Senior govt manager stood down after physical contact, conflict concerns
Friday, 7 March 2025
A senior manager on secondment from ACC to Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora has been stood down and ACC is investigating after a series of stories raising concerns about his conduct.
On Friday afternoon ACC confirmed John Bennett is “not currently working”, hours after Stuff sent questions about comments Bennett made to the news organisation regarding the “physical contact with co-workers” reported by Stuff last month.
On Thursday Stuff reported concerns about ACC and Health NZ contracting work to UK-based MBI Health, co-founded by Bennett in 2012.
A senior ACC manager seconded to Health NZ has been stood down and ACC is “investigating the issues raised” after a series of stories identifying concerns about his conduct.
Last month Stuff reported Bennett was at the centre of a complaint about “physical contact with co-workers”.
On Thursday Stuff reported Bennett was the subject of conflict of interest concerns, over government contracts awarded to MBI Health, a UK-based company he co-founded in 2012.
While Bennett was no longer a director, he was still involved in two other businesses with MBI Health co-founder Barry Mulholland.
On Friday morning, Stuff asked ACC a further series of questions about comments Bennett made to the news organisation about the “physical contact” incident.
On Friday afternoon, ACC Chief Executive Megan Main responded with a statement saying: “We are investigating the issues raised, and the employee concerned is not currently working.”
Asked for clarification on what that meant, Main said, “John will not be working for ACC or Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora while this investigation is underway.”
John Bennett was appointed to ACC last year as Deputy Chief Executive System Commissioning and Performance, taking up the role in September.
Less than six months later, in February, he was pulled across to plug gaps in senior roles at Health NZ, in a secondment scheduled to last until June this year.
In response to questions from Stuff last month, Main confirmed the department had received “written communication raising concerns about Mr Bennett’s physical contact with co-workers”.
Stuff understands the concerns were raised in December.
“Action was immediately taken in response to the concern and no further concerns have been formally raised.”
She confirmed the matter was not disclosed to Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora when Bennett was released to take up the role.
“As the matter had been addressed, it was not raised with Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora.”
The first Health NZ knew about the issue was upon receiving questions from Stuff.
ACC also confirmed Bennett had appeared shirtless in a work video call in January, but said he had been “unaware” his laptop camera was on.
“At the beginning of a video call in January, Mr Bennett was not wearing a shirt. Mr Bennett stated he was unaware that the laptop’s video camera was on and immediately rectified the situation.”
On Monday, Stuff put a series of questions to both ACC and Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora about what contract or contracts had been awarded to MBI Health, whether they were aware of Bennett’s historic connection with the company and ongoing connection with Mulholland, and whether that was a potential conflict of interest.
Main said ACC had “clear processes in place for how it manages potential and perceived conflicts of interest involving our people”.
“We are confident these processes have been followed.”
Te Whatu Ora said in a statement, “John Bennett has advised us that he has no conflicts of interest in relation to his secondment to Health NZ.
“He is not involved in any Health NZ commercial bids or procurement and does not hold any financial or decision-making delegation in the role he has been seconded to.”
Neither agency provided answers about the specifics of any contracts awarded to Mulholland or MBI Health.
However, recently Mulholland hinted at the nature of some of the work, posting a photo of New Zealand’s Parliament Buildings on his LinkedIn page along with the comment: “Lots to do to fix waiting lists here but MBI Health are onto it!”