Re: More a storm than a quake
"A story I've heard repeated in several differing formats goes roughly like this. "
Yup, that's par for the course in New Zealand. Corrupt behaviour comes in many forms - right up to the point of taking over Transparency International's NZ branch to get them to toe the party line.(*)
New Zealand only classifies bribery as corruption. Cronyism, Influence peddling, the kind of institutionalised thieving described and "minor" stuff like Tax/Customs and Welfare department staff systematically selling people's personal data to private investigators(**) are all either "not illegal, therefore not corruption and therefore OK" or "Isolated cases of employee fraud". As a result Cronyism in particular is rife in every part of the country's structures.
Of course ordinary kiwis will get quite nasty if you point out that the emperor has no clothes. They've been drinking the Kool Aid for decades.
(*) 100% govt funded, 100% opaque, kicked out its transparency activists, attempted to pull the wool over eyes outside the country. The wheels are starting to fall off that particular little wagon - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_International#Internal_scandals - but TINZ is still trying to parrot the official NZ position for the most part (TIUK have distanced themselves from the NZ operation)
(**) Yes really, from every office in the country. I had the misfortune to be peripherally involved in the discovery of it happening. There was a lot of retaliation against those who (accidentally) unearthed it.