such as heavily subsidised travel<\/a> and USB sticks that could carry spyware.<\/p>\nSome councils are now either reviewing their sister city set-ups or tightening internal security processes after intelligence advice. <\/p>\n
Hamilton City Council told the Herald in a statement that its review, which started last year, will continue under its new council. It values the partnerships it has with its sister cities and is also in close contact with the NZSIS around security. <\/p>\n
\u2018Attractive targets for espionage\u2019<\/p>\n
Foreign actors are aware of the power and importance of local government in New Zealand, Hampton told the Herald.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouncils are attractive targets for foreign state interference and espionage because they have decision-making powers over critical national infrastructure. They own controlling stakes in New Zealand\u2019s ports.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The NZSIS says one reason councils are targets for foreign interference and espionage is because they have decision-making powers over national infrastructure, such as Port of Auckland. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have authority over what can happen in public spaces: community events, protests. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they hold information on their constituents that could be useful to a foreign state. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike central government, local government is subject to less scrutiny from the media, they\u2019re more porous organisations, more connected to their communities,\u201d Hampton said. <\/p>\n
\u2018High-spending candidates\u2019<\/p>\n
Hampton would not be drawn on how voters can be sure they are electing people who are alert to the threats and not easily fooled.<\/p>\n
Dr Bryce Edwards, director of The Integrity Institute and politics lecturer at Victoria University, said it\u2019s tricky but there are a few things voters can evaluate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to think about integrity issues and the existence of any vested interests, and whether people standing for office are somehow beholden elsewhere. <\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The third New Zealand China Mayoral Forum was held in China in May. Some New Zealand mayors attended and others turned it down. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there is actually a growing scepticism in society about politicians and that\u2019s healthy. People no longer take everything at face value, voters are less naive. <\/p>\n
\u201cGlobally we\u2019re less trusting of institutions, candidates, parties, we\u2019re already suspicious of promises, ties to things behind the scenes. I\u2019m optimistic that people can\u2019t easily have the wool pulled.\u201d <\/p>\n
Edwards doesn\u2019t think there are any particular signs voters can look for beyond that. <\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you can ethnically profile and wonder what countries they have links to, but that can also be dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said voters should be on the lookout for high-spending candidates with a lot of advertising and a lot of billboards. \u201cIf it\u2019s flashy it means they have a lot of resources \u2013 or someone else is funding it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with that but I think that\u2019s probably the easiest shortcut to find out how someone could be beholden to someone else.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ultimately, he asked, how much should voters be expected to investigate these things? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incumbent on the media and academics to be scrutinising councils. A lot of trips mayors and councillors go on are quite questionable and I think local government is under-scrutinised as part of the political system. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhether we can address it at election time is questionable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018They may target your staff or family\u2019 The shift is happening because central Government has strengthened its defences…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50327,50328,50323,2199,26519,7558,50326,2082,4756,9557,50325,440,111,43,139,69,50324,50329,479,2437,2552,27886,9939,8225,210,28355,5905,8222,1299,197,80],"class_list":["post-61178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-attempting","tag-bribery","tag-careful","tag-city","tag-councillors","tag-councils","tag-exploiting","tag-for","tag-foreign","tag-intelligence","tag-interfere","tag-local","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-persistently","tag-proxies","tag-relationships","tag-security","tag-service","tag-sister","tag-states","tag-target","tag-through","tag-trying","tag-vote","tag-warned","tag-who","tag-you","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61178","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=61178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}