The kiwi lacks some feathers

Susan Grossey may be contacted on +44 (0)1223 563636, susan@thinkingaboutcrime.com, www.thinkingaboutcrime.com

Over the past few years, writes Sue Grossey, there have been several occasions on which I have been tempted to write to Jacinda Ardern, asking her if she’d like to adopt me. (I’ve considered Angela Merkel as well, but I prefer meat pies to bratwurst, and at this age I can learn new vowels but probably not a whole new language.) The attraction of Jacinda is that New Zealand seems to do so quietly well at everything. When a terrorist attacks them, they refuse to say his name and instead talk about community and recovery. And when a virus attacks them, they lock down, close borders, take all sensible precautions – and work together to continue life pretty much as normal. So when the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published their April 2021 mutual evaluation report (MER) of New Zealand’s AML regime [1], I had high hopes.