National MP Barbara Kuriger lost her agriculture portfolio after taking on the animal welfare agency that prosecuted her son in a way that exposed her for an undeclared conflict of interest. David Fisher has the inside story of Kuriger's campaign.
The email that cost National MP Barbara Kuriger her agricultural portfolio comes amid a King's Counsel review of the way a government agency ran its prosecution of her son.
The person who complained via email to National Party leader Christopher Luxon claimed to work for the Ministry for Primary Industries - the same agency currently the focus of the review by Michael Heron KC.
Barbara Kuriger gave up the agriculture portfolio yesterday after admitting a conflict of interest in her advocacy for her son Tony over MPI's prosecution of him on animal welfare offences.
Documents held by the Herald on Sunday showed that advocacy included writing to Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor and to senior MPI executives. It has prompted at least one apology from MPI after its intelligence analysts produced a "person profile" report on the MP and was believed to be the reason for the current review by Heron.
Tony Kuriger pleaded guilty in 2020 to seven animal welfare charges relating to not changing bandages on cows, leading to infections and, in one case, a cow being put down. He was ordered to pay vet and expert report costs of just over $4000.
An MPI spokesman has confirmed to the Herald an independent review of its work on the prosecution of Tony Kuriger for animal cruelty was being carried out by Heron.
The spokesman said the decision to have Heron carry out the inquiry came after discussion with the Office of the Ombudsman. Heron - who was engaged through Crown Law - began work in August and was expected to be finished this month.
The email which raised questions over Barbara Kuriger's advocacy for her son was sent to Luxon's office two weeks ago by someone claiming to be an MPI employee who made reference to the Heron inquiry.
The email alleged "misconduct" by Barbara Kuriger and said "senior leaders are trying to appease her" because she was expected to be agriculture minister should National win next year's election.
The Herald can reveal MPI's focus on Barbara Kuriger's role as an MP was recognised even before charges were laid against Tony Kuriger.
The young sharemilker came onto MPI's radar in 2017 after he called a Dairy NZ support line in mental distress over injuries he said his cows had suffered as a result of the tracks they walked to the milking shed. On that day, he had broken down crying after milking because his cows baulked at walking the tracks back to the fields.
The call to the Dairy NZ support line saw Fonterra notified because of animal welfare issues and the dairy company then called in MPI. Documents show Dairy NZ, Fonterra and MPI sketched out a pathway for Tony Kuriger to bring the cows back to health but then MPI switched to prosecution after infections continued to emerge.
By then, MPI executives had been told its compliance staff were involved in a case in which the farmer's mother was an MP. Even though the staff members said "this matter will be investigated the same as any other", MPI's intelligence analysts soon started mining for details about Barbara Kuriger.
One intelligence analyst said to bosses that police intelligence analysts could be contacted to provide more "specifics". MPI has told the Herald there was no record of police being asked for help.
Documents show MPI went on to produce a detailed intelligence profile on Barbara Kuriger which contained pages of personal details, from where she was born through to her address, the names of her children and even her grandchildren.
It listed her occupation as "Member of Parliament for Taranaki-King Country (National)" and under "notable associates" it stated: "National Party members especially Nathan Guy". Guy, at the time, was Minister of Agriculture.
It was this "Person Profile" which later saw MPI apologise to Barbara Kuriger. A previously unpublished statement to the Herald on Sunday described it as a "historic practice" in which the agency collected publicly available information "regarding compliance activities it was undertaking".
"That practice no longer continues in this way and MPI apologised to Mrs Kuriger and provided her a copy of the report generated from 2017."
Throughout 2017, senior MPI executives continued to get updates as its compliance role moved to prosecution.
Charges were laid in February 2018 and emails obtained by the Herald show Barbara Kuriger began seeking information from MPI and new Minister of Agriculture Damien O'Connor using her MP's account.
In one email to MPI's then chief executive Martyn Dunne in 2018, Barbara Kuriger wrote: "I have an obligation to write to you from my Member of Parliament email. It is not a normal course to follow, especially on a matter that relates to a family issue." In bold, underlined, she added: "I declare my interest."
Those exchanges began in 2018 and took place after Tony Kuriger pleaded guilty to animal welfare charges in early 2020. Some relate to MPI holding information about her personally while others directly raise issues related to the prosecution that she believed showed flaws or poor behaviour by the agency.
By the time the case went to court, the prosecution had gone from 44 charges against three people and Oxbow Dairies - the company part-owned by his father Louis Kuriger - to just nine charges against Tony Kuriger and the company.
Barbara Kuriger also secured an apology from Fonterra - which informed MPI - after her inquiries found staff gossiping over MPI's interest. In internal communications, one wrote: "Ultimately I truly hope this becomes a prosecution. If it doesn't it is a wide open case for the media to have a heyday with since it is a political family."
Another said: "Typical entitled politicians. I never vote for her. I never have and never will and she is in my district. I now have lost all shred of respect for that woman."
Barbara Kuriger would not be interviewed today, referring the Herald to a statement in which she said she should have recognised and managed the conflict of interest created by her personal advocacy of her son.
"This has created a blurred line with my portfolio responsibilities and in order to continue to support my family, I am stepping aside."
Luxon had said it was an "obvious conflict of interest" to have an MP with a portfolio that required contact with MPI to be also in a "family dispute" with the agency.
The prosecution of Tony Kuriger caused concern across the sharemilking community. Documents held by the Herald show it was discussed at an industry forum as an example of why the farming community lacked trust in MPI. Farmers and vets interviewed by the Herald said there was a feeling in some part of the community that it was dangerous to call for help because it had led to prosecution in Tony Kuriger's case.
The young farmer called for help in his third year on a Wairarapa farm while locked in a struggle with the land owner over the state of the tracks used to get cows to the milking shed. The Herald interviewed three other sharemilkers who worked the property before Tony Kuriger who described similar animal welfare issues and, in some cases, their own slide towards poor mental health.
Judge Rowe rejected MPI's request to have Tony Kuriger jailed and banned from farming.
Rowe said, "with clarity", Kuriger would have "better cared for the animals in his charge".
However, he found Tony Kuriger was unwell, suffering from the "unrelenting stress of managing two farms [and] a marriage break-up", not sleeping and on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.
"Most of the blame", said Rowe, "lies within the governance structure or lack of structure for Oxbow Dairies. The thing that went wrong was the failure of sound corporate governance."
In evidence to the court, Barbara Kuriger's husband Louis - one of the directors of Oxbow Dairies - said "with the benefit of hindsight I don't believe we truly understood how deeply despairing Tony was".