27 February 2026
John Luke
[FYI request #33612 email]
SSOIA26-04
Dear John,
Thank you for your email of 29 January 2026 to my Of ice requesting, under the Of icial
Information Act 1982 (the Act), the following information:
I noted, you have recently made Appointments to the Financial Markets Authority
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gazette.govt.nz/notice/id/2026-go73__;!!Asq5-
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May I ask how you called for public nomination and on what platform you have call for
public nominations e.g. govt.jobs website. A copy of your ad and pay rate for the role
as well. Also, how many applications you have received for each of the role from the
public and how many you have received from other nominating agencies such as TPK
or Ministry of women etc for your role. How many you have shortlisted and how many
you have interviewed. Also, can I request to view the appointment letter if there is one
sent to the appointee.
Please see below my response to each part of your request.
• Public nominations were sought through Jobs.govt.nz, Seek.co.nz, LinkedIn and the
MBIE website.
• A copy of the advert and position description for the Board member position is
released to you in full and enclosed with this response.
• The Deputy Chair role was not advertised. Under the Crown Entities Act 2004
, for
independent Crown entities
, the
Governor-General
, on the advice of the Minister,
may appoint an existing board member
as Chair
or Deputy Chair.
Therefore, there is
no requirement to advertise the Deputy Chair role. The position description for the
Deputy Chair role is released to you in full and enclosed with this response.
• Remuneration for the Board members and the Deputy Chair is determined by the
Remuneration Authority and is personal to the individual.
• The advert was also circulated through nominating agencies, specifically the Ministry
for Women, Ministry for Ethnic Communities, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, Ministry of
Disabled People, and Te Puni Kokiri. Caucus and coalition colleagues were invited to
nominate candidates. The current member whose term is expiring was invited to
apply for reappointment.
• We received 24 applications for the member – regulatory systems role and 20
applications for the member – customer perspectives role.
• We did not receive any applications via nominating agencies or Ministerial nominees.
• We shortlisted and interviewed five candidates for the member – regulatory systems
role and four candidates for the customer perspective’s role.
• Copies of the four appointment letters are also enclosed with this response. In the
case of Christopher Swasbrook, it was a reappointment. Please note that some
information in these letters is withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the Act to protect the
privacy of natural persons. I do not consider that the withholding of this information is
outweighed by public interest considerations in making the information available.
I trust you wil find this information useful.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz
or freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely,
Hon Scott Simpson
Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs