Stuff corrects story on Public Trust welfare case

Friday, 15 May 2026

EDITOR’S NOTE: On April 27, Stuff published a story about a vulnerable woman, her welfare guardian and the Public Trust.

(“Welfare guardian” is a legal status bestowed on a third party if someone needs help making decisions about their personal care and welfare. Public Trust is a Crown-owned but autonomous organisation and New Zealand’s largest provider of wills and estate administration services.)

The story centred on complaints from the welfare guardian that, for almost a year, almost the whole of the vulnerable woman’s pension ($25,691) was diverted to Public Trust to pay its fees for managing her property affairs. Stuff is not naming the woman for legal reasons.

As originally published, the story was headlined “Elderly couple struggled, ‘ate canned fish’ while pension controlled by Public Trust”.

The welfare guardian said he and the woman suffered hardship during the period Public Trust was managing her property affairs, having to eat “disgusting” food such as canned fish and pasta in tomato sauce.

On the morning of publication, Stuff received a formal complaint from the Public Trust. The complaint said the story omitted a “significant” piece of information provided in a response to Stuff questions and the omission gave “ a misleading and inaccurate impression of the work Public Trust did in this case”.

The missing sentence reads: “ Public Trust also identified significant sums were paid to others from joint funds, which raised further questions about whether our client understood and agreed to those transactions.” Public Trust also provided additional detail about those transactions.

Stuff acknowledged the omission promptly, added a correction to the story and updated the headline and standfirst. Stuff has now taken further steps to gather and clarify additional relevant information about the story and we have decided to retract the story as it does not meet our editorial standards.

Public Trust was appointed to oversee a vulnerable woman's finances and uncovered several financial discrepancies. They included money being transferred to a relative of the woman. Stuff’s reporting failed to adequately scrutinise these issues.