{"id":450694,"date":"2026-05-29T07:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450694\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T07:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:01:09","slug":"department-of-conservation-launches-external-investigation-over-debt-relationships-with-iwi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450694\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of Conservation launches external investigation over debt, relationships with iwi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DOC\/Department<\/p>\n

\nDOC would not make any further comments on next steps until they had considered the findings of the external review.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/ Nick Monro\n<\/p>\n

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has launched an external investigation following concerns regarding relationships with iwi and processes such as procurement and debt management.<\/p>\n

The revelations come after RNZ approached DOC on Friday with a series of questions regarding its Northern North Island region.<\/p>\n

In a statement, DOC’s Deputy Director-General Public Affairs Sia Aston told RNZ they were aware of concerns raised about how the region had “managed relationships with iwi and processes including contracting, procurement and debt management”.<\/p>\n

“We are taking these very seriously. We have completed an internal review which confirmed some of these concerns are valid and we need to understand more about them.<\/p>\n

“We’ve agreed some immediate steps to lift our game on, including ensuring compliance with DOC’s established policies and procedures.<\/p>\n

“We have also launched an external investigation to help us understand the full picture.”<\/p>\n

Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz<\/p>\n

Aston said DOC would not be making any further comments on next steps until they had considered the findings of the external review.<\/p>\n

“DOC is committed to working alongside iwi. We will engage constructively with iwi as we work through these matters.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOC would not make any further comments on next steps until they had considered the findings of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-450694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}