Latest news with #PublicTrust
The Sun
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Conservative ex-ministers at war as Afghan data leak sparks furious blame game
FORMER Tory ministers have turned on each other as a blame game erupted over the Afghan data leak. Former PM Liz Truss accused ex-Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace of a ' huge betrayal of public trust '. 4 4 She said she was 'shocked by the secrecy' of Operation Rubific, which brought 4,500 Afghans to Britain after their details were leaked. And she demanded those responsible in governments and the bureaucracy needed to be held to account. But Sir Ben hit back by claiming Ms Truss — Foreign Secretary under Boris Johnson in February 2022 — approved the plan in office. He replied to her X post: 'Oh dear Liz. Not quite. You were part of the Cabinet that approved the relocation of Afghans and the wider Home Office refugee scheme.' He also defended his actions, writing: 'I make no apology for applying to the court for an injunction at the time. "Imagine if the Taliban had been alerted to the existence of this list.' Sir Keir Starmer said both former ministers had 'serious questions to answer' about the airlift that may ultimately cost an estimated £7billion. Ex-Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees Mogg also called on Sir Grant Shapps, who was Defence Secretary when the injunction became a superinjunction, to speak out on the revelations. And Reform UK's Zia Yusuf has called for a judge-led inquiry into the operation. 4
NZ Herald
16-07-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Wills Week: TG Macarthy Trust grants thousands to charity, including to Alzheimer's Whanganui
The work of the Alzheimer's Whanganui team (from left) Fiona Allison (diversional therapist), Mary Conway (navigator), Renee Clark (manager) and Teriē Carson (office administrator) is supported through grants from the TG Macarthy Trust facilitated by the Public Trust. Making a will is one way of supporting a favourite charity in the future - and the Public Trust says this is the ideal week to think about it. Public Trust's Wills Week is on July 14 to 20. The annual campaign encourages people to make a will, with the
NZ Herald
15-07-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Public Trust heir hunter seeks Irish family for $1m NZ estate
Winikerei is an 'heir hunter' – a specialist trustee with the Public Trust, who works in a team managing estates that are deemed 'complex' and, commonly, where someone has died without a will. 'Of the estates I am currently managing, around 30% of them have someone I need to find,' says the Auckland-based 36-year-old. 'It's like a TV show. Calling people out of the blue and saying 'I think you're the person I'm looking for'. Obviously, it's sad because someone has passed away, but if it's like a great-great uncle ... it can be a nice surprise to hear that you're getting some money.' The former beauty therapist and flight attendant never imagined this could be a career. 'I started at the bottom and kind of worked my way up, learning everything there is to know about trusts and estates ... You kind of fall into the role. I think lots of people start in an admin role and find out how interesting the work is and end up sticking to it for a long time.' Around half of all New Zealanders have a will. The Public Trust is not the country's only provider of estate administration services, but it is the largest and longest-serving. An autonomous Crown entity that, in the last financial year, wrote 6982 wills and 4424 enduring powers of attorney. When someone with assets exceeding $15,000 dies 'intestate' or without a will, the Public Trust can be asked (or appointed) to become administrator of their estate. Next steps are guided by legislation that prioritises the distribution of those assets. Partners and/or children come first, followed by parents, then siblings, and then nieces and nephews. 'And then it gets quite wide,' says Winikerei. 'We have to start looking for aunts and uncles and they've usually passed away. So then we look at their children, and then we get into cousins and second cousins.' At any given time, she estimates specialist trustees are searching for between 50 and 100 potential beneficiaries. 'Maybe 70% of those are where people have passed away without a will, and about 30% have been named but we don't know who they are.' Sometimes, the search starts with the physical. A specialist trustee might have to enter a dead person's home to look for a will or other documents that help establish the extent of someone's assets. 'Even if they do have a will, we might know nothing about them. We might have to write to all of the banks to ask if this person holds an account with them. It's kind of detective work, we look through statements – okay, they're paying insurance, so they might have a life insurance policy? They're receiving dividends, so they probably have some shares ...' Finding living relatives usually begins with an online search. Facebook, other social media sites and the New Zealand Companies register are common starting points. 'Where it can get complicated is if we only have a name – we don't know who the parents are, we don't know who the siblings are – then we have to engage a genealogist. 'It might get complicated if they've been adopted or they were born overseas and they died in New Zealand.' In the case of the missing Irish relatives, she says a genealogist has done the hard work. 'The challenge we've got is that a lot of the records in Ireland were destroyed in the Civil War. According to genealogists, Irish records are really hard because some of them just don't exist.' The family members the Public Trust is looking for will inherit 'a sizable amount. This is probably one of my biggest estates – around one million dollars.' Public Trust specialist trustee Jade Winikerei says about 70% of the people she is searching for are the relatives of people who died without a will. Photo / Dean Purcell Beware of strangers bearing windfalls? Winikerei says the Public Trust would never ask for credit card details, you should always be able to call a representative back on its free number (0800 371 471) and it's likely that anyone contacting you would have a large amount of not readily available information about your family tree. 'I'm very grateful for the work that banks and people are doing to bring awareness to scams, but it has made my job harder! Sometimes I feel like the 'Prince in Nigeria' story. 'I've had people wanting to meet me in person to make sure I'm real. I've had video calls to prove I'm real ... I'm glad that people take steps to make sure.' She recalls one case where the international relatives were particularly suspicious – and rightly so. 'In that situation, I needed to build the family background and family tree for them first, because this was a complete surprise ... it's probably quite nice to be receiving some money that you're not expecting, but it also probably opened up some sadness – they didn't even know these people, and they've passed away.' Winikerei believes, in an online world, anyone can be found. 'I think with technology these days, it would be really hard [to disappear]. 'I think it's so interesting. Growing up, it was kind of a joke. Someone would get a new boyfriend and they'd be like, 'Oh, Jade will be able to find out everything' ... I think I was just a curious person. My grandad was probably a bit the same. He was on the local rugby club and kind of knew everything that was happening around town. Maybe that's where I picked it up from?' Not everything a specialist trustee uncovers is welcome news. While she hasn't personally encountered this situation, she knows of cases where a person's death has resulted in the discovery of a secret life. 'Where, more commonly, fathers have had another family that the wife and children weren't aware of... there might be something like an anomaly on a certificate – 'Hmm, why does it say there are this many children, but we know there are this many?' 'A genealogist might stumble across someone's family tree, and then they dig a little deeper and order birth certificates ... or we've had situations where people have come forward and said, 'I'm a relation ... he was actually my father and I haven't been included'.' Winikerei says families are challenging. 'We see lots of different family dynamics, and because we're dealing with people grieving, they're in a heightened state of emotions. Not everyone has a happy family or home life, and that's sad. It's sad when people have lived a life by themselves. 'We deal with so many scenarios. Anything from messy estates with ongoing litigation, to maybe when someone has passed away and they've got no one around them and we've had to organise a nice send-off for them and make sure they've got a nice final resting place. That's probably one of the things I enjoy most.' Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is a senior reporter on the lifestyle desk.
RNZ News
15-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
What would happen if a KiwiSaver provider failed?
There is always the risk that investments could go wrong, but KiwiSaver schemes do have some protections in place. File photo. Photo: 123rf Some Australian investors may be facing the loss of their investments after the failure of a superannuation provider, but KiwiSaver members are being reassured that the situation is different here. Australian media has reported that up to A$450 million may have been lost by the First Guardian Master Fund, which went into liquidation early this year. Co-director David Anderson was reported to be accused of transferring funds into his own bank account. David Callanan, general manager of corporate trustee services at Public Trust, one of the supervisors of New Zealand's KiwiSaver schemes, said there were different protections for KiwiSaver members, which should prevent such a scenario. Providers are subject to oversight from a supervisor, who can also choose to appoint a third-party custodian or act as custodian themselves. "I think we've got a more effective regulatory regime. It's set up really well to protect KiwiSaver members and investors." He said the supervisor was "effectively a trustee". "We're in place to ensure that KiwiSaver providers are doing the right thing for investors. If there was an issue with a KiwiSaver provider then the supervisor would be able to step in and take control back and come up with a solution." He said that could involve appointing another manager if necessary. "We have the power to step in and to take control back in the interests of those investors." He said, because there were a limited number of independent supervisors, they were closely regulated by the Financial Markets Authority. "In Australia there are hundreds of responsible entities who play that role." Callanan said if a fund manager was failing it would not be able to access investor funds. "That's another area that in those scenarios that I've seen in Australia hasn't worked. You've got fund managers just dipping into investor monies, you know, to go and buy a Lamborghini or whatever they feel like on a whim. "That just couldn't happen here because we've got independent custodians and again, Public Trust is an independent custodian for a number of KiwiSaver providers, and that can give investors confidence." He said there was also a strong conflict of interest regime in place. "Even for fund managers who might undertake what is called a related party transaction…the Financial Markets Conduct Act stipulates the process they have to go through to work with their supervisor to get that transaction across the line." But that does not mean you can not lose money in KiwiSaver. Callanan said there was always the risk that investments could go wrong and financial markets might not perform as expected. "But if you're with a KiwiSaver provider in New Zealand you can have confidence that there's a mechanism in place in the supervisors that if something was to go wrong with that manager, the supervisor would step in and stop you falling down the metaphorical cliff. "There's always the possibility that someone makes a silly financial decision or you could pick an investment that's really bad. My advice would be to avoid a situation where you have all your eggs in one basket." He said that could only happen with the KiwiSaver schemes that allow people to choose their own investments. "Most KiwiSaver providers are offering these diversified products and you can be really confident you've going to get a good outcome because you've spread your risk in an appropriate way." Financial Markets Authority director of markets, investors and reporting John Horner said the law prescribed the segregation of duties in relation to managed investment schemes. "Generally, while the manager of the scheme is responsible for investment decisions , the custodian is responsible for holding and safeguarding the scheme property - segregation of legal ownership - and for keeping records of the scheme property - segregation of functions. Supervisors licensed by the FMA are responsible for custody. Depending on the scheme's governing documents, a supervisor may appoint another appropriate independent person as custodian. "MIS managers and supervisors are obliged to act with care, diligence and skill. MIS managers are expected to maintain strong capital positions, professional indemnity insurance, parent company guarantees or other similar arrangements. Managers are also required to notify the supervisor if they are, or are likely to become, insolvent. The supervisor is responsible for monitoring the manager's performance of its functions and obligations, as well as its financial position. "In the event that the fund manager becomes insolvent or is otherwise unable to continue operations, the supervisor has the power to appoint a temporary manager to ensure the continued management and operation of the fund until a permanent replacement is appointed." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Mail & Guardian
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
Trust in South African police at an all time low, report shows
Public trust in the South African Police Service is at an all-time low, with just over a fifth of citizens having faith in the police since 2022 (File photo by Delwyn Verasamy/M&G) Public trust in the The study by the Ramaphosa said he was setting up a judicial commission of inquiry to be chaired by the acting deputy chief justice, Mbuyiseli Madlanga, to investigate what he called 'the infiltration of law enforcement, intelligence and associated institutions within the criminal justice system by criminal syndicates'. According to From 1998 to 2010, the average level of trust ranged between 39% and 42%, but dropped sharply in the 2011-13 period following the In 2021, trust in the police fell to 27%, apparently as a result of the 'The findings of this study underscore the urgent need for SAPS to prioritise building public trust and confidence,' the HSRC's Benjamin Roberts, the principal investigator of the study, commented. 'By adopting a more community-focused and accountable approach to policing, we can work towards creating safer and more secure communities for all South Africans.' In his live address on Sunday, Ramaphosa said the allegations against Mchunu and others made last week by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi posed a grave threat to the rule of law and national security. Mchunu has denied the allegations against him. On Monday, the HSRC said trust in the police had fallen in all provinces over the past two and a half decades, although there were notable disparities. The Eastern Cape and Northern Cape consistently recorded the highest levels of trust, averaging 43% and 42% respectively, while Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal had the lowest average trust levels at 29% and 34% respectively, slumping to just 18% in 2024-25. 'Provinces such as the Free State and Limpopo, which once reported relatively high trust, have also experienced marked declines, reaching 23% by 2024-25. By the time of the 2024-25 survey round, no province recorded trust levels above 30%,' the HSRC said. 'The trend points to a deepening legitimacy crisis for SAPS across the country, with historically higher-trust provinces converging downward toward the levels of deep scepticism observed in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.' The report added that public views of the police were influenced by broader evaluations of democratic performance and the trustworthiness of the government. 'Public confidence in democratic institutions has shown a strong downward trend over the past 17 years, as part of a general pattern of diminishing political support. Police confidence is not immune to the pull-down effect of these wider trends,' it said. Established in 1968 as a statutory research agency, the HSRC's mandate is to inform the effective formulation and monitoring of government policy, evaluate policy implementation and encourage public debate.
