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Zealand is an island country located in the southwestern part in the pacific ocean.it is 268021km squared in size. It is situated some 900 miles east of Australia across Tasman Sea and is roughly 600 miles south of pacific island areas. Due to its remoteness it is believed to be one of the parts of the world that were last to be inhabited in the world.

The country’s political system is a unitary parliamentary representative democracy frame work. It is a nation that is based on constitutional monarch in which a queen is a sovereign head of state symbolically. The queen and the governor general is politically neutral. The government ministers are appointed from the elected members of parliament and comprise the main decision-making body of the government. The prime minister is the chair of the cabinet hence head of state.

The country has a multiparty system with many parties .however the two most dominant parties historically in the country are the National party and the labor party. The country’s prime minister currently is known as Bill English from the governing party, The National party. Parliamentary elections in the country are held on a basis of three year period with the most recent elections being those that were done in September this year

Politically New Zealand’s is considered to be very stable. The judicial system in the country is highly independent and the coexistence between the various arms of the government in the country has proved this easy to provide the required peaceful environment and tranquility in the country for its citizens. This is supported by the fact the country was 4th most peaceful country and at less risk of violence to disrupt peace (Global Peaceful Index, 2015).

New Zealand is formed from a democratically elected House of Representatives. The Government advises the Sovereign (our head of State). By convention, the Sovereign, the source of all executive legal authority in New Zealand, acts on the advice of the Government in all but the most exceptional circumstances. This system is known as a constitutional monarchy.

New Zealand government is based on the principle that power is distributed across three branches of government — Parliament, the Executive, and the Judiciary. Parliament makes the law. The Executive (Ministers of the Crown also known as the Government) administers the law. The Judiciary interprets the law through the courts.

New Zealand’s head of State is the Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand. The Governor-General is the Queen’s representative in New Zealand.

New Zealand has no single written constitution or any form of law that is higher than laws passed in Parliament. The rules about how our system of government works are contained in a number of Acts of Parliament, documents issued under the authority of the Queen, relevant English and United Kingdom Acts of Parliament, decisions of the court, and unwritten constitutional conventions.

New Zealand’s Parliament consists of the Sovereign and the House of Representatives. The Sovereign’s role in Parliament includes opening and dissolving Parliament, and giving the Royal assent to bills passed in the House of Representatives.

New Zealand’s Parliament is unicameral. This means it has only one chamber (the House of Representatives) and there is no upper house such as a senate.

The House of Representatives consists of members of Parliament who are elected as the people’s representatives for a term of up to 3 years. The usual number of members of Parliament is 120, but there are electoral circumstances when this could vary.

‘Responsible government’ is the term used to describe a system where the Government is formed by appointing Ministers who must first be elected members of Parliament. It means that in New Zealand the Government can stay in power only while it has the support (‘confidence’) of the majority of House of Representatives. This support can be tested in a confidence vote, such as passing the Budget. Ministers are responsible to Parliament, both collectively for the overall performance of the Government, and individually for the performance of their portfolios.

New Zealand’s House of Representatives is elected using the mixed member proportional representation (MMP) voting system. Each elector has two votes — one for a local member of Parliament and one for a preferred political party. Political parties are represented in Parliament in proportion to the share of votes each party won in the party vote in the general election.

The Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives is the highest officer elected by the House. The position is third most important constitutionally, after the Governor-General and the Prime Minister. The current Speaker is The Right Honorable David Carter. 

Parliament in New Zealand makes laws and holds the Government to account for its policies, actions, and spending. Parliament consists of the Sovereign (represented in New Zealand by the Governor–General) and the House of Representatives. Both have important work to do.

The Sovereign’s role

The Sovereign’s role in Parliament is to:

· call Parliament to meet

· dissolve Parliament

· Grant Royal assent to bills passed in the House so that they become laws.

The House of Representatives’ role

The House’s role is to:

· provide the Government (Executive) from amongst its members

· make new laws and update old laws

· represent the people

· examine and approve Government taxes and spending

· Hold the Government to account for its policies and actions.

New laws begin as documents called bills. Bills are drafts of proposed new laws. Parliament considers several different types of bill in formal stages. If they pass through all those stages they become new laws, called Acts of Parliament.

Government and Corruption

Various global rankings by various bodies do put countries/categorize countries in accordance to perceive level of corruption as per the surveys done and findings collected as well as opinion gathered (Transparency International, 2016). Any government that is highly corrupt has got high levels of bribery activities at almost every level and there is little effort to combat it.

New Zealand government has very low cases of corruption and corruption related activities and hence basically corruptions possess no problem as a major threat especially to the members of the New Zealand government. Actually the country was the least corrupt country in 2017 in the global rankings (Transparency International, 2017). This has been very consistent position over many years with New Zealand finding itself at the near top of these indexes in most of the rankings. This puts regularly expanding requests on the assets of NZFSA with regards to overseeing dangers that effect on the New Zealand natural way of life.

This is particularly genuine while recognizing developing risks related with changing horticultural hones and new handling advances, and applying fitting control measures. Further, numerous sustenance that may can possibly produce antagonistic wellbeing impacts are in the meantime fundamental parts of a sound abstain from food, with the outcome that they can posture especially intricate chance administration and correspondence challenges. Household drivers of progress the consistent idea of the worldwide and household nourishment condition implies that new and rising risks somewhere else on the planet definitely effect on household New Zealand partners and buyers.

Specific concerns raised by residential shoppers add to the scope of potential perils that must be tended to by NZFSA. Cases of territories of expanded shopper mindfulness what's more, concern incorporate nourishing deficiencies in diets and allergens in nourishments. NZFSA has an expanding center around nourishment and works to encourage New Zealand buyer decisions that help better wellbeing

The country has a number of incidences that indeed echo the fact that it is a less corrupt country in the world. These range from the rankings of (Transparency International, 2014), ( Transparency International, 2015) and (Transparency International, 2016) actually it is estimated that only 2 percent of New Zealand public civil service workers do receive or are involved in bribery activities annually ( World bank, 2015).

Measures to combat corruption

Even with these minimal cases the measures put in place to combat the corruption cases in New Zealand by its government have been enormous and impressive and can be emulated by other nations. The country has a tough judicial system that is coupled with strict regulations that have helped a great deal to New Zealand finding itself in such an impressive rankings as far as corruption index rankings is concerned. It’s worth noting that New Zealand is even a signatory to the OECD convention on combating bribery. For instance in the year 2012, New Zealand government prosecuted 265 people for engaging in corruption and corruption related activities. (Pope, J. (2000). 

The long impressive corruption story of New Zealand which is basically at minimal levels has gone a long way into giving the important impression to the world that the country is one of the safe havens for prosperity and business and investments together with the peaceful and tranquility nature of the country since independent. Scott, R. J., & Boyd, R. (2016).

Due to the low levels of corruption not much effort is being directed towards the fight of corruption in the country although there are measures in place to deal with the minimal cases. For instance the judicial and the legislative measures to combat the same. Pope, J. (2000). 

References

Pope, J. (2000). Confronting corruption: The elements of a national integrity

system. Transparency International.

Scott, R. J., & Boyd, R. (2016). Collective impact in the Public Sector:

The New Zealand Results approach.