“The Whakapapa of Greed: Unmasking the “Heir Apparent”” - 29 December 2025

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They want you to admire them. The recent puff piece by the New Zealand Herald parades them before us like prize livestock

—the “heir apparent” generation,

the fresh-faced offspring of the NBR Rich List,

purportedly earning their keep through “hard work” and “smart” business choices.

They are the children of Hart, Spencer, Farmer, Todd, Fletcher, Fay, and Richwhite. We are told they are “doing their own thing,” “anonymous in Geneva,” or “learning the ropes” of empire.

Fuck that.

Let’s be clear about what we are looking at.

We are not seeing the fruits of honest labour. We are looking at the generational laundering of wealth extracted from the veins of this country

—wealth built on the alienation of Māori land, the privatization of state assets, the pillaging of our environment, and tax avoidance schemes so complex they required a Commission of Inquiry to untangle.

These aren’t just “lucky” kids; they are the beneficiaries of a system designed to strip mauri from the many to hoard mana for the few.

As The Māori Green Lantern, I am here to shine a light on the whakapapa of this wealth. We will not look at their Instagram feeds; we will look at their balance sheets, their lobbying, and the dirt under their fingernails.

When you look at the NBR Rich List and see that it is 99% white, you are not imagining it. The list is white by design. This is not a coincidence. It is the successful execution of the colonial project.

The Inherited Divide: 1863 to 2025

The Inherited Divide

Part One: The Whakapapa of Exploitation

To understand the heir, you must interrogate the ancestor. The media frames these families as “pioneers” and “deal-makers.” Let’s correct the record.

1. The Winebox Whakapapa: Fay & Richwhite

The media gushes about Annabel Fay being “anonymous” in Geneva. Why is she in Geneva? Because her father, Sir Michael Fay, and his partner David Richwhite, fled there after the Winebox Inquiry exposed the industrial-scale tax avoidance schemes they engineered in the Cook Islands, as revealed by NZ Herald.

• The Hustle: They didn’t just sell wine; they sold the sovereignty of the Cook Islands to facilitate tax evasion for NZ corporates.
• The Heist: They privatized New Zealand Rail and Telecom, netting millions in personal profit while minority shareholders and the New Zealand public lost out, as detailed by NZ Herald. They privatized the profits and socialized the losses.
• The Land: They “own” Ahuahu (Great Mercury Island). While they now “work with” Ngāti Hei, let’s not forget the power dynamic: two tax-exiled bankers holding mana whenua hostage on their private playground, while the original owners fight for recognition, as noted by GBIET.

Fay And Richwhite Are This Governments Type Of People

2. The Barricaders: The Spencer Family

The Spencers’ “success” in packaging and property are highlighted. It omits their decades-long war against the public of Aotearoa.

• The Siege: Patriarch John Spencer, and now his heirs Berridge and Mertsi, have spent millions fighting to block public access to Stony Batter on Waiheke Island. They barricaded roads, defied councils, and treated the coastline as their private fiefdom, as reported by NZ Herald.

• The Kingmakers: The Spencer Trust has been a funnel for donations to New Zealand First, greasing the wheels of political influence while hiding the hand that pours the oil, as investigated by RNZ.

  

3. The Carbon Barons: The Todd Family

The Todd Corporation is painted as a benevolent energy provider. In reality, they are the anchor that drags our climate ambition to the bottom of the sea.

• The Pollution: Todd Energy produces a third of NZ’s natural gas. While they claim a “net zero” ambition, they heavily fund lobby groups to fight meaningful regulation.
• The Political Insurance: The Todd family and their executives are prolific donors to the National Party, ensuring that when the “Fast Track” legislation comes through, their drilling permits are first in line, as confirmed by RNZ.

The Todd Family

The Compound Effect: How One Land Grant Became a Billion-Dollar Fortune

Stealing Land

Part Two: The Whiteness is By Design

The Head Start: The Great Land Heist

The “hard work” narrative collapses when you look at the starting line.

• The Mechanism: The New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 allowed the Crown to confiscate millions of acres of fertile Māori land in Waikato, Taranaki, and the Bay of Plenty.
• The Transfer: This stolen whenua wasn’t just kept by the Crown; it was granted or sold cheaply to settler families—the ancestors of today’s “old money.” While Māori were forced into survival mode on marginal land, Pākehā families were given capital assets (land) that appreciated tax-free for a century. The “heirs” today are harvesting the dividends of that original theft.

The Wealth Gap: By the Numbers

The disparity is not a gap; it is a chasm engineered by policy.

• Median Net Worth: Data reveals the median net worth for Europeans is $138,000, compared to just $29,000 for Māori, as documented by Journal of NZ Studies.
• The Top 10%: The wealthiest 10% of New Zealand households (almost exclusively Pākehā) hold 59% of all the country’s wealth, while the bottom 50% (disproportionately Māori and Pasifika) own only 2%, as detailed by Te Ara.
• The Compound Effect: Wealth begets wealth. If your great-grandfather got a cheap Crown lease in 1900, you inherit a portfolio. If your great-grandfather had his land confiscated in 1863, you inherit a struggle.

The Myth of Meritocracy

They want you to believe these heirs are “earning their keep.”

Let’s be real:

• The Safety Net: An heir who “fails” in business falls back into a trust fund. A Māori entrepreneur who fails falls into poverty.
• The Connections: They grow up in a closed loop of private schools (King’s, Christ’s), private clubs, and boardrooms where deals are made on a handshake between families who have known each other for decades. It is an affirmative action program for the already-rich.
• The “Anonymous” Lie: The article praises Annabel Fay for being “anonymous” in Geneva. That anonymity is a luxury purchased with the proceeds of tax avoidance schemes—schemes that stripped the NZ tax base of funding that should have gone to hospitals and schools.

The Whiteness Is By Design

The Extraction Machine: How Intergenerational Wealth Feeds on Essential Human Services

They Are Feeding On You - Not Feeding You

Part Three: The Commodification of Life—The Hidden Extraction

But here is where the story gets darker. They list “jobs” like “Aged Care,” “Medical Clinics,” and “Water Infrastructure” as if they are neutral business sectors. They are not. These are sectors where profit is extracted directly from human vulnerability. This is Rentier Capitalism at its most parasitic—making money not by creating new value, but by capturing the essential services people need to survive.

The heirs are “earning their keep” by privatizing the mauri of our people.

The Privatization of Our Kaumātua (Elders)

The Cook family (Metlifecare founders, now LifeCare Residences) are celebrated for their “business acumen” in aged care.

• The Business Model: Aged care in New Zealand and the UK often relies on “Deferred Management Fees” (exit fees) of up to 30% of the unit’s value, as exposed by BBC News. This strips intergenerational wealth from your whānau to build theirs.
• The Reality: While they build “luxury” villages in London, the sector they helped pioneer in NZ is rife with understaffing and complaints about care quality, as documented by NZ Herald. The wealth of the Cook family is built on the commodification of our elders’ final years.

The Privatization of Health

James Fay (son of Michael Fay) is investing in “medical clinics run by Providence” (likely Exer More Than Urgent Care, a US-based chain), as noted by PR Newswire.

• The Shift: This represents a move into for-profit US healthcare—a system designed to extract maximum revenue from sick patients. It is the antithesis of the public health model we value in Aotearoa.
• The Danger: By celebrating this, the media normalizes the idea that healthcare is a legitimate asset class for the ultra-rich, rather than a human right.

This Is By Design

The Capture of Water (Te Mana o Te Wai)

There is a casual mention of NSI Management (Cliff Cook’s family office) investing in “water infrastructure”, as reported by NZ Herald.

• The Threat: As councils struggle with broken pipes and the government pushes “Local Water Done Well” (which encourages private investment), private capital is circling our water assets, as noted by Smart Water Magazine.
• The Hidden Agenda: When private equity invests in water, they expect a return. That return comes from you—through higher rates or water meters. They are positioning themselves to become the landlords of our most sacred resource, wai.

The Rentier vs. The Worker

They try to frame their activities as “work.”

• NSI Management: A “family office” isn’t a productive business; it’s a wealth preservation machine. Its sole purpose is to ensure the pile of money grows faster than inflation, tax-free.
• The Contrast: While a Māori nurse works a double shift in an underfunded public hospital, the Fay/Cook/Spencer heirs collect passive income from the very structures (private hospitals, aged care) that undermine the public system. They profit from the suffering they help create.

These Assholes Profit From Our Suffering

The Pattern: Land Theft → Tax Avoidance → Essential Services Capture

Look at the timeline. It’s not random.

1863: Crown confiscates Māori land, gifts it to settler families.

1990s: Descendants use those appreciated assets to fund tax avoidance schemes (Winebox). They strip the tax base that funds public services.

2025: With the public health, aged care, and water systems starved of funding, they move in—not to fix the problem, but to profit from it.

This is the whakapapa of greed. Each generation doesn’t just inherit wealth; they inherit the tools of extraction. They don’t have to do anything original. They just have to sit on the machine and watch the money flow.

The Whakapapa Of Greed

What “Earning Your Keep” Really Means

These assholes are not just individuals; they are avatars of a rot. They are the smiling faces of a system that requires Māori dispossession and working-class poverty to function.

They don’t have “jobs” in the way you do. They have extraction mechanisms.

They have moved from stealing land (1860s) to stealing the tax base (1990s Winebox) to now harvesting the essential needs of the population (health, aging, water).

This isn’t “earning their keep.” It’s keeping you poor.

To the “heirs”:

You did not earn this. You are custodians of stolen goods. The mauri of this wealth is poisoned with the tears of the dispossessed.

To You, My Whānau:

Your anger is the mauri of resistance. Don’t just fuck them with words. Fuck their influence. Expose their networks. Boycott their businesses. Organise your whānau. Build alternative systems. Move your money out of their banks. Support Māori-led initiatives. Every dollar you redirect is a dollar they can’t extract.

The ring is powered by rangatiratanga.

Use it.

What “Earning Your Keep” Really Means

Koha Consideration

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Every koha signals that whānau are ready to fund the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide. It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to fund our own truth tellers.

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

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

Verified Citations

NZ Herald - Winebox winners and losersppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws​

NZ Herald - The artful dodgerppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws​

GBIET - The Restoration of Ahuahuppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws​

NZ Herald - The Spencer family: How the other half livestandfonline​

RNZ - NZ First Foundation rich listers donatetandfonline​

RNZ - Why NZ political donations have tripledmdpi​

Journal of NZ Studies - Indicators of Inequality for Māorinzherald​

Te Ara - Income and wealth distributionnzgeo​

BBC News - Retirement villagestoddenergy​

NZ Herald - Dementia care investigationcarecca​

PR Newswire - Exer More Than Urgent Carenzherald​

NZ Herald - Intergenerational wealth articlewikipedia​

Smart Water Magazine - NZ water reformsgbiet​

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