foreign influence from China and others.”

US laws allow the government to name foreign nationals and their close family if there is strong evidence they were involved in serious corruption or human rights violations.

The designations come at a time of intense strategic competition between the US and China over influence in the Pacific.

Both Palau and the Marshall Islands have Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with the US, which grant the US exclusive military access in exchange for economic aid.

“The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain and steal from our citizens to enrich themselves. These designations reaffirm the United States’ commitment to countering global corruption affecting US interests,” the State Department said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Amid widespread condemnation of the United States over its brazen weekend attack on Venezuela around the world and in the UN Security Council today, Senator Bernie Sanders has posted on social media six reasons why the operation to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro on Venezuela was very wrong.

Abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told a packed New York City courtroom that he was “innocent”, a “decent man”, and that he had been “kidnapped”, in his first public comments since the US attack, reports Al Jazeera.

Members of the 15-strong UN Security Council (UNSC), including key US allies, condemned Washington and warned that the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US special forces could be a precedent-setting event for international law.

The reasons Senator Sanders (Democrat-Vermont) has given why Trump’s actions were wrong are:

1. It is illegal and unconstitutional. Congress did not authorise or even know about this military action.
2. It will make the world less safe. If international law is ignored, any nation or terrorist organisation can justify violent attack by pointing to Trump’s actions in Venezuela. This was Putin’s logic in Ukraine.
3. It is blatant imperialism. Powerful nations do not have the legal or moral right to invade smaller countries to steal their natural resources. Venezuela’s oil belongs to the people of Venezuela, not US corporations.
4. At a time when the entire world is moving away from fossil fuels for cheaper and non-polluting sustainable energies, protecting the interests of Big Oil is bad for the climate and bad economics.
5. Maduro is corrupt and anti-democratic. So is MBS of Saudi Arabia. So are many other leaders around the world. Just because we do not like a country’s leader does not mean we have the right to overthrow their government.
6. Trump ran for president as a “peace candidate” who believed in “America First”, not someone who was going to “run” another country. At a time when 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, maybe he should try doing a better job running this country [United States], not taking over Venezuela.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A longtime Bougainville politician, Joe Lera, wants to see widespread changes in the way the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) is run.

The Papua New Guinea region, which is seeking independence from Port Moresby, is holding elections in the first week of September.

Seven candidates are running for president, including Lera.

He held the regional seat in the PNG national Parliament for 10 years before resigning to contest the presidency in the 2020 election.

This time around, Lera is campaigning on what he sees as faults in the approach of the Ishmael Toroama administration and told RNZ Pacific he is offering a different tack.

JOE LERA: This time, people have seen that the current government is the most corrupt. They have addressed only one side of independence, which is the political side, the other two sides, They have not done it very well.

DON WISEMAN: What do we mean by that? We can’t bandy around words like corruption. What do you mean by corruption?

JL: What they have done is huge. They are putting public funds into personal members’ accounts, like the constituency grant – 360,000 kina a year.

DW: As someone who has operated in the national parliament, you know that that is done there as well. So it’s not corrupt necessarily, is it?

JL:Well, when they go into their personal account, they use it for their own family goods, and that development, it should be development funds. The people are not seeing the tangible outcomes in the number two side, which is the development side.

All the roads are bad. The hospitals are now running out of drugs. Doctors are checking the patients, sending them to pharmaceutical shops to buy the medicine, because the hospitals have run out.

DW: These are problems that are affecting the entire country, aren’t they, and there’s a shortage of money. So how would you solve it? What would you do differently?

JL: We will try to make big changes in addressing sustainable development, in agriculture, fishing, forestry, so we can create jobs for the small people.

Instead of talking about big, billion dollar mining projects, which will take a long time, we should start with what we already have, and develop and create opportunities for the people to be engaged in nation building through sustainable development first, then we progress into the higher billion dollar projects.

Now we are going talking about mining when the people don’t have opportunity and they are getting poorer and poorer. That’s one area, the other area, to create change we will try to fix the government structure, from ABG to community governments to village assemblies, down to the chiefs.

At the moment, the policies they have have fragmented the conduit of getting the services from the top government down to to the village people.

DW: In the past, you’ve spoken out against the push for independence, suggesting I think, that Bougainville is not ready yet, and it should take its time. Where do you stand at the moment on the independence question?

JL: The independence question? We are all for it. I’m not against it, but I’m against the process. How they are going about it. I think the answer has been already given in the Bougainville Peace Agreement, which is a joint creation between the PNG and ABG government, and the process is very clear.

Now, what the current government is doing is they are going outside of the Peace Agreement, and they are trying to shortcut based on the [referendum] result.

But the Peace Agreement doe not say independence will be given to us based on the result. What it says is, after we know the result, the two governments must continue to dialogue, consult each other and find ways of how to improve the economy, the law and order issues, the development issues.

When we fix those, the nation building pillars, we can then apply for the ratification to take place.

DW: So you’re talking about something that would be quite a way further down the line than what this current government is talking about?

JL: The issue is timing. They are putting deadlines themselves, and they are trying to push the PNG government to swallow it. The PNG government is a sovereign nation already.

We should respect and honestly, in a family room situation, negotiate, talk with them, as the Peace Agreement says, and reach understanding on the timing and other related issues, but not to even take a confrontational approach, which is what they are doing now, but take a family room approach, where we sit and negotiate in the spirit of the Peace Agreement.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. Don Wiseman is a senior journalist with RNZ Pacific. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Three staffers from Papua New Guinea’s peak anti-corruption body are embroiled in a standoff that has brought into question the integrity of the organisation.

Police Commissioner David Manning has confirmed that he received a formal complaint.

Commissioner Manning said that initial inquiries were underway to inform the “sensitive investigation board’s” consideration of the referral.

That board itself is controversial, having been set up as a halfway point to decide if an investigation into a subject should proceed through the usual justice process.

Manning indicated if the board determined a criminal offence had occurred, the matter would be assigned to the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate for independent investigation.

Local news media reported PNG Prime Minister James Marape was being kept informed of the developments.

Marape has issued a statement acknowledging the internal tensions within ICAC and reaffirming his government’s commitment to the institution.

Long-standing goal
The establishment of ICAC in Papua New Guinea has been a long-standing national aspiration, dating back to 1984. The enabling legislation for ICAC was passed on 20 November 2020, bringing the body into legal existence.

Marape said it was a proud moment of his leadership having achieved this in just 18 months after he took office in May 2019.

The appointments process for ICAC officials was described as rigorous and internationally supervised, making the current internal disputes disheartening for many.

Marape has reacted strongly to the crisis, expressing disappointment over the allegations and differences between the three ICAC leaders. He affirmed his government’s “unwavering commitment” to ICAC.

These developments have significant implications for Papua New Guinea, particularly concerning its international commitments related to combating financial crime.

PNG has been working to address deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) framework, with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) closely monitoring its progress.

Crucial for fighting corruption
An effective and credible ICAC is crucial for demonstrating the country’s commitment to fighting corruption, a key component of a robust AML/CTF regime.

Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) often includes governance and anti-corruption measures as part of its conditionalities for financial assistance and programme support.

Any perception of instability or compromised integrity within ICAC could hinder Papua New Guinea’s efforts to meet these international requirements, potentially affecting its financial standing and access to crucial development funds.

The current situation lays bare the urgent need for swift and decisive action to restore confidence in ICAC and ensure it can effectively fulfill its mandate.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea has five months remaining to fix its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) systems or face the severe repercussions of being placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list”.

The FATF has imposed an October 2025 deadline, and the government is scrambling to prove its commitment to global partners.

Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister James Marape said Treasury Minister, Ian Ling-Stuckey had been given the responsibility to lead a taskforce to fix PNG’s issues associated with money laundering and terrorist financing.

“I summoned all agency heads to a critical meeting last week giving them clear direction, in no uncertain terms, that they work day and night to avert the possibility of us getting grey listed,” Marape said.

“This review comes around every five years.

“We have only three or four areas that are outstanding that we must dispatch forthwith.”

PNG is no stranger to the FATF grey list, having been placed under increased monitoring in 2014 before successfully being removed in 2016.

Deficiencies highlighted
However, a recent assessment by the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) highlighted ongoing deficiencies, particularly in the effectiveness of PNG’s AML/CTF regime.

While the country has made strides in establishing the necessary laws and regulations (technical compliance), the real challenge lies in PNG’s implementation and enforcement.

The core of the problem, according to analysts, is a lack of effective prosecution and punishment for money laundering and terrorism financing.

High-risk sectors such as corruption, fraud against government programmes, illegal logging, illicit fishing, and tax evasion, remain largely unchecked by successful legal actions.

Capacity gaps within key agencies like the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary and the Office of the Public Prosecutor have been cited as significant hurdles.

Recent drug hauls have also highlighted existing flaws in detection in the country’s financial systems.

The implications of greylisting are far-reaching and potentially devastating for a developing nation like PNG, which is heavily reliant on foreign investment and international financial flows.

Impact on economy
Deputy Opposition leader James Nomane warned in Parliament that greylisting “will severely affect the economy, investor confidence, and make things worse for Papua New Guinea with respect to inflationary pressures, the cost of imports, and a whole host of issues”.

If PNG is greylisted, the immediate economic fallout could be substantial. It would signal to global financial institutions that PNG carries a heightened risk for financial crimes, potentially leading to a sharp decline in foreign direct investment.

Critical resource projects, including Papua LNG, P’nyang LNG, Wafi-Golpu, and Frieda River Mines, could face delays or even be halted as investors become wary of the increased financial and reputational risks.

Beyond investment, the cost of doing business in PNG could also rise. International correspondent banks, vital conduits for cross-border transactions, may de-risk by cutting ties or scaling back operations with PNG financial institutions.

This “de-risking” could make it more expensive and complex for businesses and individuals alike to conduct international transactions, leading to higher fees and increased scrutiny.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A United Nations committee is being urged to act over human rights violations committed by illegal loggers in Papua New Guinea.

Watchdog groups Act Now! and Jubilee Australia have filed a formal request to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider action at its next meeting in August.

“We have stressed with the UN that there is pervasive, ongoing and irreparable harm to customary resource owners whose forests are being stolen by logging companies,” Act Now! campaign manager Eddie Tanago said.

He said these abuses were systematic, institutionalised, and sanctioned by the PNG government through two specific tools: Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs) and Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs) — a type of logging licence.

“For over a decade since the Commission of Inquiry into SABLs, successive PNG governments have rubber stamped the large-scale theft of customary resource owners’ forests by upholding the morally bankrupt SABL scheme and expanding the use of FCAs,” Tanago said.

He said the government had failed to revoke SABLs that were acquired fraudulently, with disregard to the law or without landowner consent.

“Meanwhile, logging companies have made hundreds of millions, if not billions, in ill-gotten gains by effectively stealing forests from customary resource owners using FCAs.”

Abuses hard to challenge
The complaint also highlights that the abuses are hard to challenge because PNG lacks even a basic registry of SABLs or FCAs, and customary resource owners are denied access to information to the information they need, such as:

• The existence of an SABL or FCA over their forest;
• A map of the boundaries of any lease or logging licence;
• Information about proposed agricultural projects used to justify the SABL or FCA;
• The monetary value of logs taken from forests; and
• The beneficial ownership of logging companies — to identify who ultimately profits from illegal logging.

“The only reason why foreign companies engage in illegal logging in PNG is to make money,” he said, adding that “it’s profitable because importing companies and countries are willing to accept illegally logged timber into their markets and supply chains.”

“If they refused to take any more timber from SABL and FCA areas and demanded a public audit of the logging permits — the money would dry up.”

Act Now! and Jubilee Australia are hoping that this UN attention will urge the international community to see this is not an issue of “less-than-perfect forest law enforcement”.

“This is a system, honed over decades, that is perpetrating irreparable harm on indigenous peoples across PNG through the wholesale violation of their rights and destroying their forests.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The deposed Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, says Speight’s motive had less to do with indigenous rights and a lot more to do with power, greed, and access to the millions likely to accrue from Fiji’s mahogany plantation.

On this day 25 years ago, the elected government was held hostage at the barrel of the gun, the Parliament complex started filling up with rebels supporting the takeover, Suva City and other areas in Fiji were looted and burnt, and innocent people were attacked just because of their race.

Chaudhry said indigenous emotions were “deliberately ignited to beat up support for the treasonous actions of the terrorists”.

He said the coup threw the nation into chaos from which it had not fully recovered even to this day.

Chaudhry said using George Speight as a frontman, the “real perpetrators” of the coup, assisted by a group of armed rebels from the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), held Chaudhry and members of his government hostage for 56 days as they plundered, looted and terrorised the Indo-Fijian community in various parts of the country.

The Fiji Labour Party leader said that, as with current Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the first two coups in 1987, so with Speight in May 2000, that the given reason for the treason and the mayhem that followed was to “protect the rights and interests of the indigenous community”.

Chaudhry said today that it was widely acknowledged that the rights of the indigenous community was not endangered either in 1987 or in 2000.

He added that they were simply used to pursue personal and political agendas.

The FLP leader said those who benefitted were the elite in Fijian society, not ordinary people.

Chaudhry said this was obvious from current statistics which showed that currently the iTaukei surveyed made up 75 percent of those living in poverty.

He said poverty reports in the early 1990s showed practically a balance in the number of Fijians and Indo-Fijians living in poverty.

The former prime minister says it was obvious that the coups had done nothing to improve the quality of life of the ordinary indigenous iTaukei.

Instead, he said the coups had had a devastating impact on the entire socio-economic fabric of Fiji’s society, putting the nation decades behind in terms of development.

Chaudhry said the sorry state of Fiji today — “the suffering of our people and continued high rate of poverty, deteriorating health and education services, the failing infrastructure and weakened state of our economy” — were all indicators of how post-coup governments had failed to deliver on the expectations of the people.

He said: “It is time for us to rise above discredited notions of racism and fundamentalism and embrace progressive, liberal thinking.”

Chaudhry added that leaders needed to be judged on their vision and performance and not on their colour and creed.

Republished with permission from FijiVillage News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

US President Donald Trump and his team is pursuing a white man’s racist agenda that is corrupt at its core. Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who often seems to be the actual president, is handing his companies multiple contracts as his team takes over or takes down multiple government departments and agencies.

Trump wants to be the “king” of America and is already floating the idea of a third term, an action that would be an obvious violation of the US Constitution he swore to uphold but is doing his best to violate and destroy.

Every time we hear the Trump team spouting a “return to America’s golden age,” they are talking about 60-80 years ago, when white people ruled and schools, hospitals, restrooms and entire neighborhoods were segregated and African Americans and other minority groups had little opportunity.

Every photo of leaders from that time features large numbers of white American men. Trump’s cabinet, in contrast to recent cabinets of Democratic presidents, is mainly white and male.

This is where the US going. And lest any white women feel they are included in the Trump train, think again. Anything to do with women’s empowerment — including whites — is being scrubbed off the agenda by Trump minions in multiple government departments and agencies.

“Women” along with things like “climate change,” “diversity,” “equality,” “gender equity,” “justice,” etc are being removed from US government websites, policies and grant funding.

The white racist campaign against people of colour has seen iconic Americans removed from government websites. For example, a photo and story about Jackie Robinson, a military veteran, was recently removed from the Defense Department website as part of the Trump team’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Broke whites-only colour barrier
Robinson was not only a military veteran, he was the first African American to break the whites-only colour barrier in Major League Baseball and went on to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his stellar performance with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

How about the removal of reference to the Army’s 442nd infantry regiment from World War II that is the most decorated unit in US military history? The 442nd was a fighting unit comprised of nearly all second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who more than proved their courage and loyalty to the United States during World War II.

The Defense Department removing references to these iconic Americans is an outrage. But showing the moronic level of the Trump team, they also deleted a photo of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II because the pilot named it after his mother, “Enola Gay.”

Despite the significance of the Enola Gay airplane in American military history, that latter word couldn’t get past the Pentagon’s scrubbing team, who were determined to wash away anything that hinted at, well, anything other than white, heterosexual male. And there is plenty more that was wiped off the history record of the Defense Department.

Meanwhile, Trump, his team and the Republican Party in general while claiming to be focused on eliminating corruption is authorising it on a grand scale.

Elon Musk’s redirection of contracts to Starlink, SpaceX and other companies he owns is one example among many. What is happening in the American government today is like a bank robbery in broad daylight.

The Trump team fired a score of inspectors general — the very officials who actively work to prevent fraud and theft in the US government. They are eliminating or effectively neutering every enforcement agency, from EPA (which ensures clean air and other anti-pollution programmes) and consumer protection to the National Labor Relations Board, where the mega companies like Musk’s, Facebook, Google and others have pending complaints from employees seeking a fair review of their work issues.

Huge cuts to social security
Trump with the aid of the Republican-controlled Congress is going to make huge cuts to Medicaid and Social Security — which will affect Marshallese living in America as much as Americans — all in order to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans and big corporations.

Then there is Trump’s targeting of judges who rule against his illegal and unconstitutional initiatives — Trump criticism that is parroted by Fox News and other Trump minions, and is leading to things like efforts in the Congress to possibly impeach judges or restrict their legal jurisdiction.

These are all anti-democracy, anti-US constitution actions that are already undermining the rule of law in the US. And we haven’t yet mentioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its sweeping deportations without due process that is having calamitous collateral damage for people swept up in these deportation raids.

ICE is deporting people legally in the US studying at US universities for writing articles or speaking about justice for Palestinians. Whether we like what the writer or speaker says, a fundamental principle of democracy in the US is that freedom of expression is protected by the US constitution under the First Amendment.

That is no longer the case for Trump and his Republican team, which is happily abandoning the rule of law, due process and everything else that makes America what it is.

The irony is that multiple countries, normally American allies, have in recent weeks issued travel advisories to their citizens about traveling to the United States in the present environment where anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t fit into a male or female designation is subject to potential detention and deportation.

The immigration chill from the US will no doubt reduce visitor flow resulting in big losses in revenue, possibly in the billions of dollars, for tourism-related businesses.

Marshallese must pay attention
Marshallese need to pay attention to what’s happening and have valid passports at the ready. Sadly, if Marshallese have any sort of conviction no matter how ancient or minor it is likely they will be targets for deportation.

Further, even the visa-free access privilege for Marshallese and other Micronesians is apparently now under scrutiny by US authorities based on a statement by US Ambassador Laura Stone published recently by the Journal

It is a difficult time being one of the closest allies of the US because the RMI must engage at many levels with a US government that is presently in turmoil.

Giff Johnson is the editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and one of the Pacific’s leading journalists and authors. He is the author of several books, including Don’t Ever Whisper, Idyllic No More, and Nuclear Past, Unclear Future. This editorial was first published on 11 April 2025 and is reprinted with permission of the Marshall Islands Journal. marshallislandsjournal.com

Freedom of speech at the Marshall Islands High School

The above is one section of the outer wall at Marshall Islands High School. Surely, if this was a public school in America today, these messages would already have been whitewashed away by the Trump team censors who don’t like any reference to “inclusiveness,” “women,” and especially “gender equality.”

However, these messages painted by MIHS students are very much in keeping with Marshallese society and customary practices of welcoming visitors, inclusiveness and good treatment of women in this matriarchal society.

But don’t let President Trump know Marshallese think like this. — Giff Johnson

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders.

According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were working on stories linked to the environment.

Twenty four were murdered in Latin America and Asia — including the Pacific, which makes these two regions the most dangerous ones for environmental reporters.

From restrictions on access to information and gag suits to physical attacks, the work of environmental journalists and their safety are increasingly threatened.

RSF has denounced the obstacles to the right to information about ecological and climate issues and calls on all countries to recognise the vital nature of the work of environmental journalists, and to guarantee their safety.

Nearly half of the journalists killed in India in the past 10 years — 13 of 28 — were working on environmental stories that often also involved corruption and organised crime, especially the so-called “sand mafia,” which illegally excavates millions of tons of this precious resource for the construction industry.

Amazon deforestation
Journalists covering the challenges of deforestation in the Amazon are also constantly subjected to threats and harassment that prevent them from working freely.

The scale of the problem was highlighted in 2022 by the murder of Dom Phillips, a British reporter specialised in environmental issues.

“Regarding the environmental and climate challenges we face, the freedom to cover these issues is essential,” said RSF’s editorial director Anne Bocandé.

“RSF’s staff battles tirelessly to prevent economic and political interests from obstructing the right to information. Your generosity makes this fight possible.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case.

Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with a fine of FJ$1500 ($NZ$1110) for abuse of office by the Suva Magistrates Court earlier today.

Magistrate Seini Puamau announced that both their convictions would not be registered.

“The sentence delivered by Magistrate Puamau is unsatisfactory, is wrong both in fact and in law and does not reflect the considerations and tariff of cases or matters of similar nature,” Acting Director of Public Prosecution John Rabuku said in a statement following the sentencing.

The notice of appeal against the sentence was filed in the High Court this afternoon.

The state has filed four grounds of appeal:

• a. That the sentence imposed by the learned Magistrate against both the Respondents are manifestly lenient and in breach of sentencing principles, case laws and the tariff set in other similar matters and offences.
• b. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact when she made a finding that there were no aggravating factors against the Respondents.
• c. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact in considering irrelevant factors in sentencing the Respondents; and
• d. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact when she made a finding that there was no victim and that the offending was a technical breach by both Respondents.

Lowest-level sentence
An absolute discharge is the lowest-level sentence that an offender can get. It means no conviction was registered against Bainimarama.

State broadcaster FBC News reports that Magistrate Puamau considered Bainimarama’s health.

The 69-year-old was sentenced alongside Qiliho, who was given a FJ$1500 fine without conviction as well.

The absolute discharge and a fine without conviction was given despite the prosecutors last week urging Magistrate Puamau to order immediate custodial sentences towards the high end of the tariff for both men — which would be no less than five years in jail for Bainimarama and 10 years for Qiliho.

RNZ Pacific reported earlier today that a Fiji governance professor, Dr Vijay Naidu, said the magistrate had been sypathetic to both men.

“It is surprising in that the sentencing is like the minimalist kind of approach,” he said.

“I didn’t expect the magistrate to sentence them for the maximum of you know 10 . . . and five years, but the sentence now is quite farcical because these persons are found guilty and they are given sentences that, to say the least, is quite ludicrous.”

He said Bainimarama was “not out of the woods yet” because there was a string of other charges that he would face in the coming months.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the letter, the social justice advocates said fraudulent practices happened in the 2024 elections last month.

“In our monitoring, the alleged election fraud that has been questioned by the public occurred not only on voting day, February 14, 2024, but also from the beginning of the election process until after the vote count carried out by the General Elections Commission (KPU) and other officials in power,” read the letter.

They said that this fraud not only hurt the ordinary people’s conscience but also gave rise to unrest.

This could be seen from discussion among the public and on social media as well as widespread statements by professors and university lecturers.

If fraud was allowed, the letter continued, then law enforcement would be derided and democracy would collapse.

‘Acting arbitrarily, ruthlessly’
“Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the election fraud continue to act arbitrarily and become increasingly ruthless, no longer just reviving rotten and depraved precedents in the election process,” the letter read.

As a consequence, the public would not obey the leadership in power and the state policies it produced. It was hoped that the political parties would mobilise House of Representatives (DPR) faction members to propose and launch a right of inquiry.

“We are very confident and have very high hopes, that the political parties will save this nation so that they are intentionally involved in intensively maintaining the law, law enforcement and democracy and democratisation in Indonesia by saving the 2024 elections,” the letter read.

The social justice advocates themselves consist of a number of activists, academics, and former KPK employees, such as Novel Baswedan, Bivitri Susanti, Usman Hamid, Faisal Basri, Fatia Maulidiyanti, Saut Situmorang, Agus Sunaryanto and Haris Azhar.

Several political parties have already responded to the proposal for a right of inquiry in Parliament. The NasDem Party said it was ready to support the proposal and was preparing the needed requirements.

“Currently the faction leadership is preparing the materials needed as a condition for submitting a right of inquiry, including collecting signatures from faction members”, said NasDem Party central leadership board chairperson Taufik Basari.

Measured steps
Basari said that they could not propose a right of inquiry by themselves, because it must involve at least two political party factions in the House. He said each political step taken needed to be measured.

Support has also been expressed by a DPR member from the PKB faction, Luluk Nur Hamidah. He believes that the 2024 elections were the “most brutal” he has ever taken part in since reformasi — referring to the political reform process that began in 1998.

“In all the elections I have participated in since the 1999 elections I have never seen an election process that was as brutal and painful as this, where political ethics and morals were at a minus point, if it cannot be said to be at zero”, said Hamidah when making an interruption at a DPR plenary meeting at the parliamentary complex in Senayan, Jakarta, on Tuesday, March 5.

Meanwhile PDI-P Secretary General Hasto Kristiyanto claimed that internally the PDI-P was not divided on the plan to initiate a right of inquiry into fraud in the 2024 elections.

“There’s no [split]. Because we often talk about it as an important political process in the DPR”, he said at the University of Indonesia (UI) Social and Political Science Faculty in Depok, West Java, on Thursday March 7.

Kristiyanto revealed that the plan for a right of inquiry has already entered the stage of forming a special team. This team, he continued, had already issued recommendations and academic studies related to the right of inquiry plan.

He said that later the academic study would be complemented with findings in the field on alleged election fraud.

“Because the dimensions are very wide. Because of the dimension of the misuse of power and misuse of the APBN [state budget], the intimidation and various upstream and downstream aspects,” he said.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “50 Tokoh Antikorupsi Surati Partai-partai Desak Hak Angket Pemilu”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

With Indonesia preparing for elections next week, Human Rights Watch has sought answers from the three groups vying for the presidency on how they would resolve human rights violations.

Two of the three Indonesian presidential and vice-presidential candidates responded to a questionnaire on key human rights issues.

The presidential candidates Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo submitted responses on their policy before the February 14 vote, but Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo, did not.

In response to the question: “What is your policy on government restrictions on access to West Papua by foreign journalists and international human rights monitors?”

Baswedan’s stance is that the issue of justice is at the heart of the security problems in Papua.

According to his response, there are three problems to deal with the situation.

“Resolving all human rights violations in Papua by strengthening national human rights institutions to investigate and resolve human rights violations in Papua, as well as encouraging socio-economic recovery for victims of human rights violations in Papua.

“Preventing the recurrence of violence by ensuring justice through; 1) sustainable infrastructure development by respecting special autonomy and customary rights of indigenous communities, 2) realising food security through local food production with indigenous communities as the main actors, 3) reducing logistics costs, 4) the presence of community health centers and schools throughout the Papua region, and 5) empowering talents from Papua to be actively involved in Indonesia’s development in various sectors and institutions.

“Carrying out dialogue with all comprehensively in ways that mutually respect and appreciate all parties, especially Indigenous Papuans.”

For Pranowo, he said he would “focus on the issue of fiscal policy and asymmetric development for Papua’.

This would be done through “Reducing socio-economic disparities due to internal differences growth, development, and access to resources between regions through resource redistribution, infrastructure investment, tax incentives, or special financial support for Papua in order to achieve more equitable economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve the standard of living of citizens to those who need it most.

“We also committed a special approach to preventing corruption and degradation of natural resources in Papua, especially in newly expanded provinces,” he said.

A service for Indonesians
Human Rights Watch’s Elaine Pearson says the two teams that responded had done Indonesian voters a service by sharing their views on the critically important human rights issues affecting the country.

She said voters should be able to go beyond the rhetoric to compare actual positions, and hold the candidates to their word if they are elected.

The questionnaire contained 16 questions focused on women’s rights, children’s rights to education, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, labour rights, media freedom, and freedom of expression.

Other questions included policies on disability rights, protection of Indonesian migrant workers, and Indonesia’s foreign policy in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

There were also questions on policies that would address accountability for past violations including the mass killings in 1965, atrocities against ethnic Madurese on Kalimantan Island, sectarian violence in the Malukus Islands, the conflict in Aceh, the Lake Poso violence, the crackdown against student activists in 1998, and killings in East Timor.

All three teams have submitted their vision and mission statements ahead of the election, which are available with the General Election Commission.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Here is a Human Rights Watch summary of the responses received to the questionnaire. The full answers from the campaigns of two of the three presidential and vice presidential candidates can be accessed online at:
•  Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD here
• Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar here

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Cook islands Deputy Prime Minister Robert Tapaitau, former National Environment Service (NES) director Nga Puna, and his wife and former Secretary of Infrastructure Cook Islands (ICI), Diane Charlie-Puna, have been found guilty of “all or most offences” following a judgment given by Chief Justice Patrick Keane.

In his ruling Chief Justice Keane said: “In my decision, issued [Wednesday, Cook Islands time], which this minute accompanies, I have found each defendant guilty of all or most of the offences with which they are charged, and have convicted them of those offences.”

The trio were accused of taking public funds amounting to CI$70,000 between April 2019 and March 2021.

Prime Minister Mark Brown’s office confirmed he had been briefed on the matter [on Wednesday] afternoon, shortly before the 100-page judgment was obtained by Cook Islands News.

In a written statement, Brown’s office said the Prime Minister had been briefed “a short time ago” by the Solicitor-General on the decision released by Chief Justice Keane on Wednesday, relating to the trio.

“The government acknowledges the court’s decision and will take time to study the 100-page plus document, before commenting further.”

Tapaitau faced three charges of using a document to obtain pecuniary advantage and one charge of conspiracy to defraud.

‘Guilty of all offences’
Chief Justice Keane ruled: “Mr Tapaitau is guilty of all offences with which he is charged; and I convict him accordingly.”

Charlie-Puna faced seven charges of using a document to obtain pecuniary advantage and a charge of conspiracy to defraud to which she entered a guilty plea on 1 June 2023.

In his ruling, Chief Justice Keane said: “Mrs Puna is guilty of all offences with which she is charged, including those to which she has pleaded guilty, except those on which she has been discharged and charges 5,13; and I convict her accordingly.”

Charlie-Puna entered guilty pleas to conspiracy and theft charges in June 2023.

Nga Puna faced 22 charges of using a document to obtain pecuniary advantage, one of conspiracy to defraud, one of uttering a forged document and five charges of forgery.

Chief Justice Keane ruled: “Mr Puna is guilty of all offences with which he is charged, except charges 14, 25; and I convict him accordingly.”

They are due to be sentenced in March.

Pre-sentence report
“Each defendant is now to be sentenced on the basis of a pre-sentence report; and I direct accordingly. I should appreciate those reports being given high priority,” CJ Keane said.

“To ensure, if feasible, that sentences are imposed within the March session, which I will be conducting, on 21 March perhaps, I direct primary submissions be filed and served without reference to the pre-sentence reports.”

The Crown was given until February 21 to file and serve submissions while the defence had until seven days before the sentence date allocated.

In his judgement statement, Chief Justice Keane said that in the Cook Islands, government departments, and state agencies, entrusted with public money, money appropriated by Parliament and project aid money, were subject to clear statutory principles, standards and controls.

“Public money is the property of the Crown; and heads of government departments, and state agencies, are charged by statute with ensuring that those public entities have sound financial management systems and internal controls.”

The Public Expenditure Review Committee and the Audit Office were charged by statute with safeguarding public money, and the integrity of all public accounts, including those of government departments and state agencies.

“Within each government department, and state agency, accounts and records must be faithfully and properly kept, revenue must be properly assessed and collected, expenditure must be valid and correctly authorised, revenue, expenses, assets and liabilities must be properly recorded and accounted for, and financial and operating information must be reliable.”

Gave evidence, denial
All three defendants elected to give evidence and denied any offence.

Each said, with one exception, that any benefit they received in the ways charged lay within their entitlement; or that, if it did not, they had acted honestly in that belief and without any intent to defraud.

The primary issue on each of the charges, therefore, was not principally the documentary context, which was largely uncontested, Chief Justice Keane said in his judgement.

“The issue is whether the Crown, on the evidence called, is able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants did act dishonestly and with intent to defraud.”

In discharging charges five and 13 against Diane Puna, charge five alleged she fraudulently used, or procured the use of, an Infrastructure Cook Islands cheque to pay for a week’s Auckland accommodation for her family and herself, during her father’s funeral.

“There is, and can be, no issue that this ICI cheque was capable of, and did, confer on Mrs Puna a pecuniary advantage. It met the cost of her first seven days accommodation in Auckland, independently of her father’s house, while she was attending his funeral.”

Charge 13 alleged that fraudulently using, or procuring the use of, a cheque on 7 April 2020, $400 cash, to pay for a lunch for workers at her Rarotonga home address.

In the case against Nga Puna, he was not convicted on charges 14 and 25.

Two NES cheques
Charge 14 alleged Puna fraudulently used, or procured the use of, two NES cheques to benefit himself, together with a related deposit to his account on 29 August 2019.

There was a lack of evidence underpinning the inference that Puna did fraudulently misuse for his own benefit the cash proceeds of the two NES cheques, issued for a retreat, and thus the cheques themselves.

On charge 25, the Punas were jointly charged with fraudulently using, or procuring the use of, a cheque on 7 April 2020, $400 cash, to pay for a lunch for workers at their Rarotonga home address.

“This payment by cheque may well, I accept, have been a misuse of public money. But the house belonged to the government, and the work needed to be done. The payment was a gesture, after the event, to NES and ICI staff during the lockdown,” CJ Keane said.

The final submissions were heard in the high-profile corruption case late last year with CJ Keane indicating at the time that he would make a decision in the new year.

The guilty verdicts come more than two years after the trio were charged with various dishonesty offences.

In November 2023, CJ Keane released a ruling through the High Court of the Cook Islands, making an order that all theft charges be substituted with fraudulent document dealing charges.

Pleas remained the same
While the original charges were vacated, the pleas from the three defendants remained the same to the new charges.

Tapaitau was reinstated as Deputy Prime Minister for the second time early in November 2023 month after suspension amid the charges.

Tapaitau was the minister responsible for Infrastructure Cook Islands and National Environment Service when the offences took place. He was not responsible for those two ministries due to conflicts with the pending court decisions. The Penrhyn MP resumed his duties as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister responsible for Transport, Marine Resources, Energy and Outer Island Projects.

The trio faced a four-week Judge alone trial in July before it was confirmed final submissions in the trial had been pushed back, after CJ Keane sought clarification on legal issues, specifically whether the offending the Crown alleged, ought to be charged as theft, or as fraudulent use of a document.

This report was first published by Cook Islands News and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz