Dear Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,

This letter is a formal request for information under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA).

1. Staff at HWT**

* A recent media article indicated that there are five staff members at the HWT. Could you please provide a breakdown of these roles and their corresponding annual salary bands (e.g., $50,000-$60,000)?
* Do any of the staff currently hold Terrorism, Defence or Security qualifications?
* How were these staff positions filled? Was there a formal application process? If so, when and where was this process advertised?
* Are these staff members solely employed by Victoria University, or are they affiliated with other universities as well?
* Are the students all on site ? if not how often are they engaged with ?
* Given that HWT is described as a scholarship management entity, could you please explain the rationale behind having five staff members?
* Are staff conducting research that is funded by HWT

2. Location of HWT**

* Is there a plan to rotate the location of HWT among different universities, or will it remain permanently at Victoria University?

3. Scholarship Awards**

* Please provide details on the number of scholarships awarded to students each year, and the universities associated with these scholarship recipients (excluding personal names). HWT only have Masters and PHD advertised on the website. Are there others?

4. Scholarship Application Screening**

* Could you clarify the process for screening scholarship applications? Are applications screened before being presented to the board, or does the board conduct its own screening?
* is there a priortisation of candidates for any reason ? charateristics - gender, race, culture for example ?
* If applications are pre-screened, who performs this screening? Is this process subject to peer review or external audit? For example how is bias managed.

5. HWT Associates**

* Please outline the recruitment process for HWT associates.
* Was there a formal application process in place? If so, were these applications subject to peer review or audit? when were they advertised ?
* Do the HWT associates sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) as part of their involvement?
* Are the associates financially compensated for their contributions? If so, could you elaborate on the associated costs?

6. PCVE Qualifications**

* Do any of the HWT staff or associates possess qualifications in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE)?
* If not have HWT engaged with someone who is qualified ?

7. Involvement of Postdoctoral People (Emma Rakete and Kyle Matthews) and Costs and Overseas Conferences and Travel**

* Does HWT engage with researchers beyond PhD students, such as recent graduates like Ms. Emma Rakete and Mr. Kyle Matthews? If so, could you clarify the nature of their involvement with the program?
* Were these opportunities for Ms. Rakete and Mr. Matthews publicly advertised?
* Are there are post doctoral researchers with HWT?
* Does HWT fund overseas conferences and travel for its staff, associates, or collaborating researchers? If so, could you provide details on the associated costs, the expected outputs or deliverables resulting from this travel/research/projects, and the selection process for such funding?

8. Security Oversight

Could you describe the oversight mechanisms in place to ensure HWT's research focus aligns with or is at least learning about national security priorities? terrorism?
Do any staff have experience or qualifications in Security, Defence or Policing ?
Are the students provided access to security scholars/experts?
Is HWT funding the 'Crime Media Culture journal? if so why ?

https://defsec.net.nz/2024/06/15/underst...

9 Financial Audit
Has there been a check and balance on spending at HWT this year ?
If so when?
Can HWT still meet its objective to fund PHD and Masters?
Or is it restricted due to the costs related to the above matters ?

Thank you for your time in responding to these queries.
While there are a few questions they should be very straight forward.
Thank you

Catherine

Dear OIA Requests,
I will be submitting a new request as there are still insufficent answers

1.2 A superficial answer and no specialities or qualfifications provided so that interfers that NONE of these people have any speclist knowledge . Yes it can be multi displicine but to have NO ONE knowledgable in terrorism, defence or security should be questioned.

The staffing seems very unethical given the centre was meant to be HOSTED by Victoria but seems it has become its own personal biased hub ? this is concerning as it violates the intent of the centre.

4.3 Center Manager does the screening - who audits this to ensure personal bias is not detrimental a nd the personal bias is very clear so it is a fair question.

ONLY a Monthly meeting for students so if they are NOT getting much from these people WHY are there FIVE staff. What do the students say about this ? Has DPMC asked them ?

Why no Non disclosure that is poor managment.
Why was the associate process not managed to prevent a silo this is poor management.

Yes. Two postdoctoral research fellows are employed to work exclusively on PVET research HOW were they chosen and again they seem to be very biased choices and nothing to do with the feild at all from their social media and other profiles.

7.1 they are people of one focus and typically anti-colonial anti-state how is that good .
7.3Post doc researchers seems to be a mate pick ? A victoria uni student own internal process. This appears very problematic and questionable. What costs are they ? and that surely has removed the ability to fund more masters and phd students as per the website.

12.900 GRAND for two trips and then all that added expense for the post doc people shoulder tapped by the manager.

Your answer
These are topics for investigation that can be addressed across a range of disciplinary areas. All staff employed by the university are suitably qualified for academic roles. It should be noted that the Centre’s brief is wider than experience in security, defence or policing and includes scholarly expertise in social cohesion research, peace, conflict and War studies (including military studies) and an understanding of political movements in Aotearoa. The funder, the HWT Board and Victoria University have approved the qualifications, experience and knowledge that staff bring to bear on research at the Centre.

Response: So your answer tells us they have no one , they don't care what that feild offers and they ignore those academics. This is not a balanced research centre and in now way does this appraoch actually serve the intent of the Royal Commission and I can now see why questions were raised. This again provides the picture of a new silo group that cannot see its own fallacies and bias.

8.4 That research assistant is a professor at Victoria University from my other enquiries so again the internal bias here and I would say the money clutching within Victoria Uni walls is seriously concerning. Especially on a journal that reportantly has no credientials in the issues,

The answers around how HWT is being managed make no sense and it seems to have been taken on a biased enclosed silo journey far from what it was intended it appears. Disappointing as it risks the wrath of the government who want to cut funds. This is to the detriment of NZ. Honesty this is disappointing. What was meant to be a bipartisan student research focused centre appears to be a Victoria University self serving huddle without diversity and only serving the interests of the 'selected' and their friends. I had hoped these answers would ease concerns and provide reassurances but they raise more concerns. This management approach is going to be or already is detriemental to NZ and not what the Royal Commission appears to outliine. Thie ones that will lose from this silo and bias are the wider students, at least that was not as siloed to Vic as I thought , and NZ as a whole that want this work done. Victoria appear to be money making and appointments made to suit the worldviews of the uni and the manager. The board need to do some self reflection here. There needs to be a change of management and it should be rotated around the universities to stop this type of concerning appraoch happening.

Yours sincerely,

WGJ