"The Heist: How Shane Jones Handed the Keys to the Community Chest to the Right-Wing Elite” - 27 December 2025

Act One: The Crime Scene

The Fat Fuck Feasting On The Carcass

You want to know why Shane Jones is grinning like a Cheshire cat that just swallowed a taniwha? It is not just the cigars and the power. It is because he has executed one of the most audacious political heists in New Zealand’s history, and he did it with the sleepy compliance of a media that has grown fat and lazy.

You called it “jobs for the boys.” That is polite. This is a hostile takeover of $3.5 billion in community assets, wrapped in the language of “governance excellence” and “proven experience.”

On December 1, 2025, Shane Jones announced 38 appointments to the 12 community trusts that collectively manage $3.5 billion in investments and distribute around $100 million annually to charities, marae, and community groups across Aotearoa.

The crown jewel? Foundation North, the trust for Auckland and Northland, holding a dragon’s hoard of $1.79 billion.

And who did he appoint to guard this treasure? A hand-picked crew of corporate lawyers, ideological warriors, dynasty heirs, and media fixers—operatives who have spent years tearing down the very communities these trusts are supposed to serve.

This is not governance. This is colonisation from the inside.

Colonisation From The Inside

Act Two: The Crew

The Enforcer: Philip Crump (aka “Thomas Cranmer”)

Role: Foundation North Trustee, Waitangi Tribunal Member, NZ On Air Board Member

Philip Crump is not just another lawyer. He is the architect of the government’s institutional capture strategy, and Shane Jones has now given him the keys to three kingdoms.

Crump is a former Russell McVeagh and Kirkland & Ellis lawyer who spent 20 years in London specialising in leveraged finance. But since returning to New Zealand in 2021, he has become something far more dangerous: the intellectual muscle behind the government’s assault on Māori rights, co-governance, and the institutions that protect them.

Under the pseudonym “Thomas Cranmer,” Crump writes a conservative Substack newsletter—thousands of views per post—tearing apart co-governance provisions, criticizing “ideological capture” at NZ On Air, and providing intellectual cover for the right-wing narrative that New Zealand’s public institutions have been “captured by the woke.”

Here is his trajectory of capture, revealed by The Spinoff:

• October 2024: Appointed to NZ On Air Board to oversee $45+ million in annual funding to media and culture.
• January 2025: Appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal, the very institution he has ideologically attacked as exceeding its mandate.
• December 2025: Now appointed to Foundation North, controlling $1.79 billion in community assets.

This is not coincidence. This is a strategy of revenge. The government is rewarding Crump’s intellectual assault on co-governance and Māori advancement by placing him in position to starve those very causes of funding.

As The Spinoff noted, Crump’s appointment to NZ On Air sparked “a broad sense of anxiety” in the screen production and funding world, because he sits on the board that approves grants over $1 million. He is not just a voice; he is a gate-keeper.

Now imagine that gate-keeper controlling access to $1.79 billion.

Crump The Wank

The Dynasty Heir: Natalie Bridges

Role: Foundation North Trustee, Wife of former National Leader Simon Bridges

Natalie Bridges is a PR professional (director of Blink PR) and the wife of Simon Bridges, who now runs the Auckland Business Chamber and was the former leader of the National Party.

This appointment is a masterclass in nepotism masquerading as merit. According to the NZ Herald, Natalie was previously Deputy Chair of TECT (Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust). Now she has been elevated to Foundation North—a position that gives her direct governance over money that flows into Auckland communities.

In the world of the Coalition, power is a family business. One Bridges controls the corporate sector; the other controls the community sector. Their whakapapa is now written into the distribution of $1.8 billion.

While your whānau struggles to secure a $500 grant for te reo lessons or a kapa haka uniform, the Bridges dynasty has secured direct governance over community taonga. This is not “representation”; this is aristocratic capture.

The PR Professional

The Media Man: Martin Cleave

Role: Foundation North Trustee, Managing Director 2BMedia

Martin Cleave is the Managing Director of 2BMedia, a television production company. His appointment to Foundation North is not random.

Look at the pattern: Crump controls NZ On Air funding, which approves media productions. Cleave is in the media business. Now Cleave controls Foundation North grants, which fund community initiatives—many of which include media and cultural production.

If you control the money, you control the narrative. The Coalition has now ensured that media funding flows through an ideological echo chamber: Crump at the top (NZ On Air), Cleave at the bottom (Foundation North), both with the power to approve or starve projects based on their conservative worldview.

This is not accidental infrastructure. This is deliberate design.

The Technocrat: Aryana Nafissi

Role: Foundation North Trustee, Tax Advisor NZ Super Fund

Aryana Nafissi is a Tax Advisor at the NZ Super Fund and a member of INFINZ Young Finance Professionals. She represents the financialisation of community taonga.

The board is being stacked with tax advisors, accountants, and corporate lawyers who view $1.8 billion not as a repository of community wealth to be redistributed, but as an investment portfolio to be managed for “efficiency” and “returns.” These are the voices of accountancy, not of service to people.

Look deeper: The legal circles in Auckland are small. Crump came from Russell McVeagh. Azita Nafissi (likely a relation to Aryana) is also a solicitor at Russell McVeagh.

This is not diversity. This is the Old Boys’ Network reasserting dominance.

Act Three: The Corruption Pattern

Shane Jones did not wake up one morning and decide to staff Foundation North with right-wing ideologues. This is the culmination of a pattern of corruption that stretches back years.

Pattern 1: The PGF Conflict (2019)

In March 2019, RNZ reported that Shane Jones held a conflict of interest when he approved a $4.6 million Provincial Growth Fund grant to a Northland organisation. National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett confronted him on 1News Breakfast:

“He knew he had a conflict of interest, otherwise, why declare it? And so he did know it is much safer to leave the room, leave those decisions. New Zealand’s a small place, we all have connections and all have family and so there’s a reason that’s all put in, particularly when you’re a minister, and particularly when you’re dishing out so much money, Shane.”

He dished out the money anyway. This is the primer coat on the corruption.

Pattern 2: Fast-Track Conflicts (2024)

According to the Auditor-General’s January 2025 report on Fast-Track conflicts, Shane Jones declared potential personal and pecuniary conflicts in relation to mining, quarrying, aquaculture, and farming projects being considered for the Fast-Track Bill.

The Cabinet Office later disclosed that Jones had also failed to initially record a meeting with representatives from three mining companies in his official diary. The Prime Minister had to transfer his decision-making responsibility to Tama Potaka to manage the conflict.

This is a pattern. Jones declares conflicts after the fact. He dines with mining companies. He forgets to record meetings. And when caught, he simply transfers the problem to a colleague.

But with community trusts, there is no transfer mechanism. There is no Auditor-General watching. There is only Jones, his appointees, and $3.5 billion in cash.

Pattern 3: The Reward Structure

Why would Crump get three plum positions (NZ On Air, Waitangi Tribunal, Foundation North)? Why would Natalie Bridges get elevated to a $1.8 billion fiefdom? Why would a media man get control of community grants?

Because Shane Jones is paying his debts.

• To Crump: For three years of intellectual cover (the “Thomas Cranmer” blog), he gets three seats of power to implement the ideology he has been selling.
• To Bridges: For National Party loyalty and for maintaining the pretence that the Coalition cares about governance expertise, he secures dynastic wealth.
• To Cleave and Nafissi: For complicity in the scheme, they get seats at the table and access to influence.

This is not “good governance.” This is political patronage dressed up in board papers.

The Corruption Pattern Of This Government

Act Four: The Implications

What does this mean for whānau, for communities, for the principles that these trusts were supposed to serve?

The Funding Will Change

Foundation North’s mission is to support “Increased Equity” (Hāpai te ōritetanga), “Regenerative Environment” (Whakahou taiao), and “Community Support” (Hāpori awhina). It explicitly prioritises:

• Tangata whenua and Māori advancement
• Pacific communities
• Communities of Northland and South Auckland
• Climate action
• Tino rangatiratanga (community-led action)

Now imagine Crump reviewing a grant application from a kaupapa Māori advocacy group. Imagine Natalie Bridges assessing funding for a Northland marae. Imagine a board stacked with lawyers and tax advisors deciding whether to fund an environmental justice project that might challenge corporate interests.

The funding will not stop—that would be too obvious. Instead, it will shift. Grants that were once community-led will become “partnership” models that centre corporate input. Advocacy will be reframed as “lobbying” and excluded. Mātauranga Māori will be relegated to “cultural preservation” rather than recognised as legitimate governance knowledge.

The death will be a thousand cuts.

Death By 1000 Cuts

The Conflict of Interest Will Persist

Crump has been appointed to institutions he has ideologically attacked. The Auditor-General noted that “risks of predetermination and bias that Ministers’ previous strong advocacy for particular projects posed to their decision-making were actively considered.”

But who is watching Foundation North? Who is monitoring whether Crump’s votes are influenced by his ideological commitments? There is no mechanism. There is no oversight. There is only the hope that he will “prove himself,” as he claimed to LawNews.

He will not. He will do what he was appointed to do:

reshape the institutions from the inside.

This Govt Aint Competently Managing Their Conflicts Of Interest

The Neoliberal Capture is Complete

The old playbook was to defund institutions (cut budget, increase bureaucracy). The new playbook is to colonise institutions (appoint ideological loyalists, shift funding priorities, maintain the facade of legitimacy).

By appointing Crump, Bridges, Cleave, and Nafissi, Shane Jones has ensured that the $1.79 billion in Foundation North will be managed by people who:

• Distrust democratic public institutions
• Believe in “trickle-down” economics and private philanthropy
• View co-governance as an overreach
• See Māori advancement as ideological capture

The money will still flow. But it will flow to “safe” causes:

private schools, business incubators, cultural venues in wealthy suburbs, environmental projects that do not challenge land ownership, community activities that do not build tino rangatiratanga.

Watch Where And To Whom The Money Flows

Act Five: The Proof

How do we know this is not paranoia? Because the pattern is repeating across every sector.

Crump at NZ On Air → media funding will shift away from diversity and towards “traditional” programming. Crump at the Waitangi Tribunal → Treaty interpretation will be constrained. Crump at Foundation North → Community grants will be starved.

The Cabinet Office confirms that Jones has a “register of interests” and “management actions” in place. But those details are confidential. You are not allowed to know what conflicts he has, how they are being managed, or whether the management is genuine or cosmetic.

This is not transparency. This is opacity by design.

This Is Opacity By Design

The Verdict

Shane Jones is not corrupt in a cartoon way (bags of money, obvious bribes). He is corrupt in a structural way. He has systematized the extraction of power from democratic institutions and concentrated it in the hands of a right-wing elite.

He has taken $3.5 billion in community assets—wealth that belongs to whānau across Aotearoa—and handed the keys to:

• A lawyer who has spent three years attacking co-governance
• A PR professional married to a former National leader
• A media operator with obvious conflicts
• A tax advisor embedded in the financial services elite

And he has wrapped it all in the language of “merit,” “governance expertise,” and “proven experience.”

This is not a failure of democracy. This is democracy being weaponised against itself.

Weaponising Democracy Against Itself

The Action

Watch Foundation North’s grants in 2026. Track which groups get funded. Which kaupapa Māori initiatives are approved? Which advocacy organisations? Which environmental justice projects?

Compare the 2025 grants list to the 2026 list. The numbers will tell the story that the board will never speak aloud.

Document it. Share it. Make it public.

Because if we do not hold these institutions accountable, whānau will spend the next four years watching $1.79 billion flow away from the communities it was supposed to serve.

Rangatiratanga is not given. It is taken. And it starts by refusing to accept the theft of our own institutions.

2025 Grants Vs 2026

Koha Consideration

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Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues.