The head of the Justice Ministry is defending Sunny Kaushal’s work as chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) for victims of retail crime, including $227,585 in pay and a $3200 morning tea event.
Justice Secretary Andrew Kibblewhite fielded a series of probing questions today from Labour MPs during his appearance before the justice select committee during Parliament’s scrutiny week.
Labour MPs in the committee revealed that Kaushal had billed for so many hours between February and July that he almost certainly worked weekends and public holidays.
He had also been paid $227,585 for 1976 hours of work, and had held a meeting in Auckland in February that included a $3200 morning tea.
Kibblewhite told the committee he wouldn’t be surprised if Kaushal had worked on weekends and on public holidays, as he was hard-working and passionate about the issues.
Asked about the meeting and the tea bill, Kibblewhite said: “The chair and the group do what they do. We’re not micro-managing every decision they make. Part of what they do is connecting with the community.”
Kaushal has also hit back, telling the Herald that Labour was “playing politics”.
“This is just a distraction from the real problem, which is [that] retail crime more than doubled since 2019 under Labour’s watch.”
Kaushal has been a staunch advocate of tougher measures against the perpetrators of retail crime and is a former chairman of the Dairy and Business Owners Group.
The Government has considered the MAG’s advice when forming policy decisions about citizens’ arrest powers, updating trespass laws, a new shoplifting offence, and the use of facial technology in battling retail crime.
Kaushal told the Herald the February meeting was a question-and-answer session with 80 stakeholders and ministers about citizens’ arrest proposals.
“The Ministry of Justice confirmed the spending at issue complied with its entertainment and sensitive expenditure guidance. Catering costs per person were less than $25 ex GST.
“It wasn’t a lunch, it was a morning tea, and the figure cited includes event set-up and chair hire.”
Documents released to Labour under the Official Information Act showed the catering bill alone was $3272, including GST, which for an 80-person spread would be $40 a person.
The audio-visual setup, billed separately, came to $1414 including GST.
Kaushal noted that the MAG’s work this year included more than 40 stakeholder meetings around the country, and five reports to ministers.
Kibblewhite told the committee that the MAG had been “very active”.
“The minister has enjoyed getting that advice. We’ve had productive and sometimes robust engagements [with the MAG], and that has been a good thing.”
He described the disparity between Kaushal’s pay and that of other MAG members (about $8000, in one case) as “perfectly okay”, given that Kaushal was the chairman, and he viewed it as a full-time role.
Earlier in the committee hearing, Kibblewhite was questioned about why there had been an increase in the number of charges and convictions for cannabis possession.
“I don’t think we fully understand the reasons behind that,” he replied.
He said the new gang patch law had enabled police to conduct more searches.
“The hypothesis is, it’s quite likely [that], when there are more searches, there will more likely be more drugs found.”
In 2024-25, there was a 27% increase in the number of charges for possessing cannabis compared with the previous year (and by 66% compared with 2021-22), while there was also a 37% increase in charges for dealing or distributing the drug.
There was a 28% increase in charges for methamphetamine possession compared with the previous year (and by 57% compared to 2021-22), but unlike for cannabis, this was accompanied by a surge in P consumption, which doubled in late 2024 to the highest on record.
The growth in charges reverses a dramatic fall after a law change in 2019, described by some as effective decriminalisation for personal drug use. It clarified that police shouldn’t prosecute for drug use if a therapeutic approach would be “more beneficial to the public interest”.
Asked about whether there had been a deliberate move away from the changes that the 2019 change had initially triggered, Kibblewhite said that was a question for police.
“I don’t have a perspective to offer on that.”
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.