● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference
### nzherald.co.nz 5:30 AM Wednesday Oct 24, 2012
Opinion
We’re relying on money poured through pokies
By Brian Rudman
The latest Pub Charity advertisement, promoting the $20,186,931 distributed to good causes over the past six months, has a certain similarity to the advertising blitzkrieg being conducted by the cigarette industry. Both try to distract us from the distinctly unpleasant underbellies of their respective industries.[…]Pub Charity chief executive Martin Cheer, in last Sunday’s advertisement[…]claimed that “charitable donations” that are “critical for causes from air rescue to opera” will be in jeopardy. He said Auckland Council was about to feed community groups and charitable organisations “a super size pile of bull about the future of charitable gaming machines in their territory” and that staff were using incorrect and misleading statistics to persuade community boards that “gaming machine funding is not that important or effective”. Mr Cheer’s comments are just a rehash of an earlier statement he issued in May, but they did draw my attention once more to where Pub Charities funds come from.
Two years ago, the former chief executive of the Community Gaming Association, Francis Wever, wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs claiming that corrupt behaviour in his own industry was “all-pervasive and pernicious” with “endemic non-compliance”.
This year we read of how the Otago Rugby Union bought three South Auckland pubs then siphoned $5 million in pokie profits out of the areas – mainly Manurewa – to help prop up the failing Dunedin sporting body. What’s protecting the pokie industry from reform is that it props up respectable New Zealand.
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● Brian Rudman is a Herald columnist looking at Auckland and national issues.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
The anchor tenant for the stadium is a “failing Dunedin sporting body”! Not surprising they are looking for ideas on what to do with the stadium. ORFU does not stand to get more people interested in their game. They suck money from the poorest of Auckland communities, suck money from the Dunedin ratepayer and turn round and sue the mayor when they are criticised. Want to be part of that team? “Failing Dunedin sporting body” is just the right turn of phrase.
Isn’t it disgraceful and somewhat insidious that the only ones who don’t want to accept the fact that ORFU had an interest in Jokers is the well resourced, well paid Government Regulator, DIA.
Isn’t it also irregular and concerning that it is DIA that continue to withhold a copy of NZRU’s own audit of ORFU supplied to DIA many months ago. The refusal to release suggests the audit will not only expose ORFU but be further proof of DIA’s whitewash of this matter and their appalling failure to act or investigate what the law clearly states they have a responsibility to do.
Maarten Quivooy claims that providing the audit to the public arena will stop the flow of information in future instances and in doing so, he is preferring to protect ORFU over and above the ratepayers of Dunedin and the South Auckland community groups that were fleeced out of nearly $6m – not to mention public transparency and performance that should be expected from a regulator in the goverment sector. You have to wonder whose interest Mr Quivooy and others serve to protect.
Martin! I fear the local tv channel (owned by Allied Press, none other) is sending up our collective FEARS OF Villainy by ORFU: the ORFU pokie rorts mentioned by national news media such as Sunday Star Times, NZ Herald, Stuff et al – although not Campbell Live at TV3….)
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### ch9.co.nz October 25, 2012 – 5:47pm
Fans gear up for big final
When the Otago Rugby Union was nearly kicked into touch at the start of the year, fans were shocked to learn they may not have a team to support. Thanks to a lot of hard work a bail out plan was negotiated, and now the team are about to play in the championship final. And for those who support the boys, this year has meant even more to them than before.
Video
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“The focus is now back on the game itself, not on off-field stuff.” -Curragh
Note: As change manager, Jeremy Curragh admitted in correspondence that ORFU misappropriated charitable funds it had received. This matter hasn’t been properly dealt to by Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and is the subject of further enquiries. To add to further bleakness pending for ORFU.
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### ODT Online Wed, 24 Oct 2012
Rugby: Otago’s success cheers Curragh
By Steve Hepburn
The man who led the Otago Rugby Football Union away from the brink of liquidation says he gets immense satisfaction out of seeing the Otago side in the ITM Cup championship final. Jeremy Curragh was appointed change manager for the Otago union in late January when the union got into financial strife. He helped steer the union away from a possible liquidation and then managed, along with others, to negotiate a plan with major creditors that kept the union afloat. He admitted that, at times, the future looked bleak for the union.
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Following on from Martin Legge’s comment above.
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Interesting.
6.11.12 http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/pike-river-2010/120133/pike-health-and-safety-staff-under-scrutiny
[Excerpts] The commission blamed a culture of production before safety at the mine for causing the men’s deaths and found that urgent legislative, structural and attitude changes are needed to avoid a repeat of the disaster.
[Department of Labour, now Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment] Chief executive David Smol says he is taking responsibility on behalf of the ministry for the fact that the regulatory system was not effective and has apologised to the families of the victims. Mr Smol says it is not a simple matter to say that one person should be held to account for the failure of the system, but the role staff played will be investigated and action could be taken. “If there is a need to take further steps in relation to any staff members, then that will be an employment matter which we will work through.”
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Martin Quivooy, is currently General Manager Regulatory and Compliance Operations at the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).
Received by What if? today:
Quivooy was “Workplace Safety Manager at the Department of Labour at time of the Pike River disaster for which National MP Wilkinson has just resigned[…]The disaster occurred in late 2010 and Quivooy jumped to DIA in mid 2011.”
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Correction
Further to the RNZ link above, ODT ran a story yesterday ‘Ministry staff may face action’ (page 3). The following is as amended in the newspaper today (8.11.12):
“Staff at the then Department of Labour – directly accountable for health and safety in the mining industry leading up to, and around the time of, the Pike River explosions are no longer with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. They were not stood down at the time the ministry was formed, as APNZ reported yesterday.”
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http://www.mbie.govt.nz/about-us
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was formed on 1 July 2012, bringing together four separate government agencies into one ministry.
MBIE integrates the functions of four former agencies – the Department of Building and Housing, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Department of Labour and the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Yes, the second division final. That’s worthy of all the expense.
I wonder if Martin Quivooy still lists his involvement with the Department of Labour in his online biography or has he done what Pike River Coal’s former directors are doing now?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pike-river-mine-disaster/7933606/Former-Pike-River-directors-omit-miner-detail
Isn’t it shocking the amount of information that can be readily accessed through social media, though? I mean, back in the good old days a person could massage their cv and there was no readily searchable source of further and better particulars.
Some of the people in high positions are embarrassingly out of date about today’s media esp the democratisation of information.