RICHARD PREBBLE: When Everything Is Called Corruption, Democracy Suffers

I admire Dr Bryce Edwards. Our universities like to proclaim themselves the “critic and conscience of society” while remaining silent on almost everything. In contrast, Dr Edwards is industrious. His daily email round-up of commentary often alerts me to articles I would otherwise have missed. For that, I am grateful.

His larger venture — the so-called Democracy Project and the accompanying “Integrity Institute” — is less admirable. Both portray themselves as experiments in democratic renewal. In reality, they are sustained polemics premised on a single idea:

that politics, business, and the interaction between them in New Zealand are fundamentally corrupt.

Dr Edwards insists international surveys ranking us among the least corrupt countries are naïve. He argues that business has disproportionate influence, that donations lack transparency, and that appointed “independent experts” should override ministers. His message, repeated endlessly, is that democratic decision-making is tainted.

There is a grain of truth. Donation laws can be clearer, lobbying rules are light, and conflict-of-interest standards can be improved. But none of this justifies the sweeping claim that New Zealand politics is corrupt, or that ordinary democratic engagement is suspect.

Here is the point Dr Edwards does not grasp — and it is the heart of the matter:

When you label normal democratic behaviour as “corrupt”, you corrode the very democracy you claim to defend.

A minister listening to constituents who need a footbridge is not corrupt.

A council asking for help with a road is not corrupt.

A business explaining that a regulation will accidentally bankrupt them is not corrupt.

A union lobbying for labour protections is not corrupt.

These are the normal channels of democratic representation. They are how a representative democracy works. To declare them inherently suspect is to tell voters their elected representatives cannot legitimately help them. It delegitimises the basic relationship between the public and their government.

Dr Edwards’ suspicion falls almost entirely on business. Curiously, he never objects to lobbying by unions, environmental groups, churches, Māori entities, or advocacy campaigns. Their lobbying is virtuous; only business lobbying is morally compromised. That distinction is ideological, not analytical.

His discomfort with political donations is equally misplaced. Elections are expensive.

The ability to raise funds is part of the democratic process. If a party cannot persuade a single citizen to voluntarily part with a dollar, why should the taxpayer be forced to?

In my experience, it is not the donors — who usually ask for nothing — who create difficulty. It is the party members who demand influence.

A real Democracy Project would encourage citizens to participate by supporting financially the party that represents their values.

Does Dr Edwards understand business? Many academics do not. As an MP, I realised most of my colleagues had never worked in business and spoke as though commerce were a barely legal mafia.

For much of my career I was the only MP who was a director of a publicly listed company. I heard more serious ethical debate around the board table than I ever heard in a caucus room.

Businesspeople, in turn, often misunderstand politics. The gulf is wide. That is why lobbying exists — to bring real-world consequences into rooms where they are not otherwise understood.

Across my 30 years in Parliament, no one ever tried to bribe me. Some desperate immigration cases put dollar notes inside their passports — too pathetic to call a bribe.

I would advise them politely it was not necessary and if they did it again I would not represent them.

The danger was never from people wanting to speak with me.

The real danger was when officials tried to stop people from speaking to me.

The current Police Minister recently discovered that officials blocked him from seeing emails. That should alarm every democrat.

I experienced something similar. In the Koru Lounge, a man approached me about a transport matter. I said, “Ring my office and make an appointment.” “I have,” he replied. “They refused. I have been in the lounge for four days hoping to catch you.” I gave him my card. “I will see you on Monday.”

He had been outrageously treated by the department. The bureaucracy had instructed my private secretary not to give him an appointment.

This is the truth Dr Edwards ignores: the civil service is not a secular priesthood. Public servants can be territorial, defensive, and self-protective. The difference is that ministers are elected and accountable. Officials are not.

Yet Dr Edwards wants fewer decisions made by elected representatives and more by “independent authorities.” These bodies are often political appointments. Unlike ministers, they never face Question Time, public scrutiny, or an electorate. They wield power without responsibility — the very arrangement Walter Bagehot warned against.

The Democracy Project is deeply distrustful of democracy itself. It treats elected ministers as inherently suspect, officials as inherently virtuous, and advocacy in a business suit as corrupt.

New Zealand is not perfect. No democracy is. Transparency is essential — the Official Information Act is one of the great reforms of my time. But calling ordinary political participation “corrupt” is not a path to integrity.

It is a path to cynicism, disillusionment, and disengagement.

Dr Edwards’ project does not strengthen democracy.

It undermines faith in the very thing it claims to uphold.

The Honourable Richard Prebble CBE is a former member of the New Zealand Parliament. Initially a member of the Labour Party, he joined the newly formed ACT New Zealand party under Roger Douglas in 1996, becoming its leader from 1996 to 2004.