{"id":43537,"date":"2022-04-14T11:56:39","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T02:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2022\/apr\/14\/when-it-comes-to-international-financial-new-zealand-is-far-from-squeaky-clean"},"modified":"2022-04-14T11:56:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T02:56:39","slug":"when-it-comes-to-international-financial-fraud-new-zealand-is-far-from-squeaky-clean-max-rashbrooke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=43537","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to international financial fraud, New Zealand is far from squeaky clean | Max Rashbrooke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Weak regulations mean authorities have no idea how much money is channelled through the country by global fraudsters<\/p>\n<p>Alongside endangered birds, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/asia-pacific\/3665735.stm\">abnormally large sheep<\/a> and \u2013 in the popular imagination \u2013 hairy-toed hobbits, New Zealand is a haven for another curious specimen: the illicit flow of offshore finance. The world\u2019s fraudsters and tax dodgers channel funds through the Pacific island nation at a rate quite at odds with its squeaky-clean, highly ethical global image.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand\u2019s latest attempt to make reality match reputation came late last month, as the commerce minister, David Clark, pledged to introduce a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beehive.govt.nz\/release\/govt-cracks-down-misuse-nz-companies\">publicly accessible register<\/a> that would list the true (\u201cbeneficial\u201d) owners of New Zealand-based companies. Such a move would represent a form of catch-up \u2013 Britain has had one since 2016 \u2013 and has long been urged by global bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).<\/p>\n<p>Max Rashbrooke is a senior associate at New Zealand\u2019s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2022\/apr\/14\/when-it-comes-to-international-financial-new-zealand-is-far-from-squeaky-clean\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weak regulations mean authorities have no idea how much money is channelled through the country by global fraudstersAlongside endangered birds, abnormally large sheep and \u2013 in the popular imagination \u2013 hairy-toed hobbits, New Zealand is a haven for ano&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":705,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,56,765,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-new-zealand","category-tax-havens","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43538,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43537\/revisions\/43538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}