From entrepreneur, to advocate, to government adviser for victims

Saturday, 15 February 2025

It is day two on the job for Ruth Money and she is sitting outside in the beaming Auckland sun, taking a phone call from The Post. “I never get to do this,” she laughs.

In fact, Money rarely gets time to do anything for herself. She works 60 to 80-hour weeks, devoted to helping the victims of serious crimes navigate the justice system.

Once a marketing guru, Money is now most recognisable as a tireless crusader for justice, whose work remains marked by a distinct humanity. This week, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced her appointment as New Zealand’s Chief Victims Adviser.

While some might think this is an odd move for Money, who has spent the last 13 years holding a magnifying glass to government policies, she says it was time to take on systematic, high-level change.

“There’s a lot at stake with me deciding to jump into the circle, but at the end of the day, I needed to try. I could only help so many people, but now I’ve got the chance to change the system so that it changes the experience for all.”

It’s already been a busy week for Money, who has sandwiched our chat in between meetings, but, as always, she gives the appearance (at least) of having all the time in the world for questions. So, who is Money and how did she get here?

‘I don’t like things that are unjust’

Money grew up in Tai Tapu, a small rural community in Canterbury's Port Hills, in a household where justice was a core value.

With a court reporter as a father, Money spent her childhood running through the halls of the Christchurch District Court. Her mother, who recently retired, was a teacher who believed in the importance of shaping the future.

“I couldn’t have been luckier with my parents. They were supportive, intelligent and respectful people.”

Through her father’s work, the Money whānau were also “very news cognisant”.

“I was very aware of current affairs, and at that time it seemed to me that the people who were causing the harm had a much wider share of the media with stories about their background and their circumstances.

“I was always more interested in the underdog ‒ the victim, the survivor ‒ and their circumstances, terror and trauma. I’d always been taught that the justice system was that set of scales, always supposed to be balanced, but it wasn’t.”

One case in particular has stuck in Money’s mind ‒ the death of 6-year-old Christchurch schoolgirl Louisa Damodran, who was abducted and murdered by recidivist criminal Peter Holdem in 1987.

At the time of the murder, Holdem was on parole after serving time for the attempted rape of a 10-year-old in a Christchurch park just five years earlier.

From a young age, Money also had a habit of inserting herself into situations she didn’t think were right.

“I’d always try to navigate situations calmly or speak for the person who couldn’t speak for themselves. I was probably told to butt out more than once, and I still am, but if someone needs help, humanity calls for us to help each other.

“I guess I didn’t ‒ and don’t ‒ like things that are unjust.” With a life that’s been dedicated to campaigning for justice, this could very well be the understatement of the century.

A move to ‘the big smoke’

A marketer by trade, Money completed a bachelor of communications, followed by a master’s in marketing, from the University of Canterbury, where she wrote her thesis on “why we buy” and the psychology of shopping.

She then took on a role as a sales rep for Coca-Cola, secretly hoping she’d make the marketing team. She loved her time there, eventually scoring that promotion and a job in Auckland.

“I took the jump and moved to the big smoke,” she laughs. She hasn’t left since.

Eventually she was approached by agency Apollo Marketing to be an account director. Then a male-dominated marketing world, Money worked on Ponsonby's Brown St, and its sister offices in the likes of Sydney and Melbourne.

Bit by bit she started to buy into the business, but in 2012 she and her business partner sold the agency. The money has allowed her to do what she does, working upwards of 60 hours a week helping victims and their families.

“Initially, I thought I was going to just take a year off. I’d been working 20-hour days and that was starting to become very taxing. I wanted to take the year off, and just give back, perhaps volunteering with animals.”

What followed, of course, was not just a year off, but rather the beginning of years of hard work that earned Money the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019, for services to victim advocacy.

‘A fair and just system that puts victims at the centre’

For the past 13 years, Money has been everywhere. She’s routinely in Wellington making sure victims’ lived experiences are considered in new legislation; at other times she’s on current affairs shows, in murder trials or inquests.

She also regularly helps survivors of crime navigate the brutal court system, showing them how to apply for things, or sitting in court with them for days, sometimes weeks.

“I do genuinely remember every case. As much as some of my work has been very public, a lot of it is done completely under the radar, with no-one other than those directly involved knowing I helped.

“That’s what I thought the role would be in the beginning. I had no idea I’d become a person that people recognise, which is still weird and uncomfortable to me.”

After she sold the marketing agency, Money wrote to the SPCA and the Sensible Sentencing Trust, offering her services on a voluntary basis to fill her “gap year”. While the SPCA never responded, the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s founder, Garth McVicar, did.

That was in February 2012 and teenager Christie Marceau had died the previous November. For Money, Marceau’s brutal murder was a watershed moment in realising that she wanted ‒ and needed ‒ to do so much more.

Marceau had been stabbed to death by an acquaintance, Akshay Chand, who was on bail for a previous attack against her. The decision to bail Chand a close distance from Marceau, despite her pleas for her safety, became the subject of heavy scrutiny in the months following the violent attack.

In Money’s eyes, it was clear the justice system had a long way to go to protect victims.

Money left the trust after McVicar made a run for the Conservative Party in 2014, but by then she was the group’s most recognisable volunteer.

She later supported the Gotingco family in its quest for answers and accountability from the Department of Corrections, after monitored offender Tony Robertson abducted, raped and killed Auckland mother Blessie Gotingco.

Money went on to co-manage training services for teachers, parents and other sector staff about child sex offenders.

In 2018, she then became a member of Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora, the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group ‒ a government-appointed group working to improve the criminal justice system.

She has since been at the forefront of campaigns to ban the “rough sex” defence to murder in New Zealand in light of the murder of British backpacker Grace Millane, and has spearheaded calls for stalking to become its own offence in Aotearoa for the first time.

In the time Money has worked in the advocacy sphere, things have changed ‒ albeit slowly ‒ but she remains steadfast in her determination to shine light on family and sexual violence.

“The system has definitely matured and advanced, especially in terms of acknowledging these kinds of violence, but what hasn’t changed is how we help these people from the frontline.”

Money hopes eventually it will be more victim-focused and the court process less alienating and inefficient. The change may be slow, perhaps invisible, but she’s hopeful it will improve for future generations.

“I go 1000 miles an hour, and I know it. My end in sight is a fair and just system that puts victims at the centre of it. Until we’ve reached that point, I’m not done.”

Off to a bang

When announcing Money’s appointment, Goldsmith struck the nail on the head when he described her as “an outspoken and energetic victims advocate with a proven track record of driving change”.

Certainly, Money is off to a bang in her new role, already making headlines after she took a public swipe at ACT leader David Seymour over his handling of two criminal cases, in an interview with RNZ.

Earlier this week it was revealed Seymour had penned a letter to the police expressing his concern authorities had gone “beyond” their brief in investigating Philip Polkinghorne as a person of interest in his wife's death.

Just seven months later, Seymour advised a sexual abuse survivor who approached the party about then-president Tim Jago to speak to an employment lawyer, not the police.

While the ACT leader says he stands by his comments in both instances, less than 24 hours into her new role, Money dubbed his actions a “mistake”.

While Money joked to The Post that she was half-expecting a phone call telling her off for comments, this incident speaks to something particularly special about the new Chief Victims Adviser.

Just as Goldsmith said, she is outspoken and unapologetically determined to represent the interests of a victim always and at any cost.

“When I agreed to take on this role, I promised myself that I would always be brave. It would be easy to be too scared to speak up now, but I genuinely don’t think I’d be doing the role of victims in New Zealand any justice if I didn’t speak out.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I wasn’t authentically me and respecting victims truthfully. You get what’s on the can with me. I call a spade a spade, and our victims and survivors deserve nothing less.”

Without a doubt, Money is already putting her own stamp on the role, with her predecessor Dr Kim McGregor rarely publicly weighing in on current affairs.

While Money doesn’t quite know what her new day-to-day will look like, she has taken on the role under a two-year contract.

“I need to take a look under the bonnet first, to see where I can help. I need to know what’s planned and what’s already been mapped out so that I can see where we can enhance the experience of victims going through the justice system.”

Also on the to-do list are looking at delays in the justice system and how to increase communication with victims so that they know and understand the process. She wants to address the silos that exist within the justice system.

“Humans don’t exist in silos, so we need to look at the overlap of the Ministry of Justice, Oranga Tamariki, New Zealand Police and Corrections. It’s through treating people as fitting into one box that things fall through the cracks.”

Money is “anxiously excited” for the new role, which she hopes will mean she can now help more people than she could alone.

“I was an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff for people, but now I can stand at the top of the cliff and make sure people don’t reach that crisis point.”