There’s an old European custom called droit du seigneur — the lord’s right. According to legend, medieval nobles claimed the privilege of sleeping with any bride in their domain on her wedding night. Whether this actually happened as commonly as folklore suggests is debated by historians, but the principle is chillingly clear: power creates its own rules, and ordinary people must simply accept them.
I thought about this recently when reading the Independent Police Conduct Authority report on Jevon McSkimming. Here was New Zealand’s second-highest ranking police officer, accused of sexual misconduct with a young woman half his age. Instead of a proper investigation, senior police leadership orchestrated what can only be described as a cover-up. The victim ended up being charged. McSkimming nearly became Police Commissioner.
The parallels to medieval lordship are uncomfortable, but they’re there. Different century, different context, same fundamental dynamic: those at the top operate by different rules.
The Modern Lord and His Court
According to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, senior police leaders engaged in serious misconduct by mishandling sexual assault allegations against McSkimming. A 40-year-old deputy commissioner and a 21-year-old complainant. The power imbalance alone should have triggered alarm bells throughout the organisation.
Instead, what happened? Three senior staff members are now under investigation for their roles in what Police Commissioner Richard Chambers himself characterised as a cover-up. Officers didn’t follow policy. Some suggested it appeared McSkimming tried to eliminate the complaint by targeting the complainant herself.
Think about that. A woman makes serious allegations against one of the country’s most powerful police officers. Rather than receiving protection and support, she gets investigated and charged. The man she accused gets protected by his peers as they clear his path to the top job.
This is institutional power doing what it has always done: protecting the elite. McSkimming’s colleagues weren’t thinking about justice or accountability. They were thinking about their mate’s career prospects, about institutional reputation, about not making waves. Just as a medieval noble’s peers would never prosecute him for abusing a commoner, senior police wouldn’t properly investigate one of their own.
When Cabinet Becomes the Lords’ Council
If you think this is just about one rogue institution, consider what happened with New Zealand’s world-leading smokefree legislation. In December 2022, Parliament passed laws that would have banned tobacco sales to anyone born after January 1, 2009. The policy had support from academics, clinicians, Māori leaders, and the general public. Modelling suggested it would save 80,000 lives.
Then came the 2023 election. The new National-led coalition government, under pressure from its coalition partners, repealed the entire package in February 2024. Not because the science was wrong. Not because public opinion had shifted. But because they wanted to fund tax cuts with tobacco revenue.
Let that sink in. A small group in Cabinet overrode expert consensus, public health advice, massive public support, and international acclaim to reverse a policy that would have saved tens of thousands of lives. They did it in secret during coalition negotiations. They did it without a referendum or direct public consultation. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
This is the modern equivalent of the lords’ council making decisions for the realm. A handful of politicians in Wellington, operating with the legitimacy of a single election, wield enough concentrated power to reverse transformative public health policy because it suited their political convenience.
The Pattern That Repeats
What links these two cases — one about an individual abusing power, the other about collective elite decision-making — is the fundamental immunity from accountability that power confers.
McSkimming’s senior colleagues protected him because they could. The Cabinet reversed the smokefree laws because it could. In both cases, the institutional structures allowed small groups of powerful people to act in ways that served their interests rather than the public good, with minimal genuine oversight or consequence.
Recent polling tells the story. A majority of New Zealanders say the country is heading in the wrong direction. Government confidence ratings have plummeted. There’s a growing sense that ordinary citizens have less and less say in decisions that shape their lives, while those at the top operate in a different world with different rules.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.
Why This Keeps Happening
Our democratic system concentrates extraordinary power in the Cabinet. Once elected, a government can implement virtually any policy it wants for three years with almost no checks between elections. Coalition agreements happen behind closed doors. Minor parties can wield influence far beyond their electoral support. And voters? We get to express our opinion once every three years, then watch whatever emerges from the political horse-trading.
Within institutions like the Police, hierarchies naturally protect those at the top. Career incentives favour loyalty over accountability. Senior leaders know each other, socialise together, and share the same networks. When one of their own faces allegations, the institutional reflex is to protect, not investigate.
The IPCA report commended several police officers who displayed “commendable integrity and moral courage” by standing up to senior leadership. But they were the exceptions. They risked their careers to do what the system should have done automatically. That we celebrate their bravery reveals how broken the default accountability mechanisms actually are.
What Would Actually Change This?
The government’s response to the McSkimming scandal is to appoint an Inspector-General of Police. Another layer of oversight. Another appointed official. Will it help? Perhaps marginally. But it doesn’t address the fundamental problem: power protecting power.
My academic background is in political science, and I’ve spent years studying Switzerland’s direct democracy model. Here’s the difference: Swiss citizens can challenge government decisions through binding veto referendums. When Parliament passes a new law, citizens have 100 days to collect 50,000 signatures. If they succeed, the law goes to a nationwide vote. If voters reject it, the law is cancelled. It makes it much harder for small elite groups to act with impunity.
New Zealand could implement similar mechanisms. When Parliament passes a significant law, citizens would have a set period to collect enough signatures to trigger a binding veto referendum on that specific law. With that safeguard in place, we’d feel more confident giving governments four or five-year terms. Greater transparency in coalition negotiations would also help, but the veto referendum is the key check on elite power.
For institutions like the Police, we need genuinely independent oversight with teeth, not just appointed watchdogs. Remove conflicts of interest from senior investigations. Protect whistleblowers properly, with actual consequences for those who punish them. Transform the culture from “protect the institution” to “serve the public good.”
The Question We Must Answer
In medieval times, commoners knew the lords operated by different rules. There was no pretence of equality under the law. The system was explicitly designed to protect noble privilege.
We claim to be different. We say we’re a democracy where everyone is equal before the law, where government serves the people, and where power is accountable to the public.
But when a senior police officer can be protected by his peers despite serious allegations, when a small Cabinet can override massive public support and expert consensus to reverse life-saving legislation, when the only recourse for citizens is to wait three years and hope the next lot are better, are we really that different?
The McSkimming case and the smokefree reversal aren’t isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a deeper problem: we’ve built systems that allow power to protect itself. Whether that power resides in one influential individual or a handful of Cabinet ministers, the dynamic is the same. Different rules for different people. Immunity for the elite. Limited accountability for those at the top.
Medieval villagers couldn’t challenge their lord’s behaviour. In modern New Zealand, we supposedly can. But the mechanisms for doing so are weak, the barriers are high, and the incentives all favour the powerful maintaining their position.
The real question isn’t whether we have untouchable elites. Clearly, we do. The question is whether we’re willing to build the democratic safeguards needed to change that. Because without structural reform, we’re just waiting for the next McSkimming, the next policy reversal, the next time power decides to protect its own.
And hoping that somewhere, a few brave individuals will risk everything to do what the system should guarantee automatically.
Steve Baron is a New Zealand-based political commentator and author. He holds a BA with a double major in Economics and Political Science from the University of Waikato and an Honours Degree in Political Science from Victoria University of Wellington. A former businessman in the advertising industry, he founded the political lobby group Better Democracy NZ. https://stevebaron.co.nz
Don says:
Right on the money Steve. Out here in the Wairarapa we’ve got a saying – “same bull, different paddock” – and that’s exactly what this is. The blokes at the top looking after their own while the rest of us are expected to follow the rules they wouldn’t know if they tripped over them. City folk might be surprised by this carry-on, but anyone who’s dealt with Wellington bureaucrats knows damn well there’s one law for them and another for the rest of us – whether it’s police brass or any other bunch of suits protecting their patch.
Murray says:
The droit du seigneur analogy is particularly apt here, Steve, though in my experience teaching about power structures, my students used to struggle with understanding how these medieval dynamics persist in modern institutions. What’s most troubling about the McSkimming case isn’t just the alleged misconduct itself, but the systematic way senior leadership appeared to circle the wagons – behaviour that fundamentally undermines the principle that no one should be above the law. I’ve always believed that institutions like the police must hold themselves to higher standards precisely because of the extraordinary trust we place in them. The fact that the complainant ended up being charged while the investigation was allegedly derailed represents a complete inversion of justice that would have been familiar to any medieval peasant. This case should serve as a stark reminder that robust oversight mechanisms and genuine accountability are essential safeguards in any democracy worth the name.