Immigrants' attitudes to corruption worries SFO

Wednesday 17th February 2016 3 Comments

New Zealand's record inbound migration has undermined the country's squeaky-clean reputation because of an inflow of people from countries where corrupt practices are the norm, according to the Serious Fraud Office.

Director Julie Read told Parliament's law and order committee that immigration to New Zealand "has bought other cultures which take a completely different view in relation to conduct we consider to be corrupt, and which has not historically been considered corrupt elsewhere."

Read was responding to questions from MPs about New Zealand's worsening position in international anti-corruption rankings, three weeks after Transparency International's annual corruption perceptions index showed New Zealand falling to fourth in global rankings, having previously ranked as least corrupt for seven years running.

"It's bringing in an element we need to be aware of and we need to work within those areas of our society to make sure that doesn't take root here," she said.

Net migration to New Zealand has increased, with a record net gain of migrants in 2015 as fewer Kiwis leave and increased rates of inbound migration. That's been led by countries where bribery to speed up government services is often seen as the norm.

Read told BusinessDesk that immigrants from India and China, which ranked 76th and 83rd respectively on international corruption rankings in 2015, had different cultural attitudes towards corruption.

"In places like India and China, a long time ago public servants weren't paid for their work by the government," Read said. "They received the payment for the licence they gave and that was where they were intended to get their income from, so you can see how those cultural backgrounds can, in the long term, play into different attitudes."

Indian migrants arriving permanently or for a long-term stay rose to 14,490 in 2015, or 11.9 percent of all long-term migrants that year, from 7,509 in 2010, which was 9.1 percent. Migrants from China rose to 11,036 in 2015, up from 6,177 in 2010, and increased on a proportional basis from 7.5 percent to 9.1 percent in that time.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

On 18 February 2016 at 8:40 am john said:

Such corruption is rife in tertiary institutes, including universities. Many of the staff are recruited from overseas and even some of the non-third world staff inflate their own students' grades, so they (students) can get scholarships (and consequently the staff are rated higher). The PTEs are a joke, They are basically immigration scams.

On 18 February 2016 at 10:14 am Be_in_NZ said:

This is too simplistic argument with no study apparently conducted and I think it is not fair to immigrants, in general, who work incredibly hard to settle down in NZ often facing difficult environment. You don't seem to see clearly that they have been victims of corruption (forced corruption). Such a broad-brush seems harsh. NZ public service is generally efficient and from my experience I can say that immigrants value that. IRD is a good example of that, powered by technology and simple processes. Migrants try to make their lives better and don't want such practices to be seen in NZ.

On 23 February 2016 at 3:18 pm Al said:

Or maybe Transparency International is just catching on to "compensation".