Follow the Money Drei

The New Zealand Institute has launched it's new website which can be found here. It says:

the New Zealand Initiative, an independent public policy think tank supported by chief executives of major New Zealand businesses.

We will see how independent it really is.

Hi, My name is ***** and I am doing some research into New Zealand think tanks and transparency. I was wondering if you could provide a list of your members/donors/funders and the amounts they have contributed. Any help you can give would be appreciated. Thanks, *****

I await their reply with interest.

Follow the Money Zwei

In the course of today I have come across this opinion piece on stuff.co.nz by Patrick Smellie.

It looks at the rationalisation of Finance Industry Lobby Groups and includes some interesting points, including:

The Roundtable struggles not to get noticed, and suffers from its every utterance being automatically pigeon-holed as a daft fancy of the extreme right. Shaking off that image would make the Roundtable a more powerfully influential body, but reputations die hard.

Which suggests that the New Zealand Initiative may be as I feared a lobby group to advocate for the needs of corporations over people.