“The analogy that I’ve been using is it is almost like we are starting from scratch.” -Kinley
There will be no starting from scratch until ORFU and related entities are fully investigated by forensic audit.
ORFU is currently implicated in a Department of Internal Affairs investigation for pokie fraud, tied to The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd and The Trusts Charitable Foundation (Inc).
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### ODT Online Fri, 13 Jul 2012
Rugby: ORFU head ‘starting from scratch’
By Adrian Seconi
New Otago Rugby Football Union general manager Richard Kinley has a clear idea where he wants to lead the organisation. The ORFU board yesterday announced the 45-year-old would fill the role left vacant by Richard Reid. Officially, Kinley assumes the role on August 13 but he has already had his feet under the table for the past six weeks.
“We can’t forget about the history and we can learn from the past, but it is about moving forward.” -Kinley
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Heads being scratched by all concerned
ORFU can’t undo its recent past – despite best efforts charade.
Certain facts don’t escape.
### ODT Online Sat, 14 Jul 2012
$425,000 fee not recovered
By Hamish McNeilly
The Department of Internal Affairs was “unable” to recover more than $400,000 paid to a Queenstown-based pokies’ trustee. In his role as “executive trustee with special responsibilities” Murray Acklin was paid $425,254 by The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF), between April 2006 and March 2009. He later resigned from the position, on the advice of the department, but remains a trustee. Following an investigation the department suspended the trust’s licence for two days as its expenditure, including that paid to Mr Acklin, was “considered to be excessive and not reasonable or necessary to the gambling operation”. That suspension was increased to five days after the trust took an appeal to the Gambling Commission.
Read more
Interesting to note that in this morning’s Oddity on the Court News page that the DIA couldn’t recover the over $400k paid to Murray Acklin by TTCF. Acklin is a trustee of TTCF and was paid this amount by TTCF. Despite a finding and appeal against TTCF, the DIA were somehow incapable of getting back this close to half million from Murray Acklin. I think it is interesting to note some comments I found on this site about the whole Acklin/DIA/Pony Club affair. This site and thread also contains a statement from Acklin and a bio which is interesting in itself
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?16545-Statement-from-Mr-Murray-Acklin-in-response-to-recent-report
DIA press releases related to gambling compliance
http://www.dia.govt.nz/Services-Casino-and-Non-Casino-Gaming-News-Press-Releases-%26-Consultation
Again, it all smacks of cover ups from on high. No-one will ever be allowed near the truth, least of all our ‘mug’ the city council. Suck it up folks, as they say; “the definition of a racket, is something that you are not in.”
Calvin, cohorts attempting to bring public exposure to white-collar crime emanating from Otago with national and political links can’t hope for the same kind of justice that sees ‘gangs’ regularly in and out of prison, with assets seized. However, exposure of the public figures involved (naming), exposure of the systems they’re operating to defraud the public of millions of dollars of charitable funds, and so on, including suspensions of licences, remain meritorious objectives.
The ‘industry’ of organised crime – carried out by local and national (cough) leaders of society – benefitting professional sport is so widespread in this country it will take concerted collective efforts, on many levels, to clean it up. Worth doing – don’t expect a 100% hit rate (unthinkable! impossible!), but chasing some locals down for their nefarious activities in itself has a satisfaction level that’s unlike joining scouts, or reading the local daily newspaper at breakfast.
Mr Acklin (TTCF) hasn’t been asked to vacate his personal real estate in order to return monies… And, he’s still a trustee. Some blither about the money he has brought into the community against the $425,000 not recovered – yeah right, that’s what organised crime does. Maybe the degree of his participation in the pokie rorts (plural) has yet to be fully determined as people are made to squeak. Nothing would surprise me. The Gambling Act is only one way to raise hair on heads, wait for the rest. We know the crown and government departments are always likely to take cases that set legal precedents, in large part due to limited fighting funds – DIA has to work more efficiently under current (flawed) legislation. That said, DIA’s Mr Quivooy has people watching everything he does (from all sides) – he better not stray from the straight and narrow, or be unduly susceptible to political interference from above, like his predecessors (see inexplicable closing of files). Time will tell. His department has a culture of startling non performance, can he crack it. Does he want to. He seems to operate in a grey area, as yet UN-convincing.
Nothing will be solved for endemic crime of this magnitude in a short timeframe.
(if ever….)
Re Murray Acklin’s pay – and it’s the kind of crap I’ve seen before as excuses for ludicrous amounts paid to Old Boys – the $ amount of pokie money disbursed has s.f.a. to do with the difficulty of the job. Compare with managing a mini-loan organisation that lends to poor people enough money to buy a couple of goats, or a basic sewing machine, so they can start their own business. Could be thousands of individual recipients for only $100,000 – thousands of decisions each of immense importance to a person, family, their community if the seamstress grows the business to employ others, invest in another sewing machine, employ another…..
So the person who administers that is “worth” how much compared with someone in Murray Acklin’s situation, huh?
“Sport Otago opposes gaming bill” I wonder why? This week’s Star 12/07/2012. Page 9.
Maarten Quivooy says DIA don’t have the capacity to regulate the gaming industry and blames it on the legislation. How can he blame the legislation when his department rarely tests it? How does he have the gall to say that they can’t do anything because the statute of limitations prevents action – when it is DIA’s own inaction that allows these crooked trusts to get off because DIA do absolutely nothing within the 2-year prosecutorial limit but not only that, they continue to relicence them year in, year out. From my evidence from the last 5 years at least, the DIA senior management and past and present Internal Affairs Ministers have not only turned a blind eye to offences, but have interfered on behalf of pokie trusts who have lobbied them. Coal face inspectors (the ones who don’t kow-tow to their bosses) leave the DIA in frustration after doing thorough and enforceable investigations that get quashed. The silence of politicians other than the Greens and Flavell over the appalling state of the gaming sector is deafening. What Quivooy told Russell Garbutt is at odds with my own response from Quivooy that stated DIA “had conducted a robust and thorough enquiry” into my numerous complaints, many of which they now state publicly that they are “continuing to investigate, re-investigate, audit, re-audit” and I still haven’t been contacted! Thank goodness for the media. If Quivooy was a senior Police Officer and made that kind of admission to a member of the public or in the media, a national enquiry would be called for and the Police Complaints Authority would be all over him.
Gambling it is said is the birthright of organised crime. I do not think that any reformed system would contain this situation – Indeed involving other agencies would simply spread the contagion around them – The only solution is to kill the untagged money. If Pokies are entertainment – then they do not need to return any less than 100c on the dollar.
A cure would be great, but containment is critical – This situation is going to get a lot worse quite quickly if nothing is done at the highest level – People are going to start getting killed for asking awkward questions in this area if this pattern of development is not checked. We don’t have a local ‘Lucky’ Luciano yet (I think/hope), but a billion of untagged cash and everybody who should be supervising the situation digging their fingers in or looking the other way will soon produce one.
Will such a lead come from the top in time? Well, given Jonky’s current pattern of behaviour with regard to gambling interests, I am not hopeful.
Editorial at the Dominion (13 June 2012)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/7090591/Editorial-Pokie-rorts-must-be-stopped
[Excerpt]
According to a report prepared last year by the former chief executive of the Charity Gaming Association, Francis Wevers, more than half of the country’s gaming machine operators have been sanctioned by the Internal Affairs Department for breaching their legal and operating obligations. For five years Mr Wevers served as the industry’s mouthpiece, defending it against external criticism while working internally to try to clean up its operations. In his report, prepared for Nathan Guy, a former internal affairs minister, he effectively admits he failed completely.
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Posted earlier:
Released under the Official Information Act
Options for change in the Class 4 Gambling Sector
Report by Francis Weavers (January 2011)
SKMBT_C452 12040316410 (PDF, 557 KB)
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RNZ National – Nine to Noon interview with Francis Wevers
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/department-of-internal-affairs-orfu-centre-for-excellence-in-amateur-sport-and-ttcf/#comment-25266
I’m sorry I know this is not the subject being discussed here currently.
Has any one heard of middle management cuts currently affecting Delta staff here in Dunedin? 14/07/2012
Delta it appears may be cutting some positions in an effort to save funds.
My humble view would see cuts in the stadium councillors who voted for the council’s financial mess in the first place, saving the jobs of people we actually need.
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{Delta has, of course, been used as one of the DCC vehicles to prop up and resource ORFU over many years. Friends of friends. All connected – you’re ‘on topic’. -Eds}
Re ODT article about Murray Acklin reported above re $425k.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Acklin was responsible for raising $6.9 million for the community. Acklin did not raise one cent for the community but simply enticed the transfer of existing pokie bars over to TTCF so he and his fellow trustees could give most of it to racing and ORFU, that is what he was paid for.
Senior DIA Management held a meeting with TTCF Chairman, Malcolm McElrea of Balclutha in late 2009 following the results of a number of serious investigations into TTCF which included the unlawful payment of $1.2 million to a company associated with the Portage and Waitakere Licensing Trusts, the $425k payment to Mr Acklin and the promise of pokie grants and TAB upgrades to secure pubs. At that meeting DIA expressed a strong desire that Acklin resign his position as Trustee.
So here is the question for Mr Quivooy and DIA – . Why, in June 2010, only weeks after the Gambling Commission decision and 8 months after the above meeting and without even attempting to recover any of the $425k or $1.2 million, was DIA able to “sufficiently satisfy” itself (in accordance with its statutory obligations – yes, that is the wording of the legislation – “satisfy”), that they should grant a new gaming operators licence to TTCF Ltd allowing the same trustees (including Mr Acklin) to all become Directors effectively permitting them to continue to grant millions to racing and ORFU???
Martin Legge – I hope you have copied this to your media pals.
(what’s that about repeat yourself 15 times before they take it in)