The academic ruffling feathers in the political lobbying world

Friday, 13 June 2025

An academic unused to treading the halls of power is in charge of a so-called Integrity Institute, backed by a wealthy couple. Their mission? To reform the perceived dark art of lobbying and spotlight the cosy relationships that exist in Wellington. Kelly Dennett reports.

In the days after the Government released its so-called Growth Budget, Bryce Edwards, the politics academic-turned director of The Integrity Institute, wrote about the coalition’s cornerstone policy targeted at businesses, “Investment Boost”, in his “Integrity Briefing” newsletter.

“Investment Boost may indeed boost investment, but at what cost to fairness and integrity? The Government has chosen to prioritise wealth over work, capital over labour, donors and lobbyists over citizens.”

The missive wasn’t surprising to anyone who followed Edwards’ work. He’d previously written long pieces on kleptocracy, Erica Stanford’s email and the dark arts of lobbying related to topics as broad as retirement villages to banking.

More recently, this week Edwards lamented the release of the annual NBR Rich List, “Like a glossy brochure for extreme wealth concentration.”

“While the NBR frames its yearly celebration of the ultra-wealthy as recognising ‘wealth creators’ who generate jobs and economic activity, a closer reading reveals something far more troubling,” he wrote, “a roadmap of oligarchic power in New Zealand, complete with policy wishlists, political connections, and breathtaking displays of luxury that would make a Gilded Age robber baron blush.”

There’s a common theme in Edwards’ writings: A select few in NZ, usually businesses, hold outsized political sway. By default, politicians hold no or little belief or agency themselves, but are run by big money lobbyists.

The Institute, in its weekly briefings to thousands of subscribers including paid ones, is positioned as the arbiter of that slipperiest of political traits: integrity.

Edwards and the Institute - currently consisting of a few contracted researchers, some former journalists, and expected to scale up - have hit a nerve. Sort of.

While lobbyists The Post spoke to largely laughed down the Institute’s mission, dismissing it as fundamentally mis-characterising what lobbyists actually do, others cry hypocrisy, claiming credibility problems with its own research and writings.

Edwards says he’s received two legal threats.

The Nelsons

The irony of the Institute, pointed out to The Post, is that it’s bankrolled by a couple made wealthy in business to, essentially, lobby for change.

Marilyn and Grant Nelson tried to get the Institute off the ground with Victoria University of Wellington in 2012, but the relationship soured, which has been well reported. Eventually, knowing Edwards through his writings on transparency and integrity issues, the Nelsons asked him to try and turn it “into a sort of bona fide research and advocacy organisation”, he says.

Edwards, once of the Otago University politics department, became a research fellow at Victoria University and politics commentator. He once headed Transparency International NZ and has a PhD from the University of Canterbury.

The Nelsons’ riches were earned through selling their building supplies company in the 90s. The proceeds established the Gama Foundation. Edwards describes the couple as having “a very strong social orientation” and Grant Nelson has previously said they’d donated $50m of their wealth to various causes, including conservation, research and education.

Edwards characterises them as unique millionaires.

“Their Christchurch house is probably worth less than the average price of a house in Christchurch,” he says. “They drive an old Toyota Corolla. As far as I’m aware they’ve never been overseas. I go there in winter and they’ve got a two bar heater going in their lounge.

“They’re very humble people, but they have very strong ideas about the way that the world isn’t working right … they have witnessed a lot of the business world that they think is untoward. And so this is their way of, trying to have a corrective to that.”

Enter, Integrity

The Institute’s core mission, says Edwards, is to scrutinise and challenge vested interests in the political process, driven by a belief that political inequality and NZ’s political process is “somewhat dysfunctional or somewhat in deficit” because of the influence of, in particular, business and wealthy individuals.

As well as intending to spotlight donations, conflicts of interests, political appointments, among other things, the Institute has created an informal register of NZ lobbyists, deploying prominent constitutional expert Graeme Edgeler to draft law that could potentially become a member’s bill.

Lobbying, including corporate lobbying, is in the Institute’s sights, which Edwards says has “a particularly pernicious role in the political system here, and [isn’t] properly scrutinised or regulated”.

While Australia has a lobbying code of conduct and register - there, it’s illegal for government to engage with a lobbyist unless they are on the register - NZ has no rules.

While there has been recent scrutiny of lobbyists’ work here, and their access to Parliament, appetite for change has waxed and waned.

What is a lobbyist then? And what’s the difference between a polished professional eloquently advocating for business interests to, say, a trade union boss hitting up a workplace relations minister or a bearded Greenpeace-er holding the ear of a Climate Change Minister or a Green Party co-leader?

“It’s very hard to define what lobbying is, and we don’t spend a lot of time working out the definitions,” says Edwards, adding that it would be going down a rabbit hole to differentiate the “good” lobbyists from the “bad”.

But he agrees there are varying kinds, the “classic corporate lobbyist firms” such as Capital Government Relations, who “might not even call themselves lobbyists, they might call themselves government relations specialists” as well as Fonterra, which he says has inhouse specialists who “whether they call themselves lobbyists or not, also have a big impact on the regulatory process”.

The Institute’s register also deep dives into the Taxpayers’ Union and the New Zealand Initiative, not your classic lobbying firms, however, “they do have an influence on the political process, and they do have business backers, and they do have an agenda.”

“That’s not to say anything intrinsically is bad about what they do, but our goal is to uncover anything that we think is pernicious, is negative for the political process of society.

“Our view is, it needs more scrutiny. More transparency. More rules. But we’re not there to stop lobbying.”

‘It seems to be very binary’

Jordan Williams, the outspoken executive director of the aforementioned Taxpayers’ Union, wheezes over the phone as he jokingly compares the work of the Institute to a South Park episode. He confirms he is one of the people who sent the Institute a legal letter.

He doesn’t want to repeat what the Institute published about the Union, suffice to say it was removed (Edwards says within minutes). Williams says he actually agrees with many of Edwards’ points generally on transparency, “but I think that this more recent work, it does seem a bit more fringe”.

“He can be a little bit conspiratorial at times,” says Williams. “He always [used to] lay out facts and let readers judge for themselves and now he’s very moralistic. I’ve wondered if there is some ghost writing going on, because … some of the writing doesn’t seem like Bryce.”

(Edwards disputes this and calls the claim “malicious”, but also says the conclusion is understandable because the tone of his writing has changed now he’s doing advocacy.)

While Williams thought the Nelsons’ campaign to have businesses repay overpayments of the Wage Subsidy during the pandemic was “god’s work” he says they lack self awareness “that they are no different to any of our donors. They all want to improve New Zealand, they just take slightly different approaches.

“It seems to be very binary, good versus evil … Basically, left wing causes aren’t really lobbying, that’s just virtue. If you’re on the right side that’s nefarious.

“What [the Institute] seems to do is confuse sort of back-door, behind-the-scenes secretive lobbying with public advertising campaigns to make the public aware of issues. The [Institute] seems to think they are both mischiefs.”

Adds Williams, politicians aren’t stupid - they know when they’re being lobbied.

He takes particular issue with information about the Union and its staff, published on the Institute’s register, which he says was “full of errors”. Williams complains that some, non public-facing employees who don’t necessarily share Williams’ politics were identified. “I think that’s quite unfair.”

Holly Bennett, the founder of government relations firm Awhi, has also publicly taken the Institute to task over errors she says she found about her firm on the Institute’s register.

In a lengthy LinkedIn post she wrote, “accuracy goes hand in hand with integrity” and said she hadn’t heard back from Edwards after contacting him about the errors. Edwards responded to the LinkedIn post, but Bennett told The Post she wasn’t sure if the errors were ever fixed. Edwards disputes he had been contacted privately by Bennett.

Asked if she fundamentally had any issues with the Institute’s work, beyond the register, Bennett replied, “As I have said publicly … opinions are not facts.”

Edwards acknowledges the register is a “work in progress” and says he welcomes corrections, but adds that the “crowdsourcing” of information has been “working”.

“Almost all these corrections have been quite minor details. Generally, people connected to these entities have been confirming that we’ve got our information right.

“I don’t begrudge anyone, especially Holly and Jordan, complaining of errors in the register,” he later emailed The Post after an interview.

“But we are upfront about the register being a work in progress that we are adjusting as we get further information to verify or correct anything… It’s intrinsic to the whole issue that we are trying to shine light on what a lot of influential groups and entities aren’t open about – so we are researching areas where the details are very hard to get hold of. Lobbying firms are deliberately opaque. And that’s the point of establishing a lobbying register.”

Lobbyists complaining about lobbyists

Mark Unsworth calls himself New Zealand’s most experienced lobbyist. He set up his firm in 1994 and the Institute’s dossier on his company is extensive. Like Williams, Unsworth also describes a previously collegial relationship with Edwards and finds the Institute a head scratcher.

“He never reached out and said, ‘hey Mark, we’re worried about lobbying, what do you think?’ I always find it funny when lobbyists complain about lobbyists,” Unsworth laughs, highlighting the work on the left, the likes of environmental or cycling groups, that could be called lobbying.

“They have an amazing amount of power, but it’s easy to pick at Big Tobacco.

“If you’re a kindergarten or an environment group or a trade union, or a religion, or an industry association, or a think tank. It’s all different ways of doing it. But you’re still lobbying. And that’s the way it should be. It’s democratic.”

Unsworth says previous lobbying reform work met its end when it became difficult to narrowly define which sort of lobbying should be targeted - or put another way, when it became apparent that any kind of holding the ear of the powerful, as Unsworth has described, could be called lobbying. And he says the push has often come from academics. “There’s no drive in the street.”

“If I was describing my job, of 35 plus years, it’s: helping out people who want to understand the political system, with the power to promote or stop policies that they want pushed forward or not pushed forward.

“One of my great beliefs in life is the old adage, politics is the art of the possible. If you work on that basis, which I do, you can’t put up something which is stupid or silly or illegal or dumb … When you put proposals up they have to be common sense and acceptable to a reasonable number of people. If you’re a lobbyist and tell lies you won’t last long in the business.”

Unsworth thinks some of the points the Institute makes about lobbying have merit - for example, a stand-down period between leaving Government and consulting or lobbying for business. (Former Labour Minister Kris Faafoi raised eyebrows when he left Parliament and four months later joined a lobbying firm, in 2022.) But he says because of New Zealand’s small population and lack of US-style politics of influence, access to politicians here need not be tinkered with.

“Just because other countries have [rules] doesn’t mean NZ needs to have them.”

‘Those with money can buy access’

Bryce Edwards describes the Nelsons as taking a hands-off approach to the Institute and said they were generally media shy.

Grant Nelson agreed to answer some of The Post’s questions in writing although he declined to answer one of them - how much the couple had spent so far on the Institute and what its future commitments were. He said the intention was for the Institute to exist in perpetuity.

“At present New Zealand has poor regulations on political party donations and no regulations to control lobbying and the other means by which those with money get the decisions they want at the expense of everyone else. We want New Zealand to have the same or better regulations to those used in other similar countries,” he wrote.

“Our main concern … is that those with money can buy access to ministers and officials to get what they want. Charities do not know this is happening behind closed doors and even if they did, they would not have the money and resources to represent the interests of the average person, the community or future generations.”

Asked if the Institute’s work could count as lobbying, Nelson said the Institute “will not be paying to get access to ministers and officials and will not donate to or assist political parties … it is acting in the public interest and is not trying to advance private interests.”

Presumably Nelson is referring to political donations businesses, individuals or other organisations are free to make to political parties, as lobbyists will say they rely on good relationships and contacts to get them an audience with a minister.

Advocacy, not just research

Edwards appreciates the irony that he is now meeting and lobbying with MPs themselves, advocating for change. As an academic who would write commentary, Edwards said he took a “purist” approach in his writing by trying to “stay above the fray”.

But while the organisation is still very much in the getting off the ground phase, Edwards is focussed on trying to get MPs to take on a private members bill, making them an advocacy organisation, not just a research organisation.

Labour’s justice spokesperson Duncan Webb had met with Edwards, a Labour spokesperson confirmed, adding that “Labour has previously looked at ways to increase transparency around lobbying and access to Ministers and MPs at Parliament. Labour doesn’t currently have a Members Bill in the ballot on this issue but is open to hearing a range of views and ideas on the topic.”

And the Green Party’s democracy and electoral reform spokesperson Celia Wade-Brown had also met Edwards. The party’s policy had long been for regulations around lobbying, she said, “New Zealanders are right to be concerned about the influence of corporate lobbyists in our political system. Aotearoa has some of the least transparent lobbying regulation in the OECD.”

One of the first orders of business for the Institute is to build up a large defamation fund, Edwards says.

Edwards is not worried about criticism of the Institute - he believes strongly in its work. But being the face of it is something he’s not used to.

“I’m going to have to grow a thick skin.”