Why Crux is leaving the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce

Do we live in the world capital of secrecy?

When the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce hired council consultant Ruth “ZQN7” Stokes (above right) as their full time Chief Executive in January 2021 many Crux readers genuinely asked “Is this a joke?”

Mrs Stokes was the focus of many years of Crux research that exposed a new breed of “super consultants” who appeared to have the freedom to work for multiple local councils at the same time while billing those councils for a full days work - but, to be clear, we found out that this was not in any way dishonest or illegal as the councils involved all told Crux that this was “normal practice” and “declared.”