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Yikun Zhang, Colin Zheng, Jami-Lee Ross, Joe Zheng and three others were on trial at the High Court in Auckland.
Yikun Zhang, Colin Zheng, Jami-Lee Ross, Joe Zheng and three others were on trial at the High Court in Auckland.

PoliticsOctober 5, 2022

Jami-Lee Ross acquitted as three found guilty over National Party donations

Yikun Zhang, Colin Zheng, Jami-Lee Ross, Joe Zheng and three others were on trial at the High Court in Auckland.
Yikun Zhang, Colin Zheng, Jami-Lee Ross, Joe Zheng and three others were on trial at the High Court in Auckland.

The former ‘kamikaze’ MP was cleared of all charges, as were three people linked to a Labour donation.

Three men have been found guilty in relation to donations to the National Party, though former MP Jami-Lee Ross is not among them, with the former MP, who embarked on a “kamikaze” mission against his then leader, judged not guilty on all charges. Not guilty verdicts were returned for all charges relating to a donation to the Labour Party, including three defendants whose names are suppressed. 

In the Auckland High Court businessman Yikun Zhang and twin brothers Colin and Joe Zheng were found guilty of using a fraudulent device, trick or stratagem to deceive in relation to $100,000 donations split into sums under $15,000 to avoid meeting the disclosure threshold. Zhang was found guilty for his role in the 2018 donation but not guilty over a 2017 donation, as was Joe Zheng. His twin brother, Colin, was found guilty in relation to both donations. Joe was also found guilty of providing false or misleading information in an interview with the SFO.

Justice Ian Gault delivered the verdicts in person, with his written judgment and reasoning for the decision to follow in written form. All those convicted were granted bail ahead of sentencing on November 30.

Ross embraced his lawyer Hannah Stuart in the courtroom, while the other acquitted defendants shook hands. Yikun Zhang, his translator alongside him, was motionless.

The verdicts come 10 days before the fourth anniversary of the jaw-dropping day when Jami-Lee Ross, then a National MP, sought to incriminate his then leader, Simon Bridges, and thereby himself, for breaches of donation rules. His overnight drive down the North Island and press conference on the tiles at parliament, followed him being pinpointed as the source of leaks relating to Bridges’ expenses. During the trial, Ross accepted for the first time that he had been the source of those leaks, via his lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC. 

Ross’s behaviour at the time took the form of a “kamikaze” mission, his lawyer had told the court. His mental state left him indifferent to the truth. “It is unusual for any counsel to stand before the court and describe their client as someone who has lied,” said Mansfield. “But I so do. And that is because it’s readily apparent that Mr Ross lied. The very statements that the SFO rely on against him can be described simply as lies.”

Speaking outside the court this morning, Ross said he was “very relieved” by a verdict which drew a line under “four long years”. He said he was looking forward to reading the judgment but that the court had “come to the right decision about me, that I’m not guilty of any of these crimes”. He thanked his lawyers who “did an amazing job and looked after me for the best part of two and a half years.” Asked whether he might resurrect his political career, Ross said: “I just want to move on now.”

Jami-Lee Ross, accompanied by Hannah Stuart, walks free from the High Court in Auckland. (Photo: Toby Manhire)

Three donations were at the heart of the case. According to prosecutors two $100,000 donations had been split into parts to duck under the threshold for declaration, in 2017 and 2018. The other was a $35,000 donation to Labour in 2017, which the Crown alleged involved the sum being split across five auctioned paintings. Across seven charges, there were five guilty verdicts and 18 not guilty verdicts. None of the guilty verdicts pertained to the Labour part of the trial.

The crown had contended that Yikun Zhang was the true source of all of the donations. Through the use of “sham donors”, he provided the funds to the parties, “no doubt in an effort to obtain influence with them”, while keeping his name from the public gaze, it said. He may have been motivated, prosecutors said, by the potential prize of a royal honour, “without there being any suggestion of influence”. In 2018 Zhang was appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to New Zealand-China relations and the Chinese community, reflecting in part his work as founder and chairman of the Chao Shan General Association, a group representing the region of China where he was born and raised. 

The defendants, claimed prosecution lawyers, had lied. With one exception: “The only one who didn’t lie, or at least, didn’t lie about his involvement, was Mr Ross,” argued the crown in closing. “He told the truth; he knew what was going on, he knew it was wrong, and he did it anyway.” The court appears to have accepted Ross’s version – that he was lying then, rather than now.

In a courtroom crowded with gowned barristers, the defence teams for the various charged individuals put forward a range of arguments, but all – Ross’s counsel notwithstanding – presented the SFO case as a theory in search of substance. No defence witnesses were called, with lawyers cross-examining crown witnesses and contending that it was a case stitched around a paucity of evidence.

Among the arguments put forward by defence lawyers were variously that investigators had relied on questionable translations, failed to grasp cultural differences and omitted to identify a “benefit” sought or gained. In relation to the Labour donations, defence lawyers homed in on the SFO decision not to have the paintings formally valued.

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Representing one of the defendants cleared in relation to the Labour donation, Marc Corlett KC grilled SFO investigators over the basis for the search warrant executed on his client’s family home, which appeared to confuse a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro and leap to puzzling conclusions based on a photograph of a Zoom conference.

Criticisms were levelled in relation to the SFO use of section 9 orders, which provide extraordinary powers of interrogation to the organisation’s investigators, and associated obligations of silence placed on those interviewed and served with S9 notices – of which more than 150 were issued through the investigations. Questions were also raised about the decision to lay the charges under the Crimes Act rather than the Electoral Act. 

Yikun Zhang, pictured in this file photo with former National leader Simon Bridges, has been found guilty in relation to a donation to the National Party.

Sam Lowery, lawyer for another of the men with name suppression, told the court the SFO was right to have conducted a thorough investigation, but there was a danger of the sunk cost fallacy in “barreling ahead with charges”. He said in summing up: “Criminal proceedings aren’t a game. It isn’t Monopoly. It’s the real world … The Crown has levelled very serious allegations against these defendants, life-altering allegations.”

Corlett took issue with the SFO’s modus operandi and motivations, arguing that the charges linked to the Labour donation were so thin that they looked to be prompted by an effort to appear bipartisan. 

In a 2020 letter to public service commissioner, Peter Hughes, Michael Heron KC, then representing the same defendant, formally complained about the “performance and integrity” of the then SFO director, Julie Read. In the letter, presented to the court last month, Heron said his client believed the SFO approach was designed to “project an appearance of political neutrality in the context of this investigation in an apparent attempt to balance the investigations and subsequent prosecutions relating to the National Party and NZ First Party.” 

He called for an independent assessment of whether the investigation had been motivated by a context in which “the future of the Office and its independent status as well as the director’s own personal tenure has been under review for some time”. 

Yikun Zhang with former governor general Dame Patsy Reddy, at his investiture in 2018. Photo: Supplied

In its closing submissions, the crown said there was “no basis” for impugning the SFO’s “processes and motivations” and “this court should flatly reject them”. It further noted that “as this court (and defence counsel) will be aware, after the SFO elects to prosecute, and not guilty pleas are entered, the solicitor-general takes over the prosecution, through panel counsel, and makes its own assessment of the evidence and the charges.”

Across seven weeks, the court heard from witnesses including former National leader Simon Bridges, former Labour leader Andrew Little, cabinet minister Michael Wood and several officials from both parties. 

In a separate case brought by the SFO in July, the High Court in Auckland acquitted two people, whose names have been permanently suppressed, on charges of obtaining by deception in relation to donations to the New Zealand First Foundation, with Justice Pheroze Jagose finding that the contributions did not constitute party donations under the law. The decision, which the SFO is appealing, prompted the government to make changes to the  Electoral Amendment Bill to extend and clarify the definition of “political donation”.

Tension built this morning as the judge’s preamble was interrupted by a technical failure that meant one of the defendants’ lawyers was unable to view the denouement via video link from abroad, prompting a 20 minute adjournment.

The trial faced a number of interruptions, including other online link hiccups, one of the defendants testing positive for Covid, an SFO witness whose evidence was delayed owing to illness and an adjournment brought on by a power cut, but nevertheless came in well within the 10 weeks for which it had been put down. 

Keep going!
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.

Local Elections 2022October 5, 2022

Race Briefing: The Battle of the Bay (of Plenty Regional Council)

With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.

With Tauranga City Council replaced by a commission, local politicos are turning their attention to the regional council this election. Who’s running to take charge of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and how do they plan to tackle the big problems facing the region?

Why is the Bay of Plenty the best place in the world?

It’s all in the name – this really is the Bay of Plenty. With long stretches of white sand and breathtaking lakes, the region is one of the warmest, driest and fastest growing in the country. More and more Aucklanders are making the short trip down permanently – but what do they find local government-wise when they make it there? 

What is the contest?

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council spans an area from Tauranga and Rotorua in the west, to Ōpōtiki to the southeast, with Kawerau and Whakatāne in between. Along the way it shares responsibilities with a range of city and district councils – including the beleaguered Tauranga City Council, which was replaced with a commission after a 2019 review found the entire affair dysfunctional.

With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council. Last election, the Tauranga constituency went uncontested – but this year, that race is the region’s most competitive, with 17 candidates running for five spots (healthy!). 

The other races are less competitive affairs, with the Kohi Māori seat remaining uncontested and the other races falling somewhere in between. In total across the region, 37 contenders are vying for 14 spots across three Māori and four general constituencies. 

Who is in the race?

The local elections this year are a veritable who’s who of the Bay. 

In Tauranga, incumbents Stuart Crosby, Andrew von Dadelszen, Paula Thompson and David Love are running again, while Stacey Rose is calling it a day. In a farewell post on Facebook, Rose echoed recent criticism of the lack of diversity on the Tauranga line-up, abstaining from offering any endorsements. New candidates include Larry Baldock (discharged from city council in 2020), Ron Scott who’s been on the Bay of Plenty DHB, and bus driver Bryan Deucher, among others. 

In the Western Bay of Plenty, incumbent Jane Nees is running again while Norm Bruning is stepping down. The other three contenders include conservationist Julian Fitter, Sean Newland and former politician Ken Shirley, whose political career is of a rare ACT and Labour Party combination.

The Eastern Bay of Plenty also has two seats, with current chairperson Doug Leeder running again while his colleague Bill Clark steps down. New faces include former police officer and kiwifruit orchardist Russell Orr, current Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell, Mawera Karetai, and business person Sarah Jane van der Boom.

Both incumbents in the Rotorua General Constituency, Kevin Winters and Lyall Thurston are having another go, running against lawyer Katie Priscilla Paul, Church elder and rotary Mark Gould, 26-year old student Radhika Dahya and business owner/teacher Tim Smith.

The Kohi Māori Constituency will stick with current councillor Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is the only candidate running. Both incumbents from the Okurei and Mauao constituency, Te Taru White and Matemoana McDonald are running against Raina M Meha and Buddy Mikaere, respectively.

What is at stake?

Climate resilience and transport have dominated debates in the Bay and feature extensively in the council’s pre-election report. The majority of council hopefuls acknowledge the need for meaningful action on climate change in the face of increasing extreme weather events in a region vulnerable to droughts and sea-level rise.

In responding to this challenge, some candidates are focusing on adapting to climate change, while others emphasise the need for the Bay of Plenty to reduce emissions, according to candidates’ profiles on Policy.nz. Multiple candidates propose turning the council vehicle fleet electric.

However, a small number of candidates remain reluctant to embrace the scientific reality of climate change, instead standing on platforms opposing “unworkable climate-based policies” and “doomsday prophets.” 

Transport is another high profile issue, with recent driver shortages causing havoc for the region’s would-be commuters. A recent report revealed Tauranga’s bus usage has decreased 20% in the past year. 

The current council is set to confirm an ambitious target to shift 20% of urban car commuters to public transport in the next 10 years. The feasibility of this target depends significantly on who gets voted in for the coming term. 

The majority of candidates propose to at least do something about transport. A handful are calling for transformational change and mode shift away from private vehicles, including by reducing or scrapping fees for public transport and improving cycling infrastructure. Others believe the council shouldn’t try to frustrate people out of cars. 

The race in a sentence?

Empty buses, chocka cars and boiling shores, plenty of hopefuls go head-to-head in the race for the country’s hottest region.  

The brass tracks

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council election is voted under the first past the post system. Voting papers should be with you by now. If not, you can cast a special vote. The last day to enrol (for a special vote) is October 7. Your vote needs to be received by midday on Saturday October 8. Read more race briefings and other Spinoff coverage of the local elections here.

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