Ghost of NZ Skeptics past

How the Labour government gave $90,000 to a “ghostbuster”

When we started the NZ Skeptics Calendar project last year, the first place Mark Honeychurch and I turned to was our own archive. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as fruitful as it could have been, as editors past had removed all references to dates and newspapers from the clippings published. Still, there was one story that intrigued me…

Haunted me, even.

Tucked into Issue 20 of the NZ Skeptic Magazine (June 1991) are three articles about the shenanigans of one Kevin John Barnard. The timing of this incident makes it difficult to research unless you are certain about what you are looking for: digital archives currently exclude newspapers from this time period, and there are restrictions to accessing police/court records. Nga Taonga were helpful in sending me a shortlist of what one network news piece on the debacle aired, but a pressing conservation project has put a stop to the processing of any personal requests for media until 2025. Of the three clippings the NZ Skeptics published at the time, I was only able to locate one amongst the microfilm; still, I was also able to locate several more. I have not exhausted all avenues, including the National Archives as well as any documents/files from the Northern Clerical Workers Union to the Alexander Turnbull Library.

But for now, here is the story…..

In August 1990, an enterprising University of Waikato student had an ambitious plan that required a fair bit of capital to get started. The student was 28 year-old, Dunedin-born, Kevin Barnard - A self-described genius with an IQ of 200, with no formal university qualifications and a bankruptcy to his name. Barnard had attended Massey to study philosophy, and was then studying management at the University of Waikato.

Barnard first approaches the Hamilton Business Development Centre and applies for more than $250,000 in grants. Centre manager Barry Quayle took a few hours to review the application, and determined that the institute was not eligible to be funded by the centre (The Dominion, 22/05/1991). Amongst Quayle's objections was Barnard's inability to show financial capability that would assure the centre that the project would be suitable for funding; it lacked a strategy for developing and establishing the project as a business. Kevin was also, as far as Quayle could determine, either bankrupt or had only recently become formerly bankrupt. As it was later revealed, Barnard's bankruptcy was only discharged four months prior in May 1990, and a credit warning issued by the Justice Department in 1989. Mike Munro's article in the June 11th edition of The Dominion also mentioned that Barnard had been in jail prior to August 1990.

Even more interesting is that this application was submitted under the name of Paul Simeon Budvietas, whereas Barnard was the one who was in front of all business dealings.

Undeterred, Barnard submitted a different application to the Restart employment scheme, through the Employment Service in Hamilton. The Restart programme was an initiative of the Labour Government, intended to get long term unemployed persons back into work, and it offered a weekly wage subsidy of $346 for each person hired under the scheme. Approval was given at a regional level instead of at the national office.

We know a little bit about this application, and the ambitious three-fold plan Barnard had for his New Zealand Institute of Parapsychology (NZIP):

• Exploratory research into Kirlian photography to study the mechanical relationships of new energy structures on the body and the development of diagnostic equipment. This would be achieved by comparing medical data with Kirilian photography;
• Develop quantum particle analysis of Kirilian-type energy fields
• Paranormal ethnographic research, the quantitative investigation of religious and paranormal phenomenon in indigenous people of the South Pacific;
• Exploratory research into the assessment methods of Type-A paranormal phenomena such as ghosts and poltergeists.

Well, that's how Richard Long in the May 17th, 1991 edition of The Dominion interpreted it. In the uncredited article in the NZ Skeptic, Minister of Employment Maurice McTigue did release the original 24-page application in all of its dumpster fire glory, which included gems such as:

• Aotearoa spelt as Aeteroa or Aetreroa
• Stage three of the project “... is to be conduction by the institute in the greater populous of Aotearoa…Tarpoos [sic], morai [sic] magic. And there [sic] effect on the community as a hole [sic]

Barnard also had lofty goals for his employees:

• “ Through NZIP… a maximum of 12 persons shell [sic] be employed from the long term, unemployed body of Aetreroa's [sic] populous [sic] with a mean IQ of 150+. These persons will be divisible [sic] into three teams of fore [sic] persons per team”
• Management skills
• Four or five of them would need doctorates (but that's okay because Barnard stated that there were already two on staff).
• “The individual will not be expected to learn 30 to 40 languages but will instead by [sic] working with one of the most advance sic Optical Cariture [sic] Recondition [sic] Programs in the world”

It took the Employment Service 20 days, but it did approve the scheme for one year, and paid out a six week wage advance of $20,760 in October 1990. It then provided monthly wages totalling $70,000, until it all came crashing down in March 1991. The man who recommended the scheme for funding, and pushed it through the Labour Department, Craig Purcell, thought that the project stacked up well against other schemes, many of which he did not consider mainstream either. However, there was no investigation into Barnard's personal finances, so the Employment Service did not know that Barnard had a history of bankruptcy, nor that the parent body Barnard had listed, The Kevin Barnard Foundation Trust, was not a registered charity. The project was given the final sign-off by acting employment projects manager Mike Roderick.

A Dominion article by Rhy Mathias on 18/5/1991, reveals what happened next. Mathias reported that many of the students had degrees in psychology and science, but were not geniuses and didn't hold doctorate level degrees. Instead of research, they spent two months renovating and refurbishing the NZIP offices on Hamilton's London Street, as well as Barnard's penthouse suite which he shared with seven other people. Although Barnard had a 12-month rent-free lease in the former offices of the New Zealand Dairy Group, wages were paid late, and once the renovations were finished there was no money left to buy any equipment.

Despite Barnard's ability to charm the G-men to part with large amounts of cash, his employees claimed to have disliked Barnard immensely. They acknowledged that Barnard had an ability to convince people of anything, but said that he was essentially a poor manager. By March 28, 10 staff members complained to the Northern Clerical Workers Union that they had not been paid wages or holiday pay. It was the Union's preparation to go to the Labour Court to get back the $8000 owed in wages that finally brought the scheme to the attention of Restart administrators, and the project was shut down soon after.

Based on available records on this case, despite the case being brought to the attention of Restart at the end of March, much of the news kerfuffle happens between May 15th -18th 1991, and include an investigation by Paul Holmes and Denis Dutton stating the obvious about Kirilian photography. Waikato University Psychology professor Richard Aukett had his feet put to the fire, as he was listed as the chairperson of the Kevin Barnard Trust. At the time, Aukett was profiled by his own university as having specialties in love, sexuality, intimacy, meditation, extra-sensory perception, transpersonal psychology-spirituality, the future of sport and welfare, rebirthing, primal therapy, psychotherapy, and the Gaia hypothesis.

Aukett would later be struck off the Psychologists Register for having a sexual relationship with a female patient while counseling her husband.

Prior to this, the biggest employment scheme embarrassment was the discovery that government funds went into an exotic underwear/sex shop on Cuba Street, an embarrassment that earned the moniker of the “Naughty Knickers Case”. On May 16th, McTigue announced a formal inquiry into the scheme, and an audit into other unusual schemes. McTigue also stated that the Restart scheme was being wound down by the National Government. A report was produced by auditor Graeme Wislang, but is currently not easily locatable online. Had no one complained, Barnard could have swindled at least $180,000.

As for Barnard, he was left having to pay off $58,000 in debts, with little to show for it. While the government auditors believed that no work was done, Barnard claimed otherwise. While a decent piece of research would have taken 5-6 years, his specific project was the only one to be completed; Barnard shared no further details, other than that it was a piece of computer hardware to conduct parapsychology research that had not been undertaken before, and had received interest from overseas. Whether that piece of hardware ever existed is unknown.

What is known is that on November 5th, 1991, a now 29-year old Kevin Barnard pled guilty to 46 charges of forgery. He was remanded on bail and according to all information that is free and verifiable, he drops off the face of the earth. In my research I have found multiple mentions of Kevin Barnard out there in the NZ and overseas news, documenting less than stellar behaviour, but as of yet I've not been able to make a concrete connection between these articles and the man profiled in this article. However, if I manage to find a solid link to these later cases of fraud and other scams, I will write a follow-up article documenting the continuing adventures of Dunedin's own Kevin John Barnard.