Foon investigated for pokie ‘kickback’
Meng Foon was considered by investigators to be unsuitable to operate pokie machines after a complaint in 2001. But, reports Steve Kilgallon, the Department of Internal Affairs never acted on the recommendations.
Meng Foon, the race relations commissioner and former mayor of Gisborne, was considered by senior investigators at the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to be unsuitable to operate pokie machines – but the department never acted on the recommendations.
Foon was months away from winning the mayoralty in mid2001 when complaints were made to the DIA.
But until now, the investigation has never been made public, and the DIA never alerted anyone else to its findings.
Foon has denied any wrongdoing and lashed out at the department, labelling its work on his case ‘‘totally hopeless’’.
DIA released limited information about the case only at the instruction of the Ombudsman, who said it was in the public interest.
Foon won six mayoral terms before becoming race relations commissioner in 2019.
‘Meng’s Place’
In July 2001, a complaint about Foon was raised with senior officials at the DIA, according to Martin Legge, a former senior policeman and the investigator who examined the complaint.
At the time, Foon owned Meng’s Place, a pokie bar in the deprived Gisborne suburb of Kaiti. Legge told Stuff it was alleged Foon had asked a community group which had applied for a poker machine grant for a kickback – an illegal payment of part of the grant – in return for helping it gain approval.
It is illegal for publicans to be involved in the decision-making around such grants.
The grant application was declined, so nobody received any money as a result.
Foon said he had no memory of the incident until Stuff reminded him of it. He didn’t remember the complaint being made, being interviewed about it by Legge in September 2001, or ever being told an outcome. He said his memory was ‘‘quite vague’’.
‘‘It is 20-odd years ago, so I can’t be accurate in my reciting of the events.
‘‘I can’t recall what happened at that time, but I think if someone made a complaint about me, it is right that DIA investigate.’’
Asked directly if he had asked for a kickback, Foon said: ‘‘Never. Never happened.’’
But Legge says he found witnesses he interviewed highly credible, and he believed the complaint.
‘‘I went back to Wellington and briefed the legal team . . . [One of them] said ‘Meng Foon is a lovely guy,’ so I knew they didn’t have the stomach to prosecute. So instead I recommended he at least receive an official warning and have his gambling licence cancelled . . . that was my recommendation, it was up to them to action it, but that was the last I ever heard.’’
When Stuff put it to Foon that Legge believed the offending had happened, and Foon was saying it had not, Foon said: ‘‘I can’t recall, that’s what I am saying. It was 20-odd years ago.’’
Legge says he’s speaking out because he’s angry about being named in documents about the case, released to Stuff by the DIA. He says that could ‘‘potentially create the public perception I was responsible for its inaction in this case’’.
‘‘I wasn’t responsible for the inaction of DIA’s legal section or managers whose job it is to determine who gets prosecuted, sanctioned or has their pokie licence cancelled.’’
Legge’s report said pursuing a prosecution was ‘‘not in the