Te Rōpū Whakahau | Establishment Advisory Group

Professor Tracey McIntosh

Tracey McIntosh, MNZM, is Ngāi Tūhoe and is Professor of Indigenous Studies and Co-Head of Te Wānanga o Waipapa (School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies) at the University of Auckland.

She was the former Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence. She previously taught in the Sociology and Criminology programme at the University of Auckland. In 2018-2019 she was a member of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group and Te Uepū Hapai i te Ora - The Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group. She is the Chief Science Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development.

Her recent research focused on incarceration (particularly of Māori and Indigenous peoples) and issues pertaining to poverty, inequality and social justice. She recognises the significance of working with those that have lived experience of incarceration and marginalisation and acknowledges them as experts of their own condition. She has a strong interest in the interface between research and policy.

Professor Elisabeth McDonald

Elisabeth McDonald MNZM has established teaching and research interests in legal issues related to criminal law, criminal justice, the law of evidence, gender and sexuality.

She has particular expertise in regard to the evidential and procedural rules relating to the prosecution of sexual offences. Elisabeth is also widely published in the area of evidence and has been a regular consultant to the Law Commission in this area, as well as many others.

Currently a Professor of Law at the University of Canterbury, Elisabeth has been Co-Convenor of the Women’s Consultative Committee of the New Zealand Law Society, a Board member of the Intersex Trust of Aotearoa New Zealand, a committee member of the Wellington Women Lawyers Association and organiser of the 1993 Suffrage Centennial Women in the Law Conference. In 2014 she edited a special issue of the VUWLR, honouring the first woman law graduate from Victoria University. She was a Co-Convenor and Co-Editor of the Law Foundation funded Feminist Judgments Project Aotearoa (Hart, 2017) and a member of the NZLS Working Group on Harassment. In June 2018 she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Law and Education.

Dr Anna Sandiford

Dr Anna Sandiford is a Senior Forensic Science Consultant who started her forensic science career in 1998 and has many years’ experience in New Zealand and overseas.  Her expert witness history includes expertise in alcohol toxicology/drink driving (particularly alcohol calculations), drug driving, drugs, footwear, glass, physical fits and pollen.

Since starting The Forensic Group, an independent forensic science consultancy, in 2008, Dr Sandiford has developed expertise in managing and advising on large and complex cases, having been involved in multiple high-profile cases including the 2009 Bain retrial, the 2015 Lundy retrial, the 2015 Privy Council decision of an unsafe conviction of Teina Pora for the murder of Susan Burdett, and many others.

She has been referred to as ‘the expert on experts’ and is author of Forensic Science and the Law: a guide for police, lawyers and expert witnesses (Thomson Reuters, 2nd edition 2019) and the general interest book Expert Witness (HarperCollins, 2011).

Associate Professor Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni

Associate Professor Suaalii-Sauni currently teaches in the Criminology Programme at the University of Auckland. She completed both undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Auckland. She held teaching fellow, research fellow, lecturing and deputy director positions within the University of Auckland's Department of Sociology, Department of Māori and Pacific Health, and Centre for Pacific Studies from 1998-2008. She moved to the University of Otago to take up a senior research fellow position with the Centre for International Health based at the National University of Samoa in Apia from November 2008 to July 2011.

Following this she took up senior lecturer and programme director positions with Victoria University of Wellington's (VUW) Va'aomanu Pasifika Unit from 2011 to 2016. Ms Suaalii-Sauni returned to the University of Auckland in October 2016 as Associate Professor in Sociology/Criminology, School of Social Sciences. As well as working for the university sector, Associate Professor Suaalii-Sauni has also held honorary and part-time senior researcher and programme evaluator roles in the state and private sector: mainly with the Waitemata District Health Board's Clinical Research and Resource Centre (2003-2008), and with (as co-director) Pacific Research and Development Services Ltd (1998-2003). Associate Professor Suaalii-Sauni was a member of the Superu and VUW central ethics committees.

Tim McKinnel

Mr McKinnel began his career as a police officer in South Auckland at the age of 22. His experiences working on the front lines pushed him towards the more inquiring, investigative side of policing. Mr McKinnel has a particular interest in criminal justice, human rights and environmental investigations. After leaving the police force he did contract investigative work in London for three years and in 2008 set up a North Island branch of Zavest, a private investigation company. Mr McKinnel holds a Masters degree in Social Science.

Mr McKinnel was a finalist in the NZ Herald 2015 Person of the Year awards for his work on the Teina Pora case, leading the investigation that overturned Mr Pora's wrongful convictions for rape and murder. He continues to work on wrongful conviction cases. In addition to New Zealand based projects, Mr McKinnel has spent recent years leading human rights and environmental investigations in South East Asia, West Africa and the Pacific.

Nigel Hampton CNZM, OBE, KC

Mr Hampton is one of the country’s foremost criminal lawyers, a King’s Counsel since 1989. He is one of New Zealand’s few internationally recognised lawyers in the criminal law scene. Mr Hampton’s sharp mind and legal ability have placed him at the forefront of the New Zealand criminal bar.

He has most recently been involved in the establishment of the New Zealand Public Interest Project designed to review cases such as those like Teina Pora, which have fallen through the cracks in the system. He will therefore bring the views of a key stakeholder group into the design of the CCRC.

In addition to his work at the bar, Mr Hampton has also served as the Chief Justice of Tonga in the mid-1990s, as well as on many educational, sporting and charitable organisations, including Law Society committees and tribunals, New Zealand and Pacific litigation skills programmes and national and international judicial tribunals for various sporting codes (most recently at Rugby World Cup 2019).

He was the first Commissioner of discipline of counsel before the International Criminal Court (ICC), was subsequently elected as an alternate member of the Disciplinary Appeals Board for ICC counsel, and is presently the elected presiding member of the Disciplinary Board for ICC counsel.