NZ's Massey Evades Disclosure Obligations on Legal Fees: What Are You Hiding, and Who's Paying?

Massey's Latest Sleight of Hand: SO Tiresome. They Expect Us to Believe they Haven't Spent A Dime on Legal Fees. They Just Tweaked the Scope of the OIA. SO Transparent.

The following article was published May 7, 2026 on The Customer & The Constituent NZ as the second in a three-part series documenting just one of the many ongoing elements of a co-ordinated Massey University and Veterinary Council of New Zealand accountability evasion strategy.

It is republished here as part of IIIVE's coverage of how publicly-funded institutions deploy statutory information request processes as instruments of obstruction rather than transparency.

This article documents Massey University's response to three successive OIA requests regarding its external legal expenditure in the Harry Kelly matter — and the scope trick at the heart of that "response".

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In February 2026, I filed an Official Information Act request asking Massey University four straightforward questions about its external legal expenditure in the Harry Kelly matter.

The key question was: How much has the University spent on Buddle Findlay and other external advisors (with the other questions being, what work in progress costs were accruing, what the letters of engagement covered, and which budget was funding the spend)?

I since submitted a further request because the first one wasn't particularly convincing. I asked for the University's legal spend on the Harry Kelly matter since February 14.

Massey's April 24 response, signed by Chief of Staff Jodie Banner, evaded the core question (which, as you will see, rendered all the others moot), in predictable keeping with Massey's trademark dishonest modus operandi.

Here was my core question:

"All invoices and fee notes 

"All invoices, bills, fee notes, and statements received by Massey University from any external legal counsel or specialist advisors, litigation support providers, communications advisors, public relations consultants, or any other external advisors engaged in connection with the death of Harry Kelly at the Massey University Companion Animal Hospital on December 1 2025, and any complaints, correspondence, investigations, media inquiries, or proceedings arising from that matter."

Here was Massey's Jodie Banner's "answer" (the answer you have when you're not having the answer to the question you actually asked):

"There have been no invoices, bills, fee notes, or statements received by the Massey University Companion Animal Hospital  from external legal counsel, specialist advisors, litigation support providers, communications advisors, public relations consultants, or any other external advisors. As noted in our previous response to you on 16 March 2026, we confirmed that the university engaged the services of Buddle Findlay in relation to this matter and that all costs were paid for from a centralised university professional services budget centre."

See the sleight of hand? They changed the scope. That is, they changed the question from "invoices . . . received by Massey University", to "invoices . . . received by the Massey University Companion Animal Hospital".

No, of course there haven't been any invoices received by the Companion Animal "Hospital", Ms Banner. Because that's NOT the entity being billed by Buddle Findlay and/or other legal etc services providers with whom I remain wholly unconvinced you're not racking up substantial ongoing fees for a matter - with the multiple component matters - of this gravity. Especially when you've already engaged Buddle Findlay long before the hot mess you've created for yourselves both before and ever since your venerable "Dean" Jon Huxley's January 30 legal threat to me, cc'ing that very expensive national law firm.

The entity being billed is the overall entity i.e. Massey University itself - or some strategically worded cost centre thereof. Or maybe even some convenient subsidiary somewhere.

So back to the ol' drawing board and let's see how you get around OIA Number Three on the exact same topic:
 

From: editor@consumeraffairswriter.com
Sent: Thursday, 7 May 2026 4:53 pm
To: 'OIA Requests' <oia@massey.ac.nz>
Cc: 'R.L.Ferguson@massey.ac.nz' <R.L.Ferguson@massey.ac.nz>
Subject: RE: 05/2026 - Request from Ms Kelly - 16.03.2026 - Response

Dear Ms Banner / Governance and Assurance Office:

Under the Official Information Act 1982, I write in response to your April 24, 2026 reply to my OIA request REF#05/2026, and submit a third request on the same subject matter.

In your April 24 response, you answered my question regarding invoices and fee notes by reference to "the Massey University Companion Animal Hospital" – a deliberate and transparent narrowing of the scope of my question, which asked about Massey University.

I therefore request, for the period December 1, 2025 to the date of this request:

• All invoices, bills, fee notes, and statements received by Massey University – NOT the Companion Animal Hospital specifically, but the university as a whole, including any centralised budget centre, professional services cost centre, or any other financial vehicle through which the likes of external legal, advisory, communications, or public relations costs are processed – in connection with the death of Harry Kelly, and any complaints, correspondence, investigations, media inquiries, or proceedings arising from that matter.

• All unbilled, accrued, deferred, or work-in-progress costs currently recorded or held in any form in Massey University's financial systems in relation to this matter – including any arrangement whereby invoices are held, batched, or issued on a periodic or retainer basis rather than per engagement, or subject to any form of delayed arrangement, or billed to alternative sources or atypical cost centres, sources or subsidiaries, and the total value of any such costs accrued to date regardless of whether a formal invoice has been issued or received.

• The name of every external firm engaged by Massey University in connection with this matter from December 1, 2025 to the date of this request, regardless of whether invoices have yet been received.

• A copy of the scope of engagement, letter of engagement, or instruction brief issued to Buddle Findlay and any other external firm engaged in connection with this matter – specifically the described scope of work, the fee structure or billing arrangement, and the name of the Massey University officer who authorised the engagement. (Note: Detailed legal strategy may be redacted under s9(2)(h), but the scope of engagement and fee structure are requested in the public interest of financial accountability of a publicly funded institution.)

I would also remind you that you have a large number of items from previous OIA requests – including but not limited to one particular and especially crucial OIA request with multiple information requirements that you have ignored in its entirety – that are now many weeks or months overdue. These will be the subject of a reminder email shortly.

I look forward to your response within the statutory time frame. And I indeed do ask that it actually BE within the statutory time frame.

Yours sincerely

Jordan Kelly (Ms)