No, it’s not satire.

by Jordan Williams of the Taxpayers Union

 

A few months ago the Taxpayers’ Union went public exposing the taxpayer-funded “science” project our researchers uncovered to (and this is no joke) record whales, mixing those sounds with recordings from healthy Kauri forests, to take into unhealthy Kauri forests, play back the audio recordings and assess whether the whale music could be effective in ‘soothing’ Kauri trees and beating myrtle rust and Kauri dieback. 

You really couldn’t make it up.

To recap, it was part of the “National Science Challenges” which are to bring together “the country’s top scientists” and use “the best science to address the Challenge[s]”.

One of the challenges relates to protecting New Zealand’s biodiversity, including our iconic trees.

Recall that MBIE officials insisted that as part of the project, “matauranga Māori” (that is, traditional Māori knowledge) must be on the same footing as “colonial science” (their description, not mine!)

MBIE’s justification for this project is that according to Māori legend knowledge, sperm whales and kauri trees are brothers. 

The hypthosis taxpayers are forking out to test, is whether the whales have a “calming” effect on the trees, and therefore help the trees resist disease. Yes, it’s literally on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website!)

They spent HOW MUCH?! 

After we blew the whistle on the project, officials spent months playing games and refusing to answer our basic questions on the “Oranga (wellbeing) project”.

It’s all rather murky complex (the project is managed by MBIE, but the actual payments are from Landcare Research) and after much determination (i.e. staff time!), James and the research team have finally got to the bottom of how much was spent on the Ngā Rakau Taketake project.

Officials are still refusing a line-by-line breakdown (I wonder why…) but, in total, this matauranga Māori-based “research” cost taxpayers $4,027,020.

FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to mix music for trees 

That’s right, four million (plus GST) was paid to investigate whether recording whale sounds, mixing them with recordings from healthy Kauri forests, and playing them to unhealthy Kauri forests and other nonsense such as “The language of the domain of Tāne” – all in the name of “healing” them and “science”.

Here’s what the four million paid for:

Sonic tapestries of rejuvenation and well-being About the project The Oranga (wellbeing) project was set up to fight against kauri dieback and myrtle rust and consisted of five “research projects”.  1 Rongoā solutions for kauri ora 2 The language of the domain of Tāne 3 Hapū solutions for myrtle rust 4 The sovereignty of seed 5 A ‘Critical Friend’ approach

The whale song feeds into the first two points of the project, and the project was carried out by an organisation Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited (which received the funds).

So who is Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited? 

As part of this investigation, we’ve uncovered that the “research” was outsourced to a private “not for profit” company: Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited.

And that’s when we came to a stunning realisation – which now explains why the departments have been so cagey about giving us information on the project…

According to Te Tira Whakamātaki Ltd’s website, its “Co-funder and Trustee” is Melanie Mark-Shadbolt.

And here’s the startling thing: Ms Mark-Shadbolt is also the Co-Director of the very same BioHeritage Science Challenge Science – i.e. the Government initiative funding the project!

I had the team work through the finances and Charities Commission records of Ms Mark-Shadbolt’s company. The company’s costs are almost entirely salaries (surprise, surprise!), and its charitable purpose is merely “Provides advice, information, and advocacy“.  

Nice work if you can get it.

Why aren’t the media asking questions? 

It’s bad enough that this taxpayer money was spent in the first place to “research” what we all know is nothing more than a myth (whales being brothers of the Kauri, and that they’re able to communicate with each other). 

But when the provider of these nonsense projects (playing music to trees) is also one of the two Co-directors of the overall “science challenge” what hope is there the taxpayer will get value for money or scientific knowledge will be advanced?

And here’s the kicker: The project leaders openly admit that this isn’t even real research. They describe it as a way to give Māori knowledge equal footing with science, claiming it doesn’t need to meet scientific standards because it’s about “restoring mauri (life force)” rather than achieving measurable, effective results.

And yet, MBIE continues to call it “top science quality” while burning through millions of taxpayer dollars.

So, instead of putting resources toward actual science and solutions, this project uses public money to fund what can only be described as mystical performances in the forest.

Only the Taxpayers’ Union are willing to call out this grift  

In the ideal world, the media (and Opposition political parties) would be all over this. But no one likes calling-out government waste if it relates to indigenous projects. We will no doubt be labelled things even for sending this email.

Because it is Māori related wasteful spending, newsrooms fall over themselves not to cover it. We even get individual journalists contact us about some of our stories saying they’d love to pick them up, but their colleagues and editors would go berserk.