Editorial: We're not perfect, but better than many

Kim Gillespie

It won't have escaped the attention of many that in the week New Zealand is named first equal as least corrupt country in the world we have a political party leader sent to trial for allegedly filing a false electoral return, another party leader accused of violating electoral law by tweeting on the day of a by-election and unprecedented accusations of cheating levelled at national sporting heroes.

To be fair sporting corruption isn't measured in Transparency International's corruption perception index, but, as legend goes, we're a pretty fair-minded bunch and many probably consider cheating at sport worse than a lot of other infractions.

The annual list does focus on political parties, police, justice systems and civil services, and despite the naysayers, and the examples above, we are obviously well-served in these areas.

That's not to say we're a shining example when it comes to the gap between rich and poor, gap between male and female earnings, child abuse or race relations (to name a few), but those examples above and many others show that scrutiny exists and questionable behaviour is called to account.

I'm happy to live in a country where I don't have everyone telling me horror stories about border crossings and trumped up accusations.

I'm happy to live in a country where, unlike other countries, according to online travel guides, you don't need to bribe the police to get out of sticky situations.

I've travelled relatively widely, but not so often off the beaten track, and only once have I found myself face to face with what may have been official corruption.

Crossing a land border early one morning we handed our passports in a bunch to our driver who gave them to the official. They were inspected, stamped and handed back. Well that's what we thought.

Crossing the same border a few days later we were hauled up because not one of us had an entry stamp. Mum, dad and two small boys spent what felt like forever waiting in a spartan corridor while border officials berated us for not checking that their colleague had done their job and stamped our passports.

Good call, we definitely should have checked.

They eventually let us go. Several people told us afterwards the officials had been waiting for us to offer a bribe.

Good thing we were too naive to realise that and they'd given up waiting.

It was either corruption or incompetence. Either way it opened my eyes to the fact that we have it pretty good in New Zealand.