MP‘should have managed conflict’
National leaves door open for Taranaki-King Country MP, but agriculture portfolio unlikely
Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger has resigned from her agriculture, biosecurity and food safety portfolios due to a “personal dispute” her family is in with the Ministry for Primary Industries.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon confirmed the MP accepted there was a conflict of interest and resigned from the portfolios.
“I discussed this with Ms Kuriger and she accepts that this is a significant conflict of interest and the failure to recognise it and to take steps to manage this conflict has been a serious lapse of judgment,” he said.
“On this basis, Ms Kuriger felt it appropriate to resign from her portfolios.”
Todd Muller becomes National’s acting agriculture, biosecurity and food safety spokesman.
In 2020, Barbara and Louis Kuriger’s son, Tony, was convicted of animal cruelty offences, relating to charges from 2016 and 2017 when he was a sharemilker on a farm in Hukanui north of Eketahuna.
The National leader met with Kuriger last Thursday night when it was decided she would resign from her portfolios. Asked whether Kuriger should still be an MP, Luxon said she still had a lot to contribute to the party and the door would be left open for her, but confirmed it was “highly unlikely” she would be appointed to the agricultural portfolio again.
This comes amid a King’s Counsel review of the way a government agency ran its prosecution of Kuriger’s son.
The person who complained via email to Christopher Luxon claimed to work for the Ministry for Primary Industries— the sameagencynowthe focus of the review by Michael Heron KC.
Documents held by NZME show 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 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 said the decision to have Heron carry out the inquiry came after discussion with the Office of the Ombudsman. Heron began work in August and was expected to be finished this month.
The email to Luxon 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.
NZME revealed 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 on to 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.
Documents show MPI went on to produce a detailed intelligence profile on Barbara Kuriger that contained pages of personal details, from where she was born through to her address, the names of her children and even her grandchildren.
It was this “person profile” which later saw MPI apologise to Barbara Kuriger.
A previously unpublished statement to NZME 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 toMrs 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 NZME 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 partowned 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 now have lost all shred of respect for that woman.”
Documents held by NZME show the prosecution of Tony Kuriger was discussed at an industry forum as an example of why the farming community lacked trust in MPI. Farmers and vets told NZME 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 aWairarapa farm while locked in a struggle with the land owner over the state of the tracks. NZME interviewed three other sharemilkers who worked the property before Tony Kuriger, who described similar 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”.
“Most of the blame lies within the governance structure or lack of structure for Oxbow Dairies. The thing that went wrong was the failure of sound corporate governance.”
Barbara Kuriger said in a statement that her family had been in a dispute with the ministry “over events that occurred in 2017”.
“This has created a blurred line with my portfolio responsibilities and in order to continue to support my family, I am stepping aside.”
“Although the dispute is, for me, a personal matter which Ihave endeavoured at all times to keep separate from my professional role, I accept there has been a conflict of interest which I should have recognised sooner, and managed.”