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It's been only two years since the first domino fell in the Great Finance Company Meltdown, but Suzanne Edmonds reckons she's aged by a decade in that time.
However, her own frustration and despair is trivial, she realises, compared with the anguish of the out-of-pocket investors she speaks to almost every day.
The co-founder of the lobby group known as Eufa (Exposing Unacceptable Financial Activities) is heartened by the fact that the Serious Fraud Office is delving into the affairs of at least three of the numerous investment companies that have either halted payments to clients or gone into receivership.
But investigations are proceeding at such a glacial pace she fears some elderly investors may not live to see justice done.
"People are now losing their homes. We've got people who have actually sold their homes because they were terrified of a fire sale and bad credit, and all that entails. They don't know what to do. They are scared and they are terribly frightened."
She has lost count of the number of older men who have simply burst into tears when telling her their story.
"They're crying and they're falling into my arms, and they are howling literally on my shoulder. And that's what's making the old men cry - it's the fear."
Edmonds has been campaigning on behalf of victims of fraud since the late 80s.
The problem with fraud as a crime, she notes, is that the devastation its victims experience is hard for other people to comprehend.
"Our street crime is visible, so we can address it," she says. "But sometimes I wonder if we're ever going to get serious about white-collar crime."
In fact, the Government did get serious about white-collar crime in the wake of the'87 sharemarket crash.
In 1990, it set up the Serious Fraud Office, modelled on a similar office in Britain. To prove just how serious it was, it gave the office special powers unavailable to the police, including the power to demand people produce documents, and come into the office for questioning.
Edmonds recalls being sceptical that the office would be given the resources to do its job properly.
Her fears proved founded, she says.
The SFO's first director, policeman-turned-lawyer Chas Sturt, became a friend.
"He always complained he didn't have enough resources," she recalls.
Nearly two decades on, New Zealand's SFO still has just 35 staff - a fraction of the number who work for its namesake in Britain. Surprisingly, it deals with a similar number of cases, albeit at a much less serious level.
But despite its growing workload, some remain sceptical about the office's effectiveness, and how it relates to other government departments. Two years ago, Britain decided to set up a new agency to fight organised crime, and once again, New Zealand looks set to follow.
Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), has the rather more sexy task of waging war on terrorism, cyber crime, people-smuggling and similar offences that increasingly operate across borders.
The New Zealand agency, to be known as the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of NZ (Ofcanz), is expected to target Asian and Eastern European crime rings, although its main focus is likely to be gang and drug networks.
But unlike Britain, our Government has decided not to keep the SFO as a separate agency, and will instead will make its staff, and those of Ofcanz, part of the police force.
However, the abolition of the SFO in its present form would require special legislation, and it is not yet clear whether the Government will have enough time to ensure it passes before the election. Although a parliamentary select committee that has been considering the law change is due to report its findings today, there are only a handful of sitting days left before MPs hit the hustings.
The National Party's justice spokesman, Simon Power, says although his party likes the idea of the new organised crime agency, it does not want to see the SFO abolished in order to get it.
Power believes Labour has badly misread the public mood on the issue, and says he will be surprised - and very angry - if it goes ahead.
"You are dealing with a fundamental constitutional change to the way we deal with fraud in New Zealand. At a time when finance companies are falling over at an alarming rate, it's just irresponsible of the Government to try to force legislation like this through the House right before an election."
Part of the SFO's problem, it seems, is that it has made few friends in its relatively short life. While it has scored some high-profile scalps over the years, NZ First leader Winston Peters - for one - has never forgiven it for choosing not to prosecute those involved in the so-called Winebox tax case, and a string of other potential scandals besides.
The fact that several learned judges also had difficulty grappling with whether the Winebox scheme was indeed fraudulent is sometimes overlooked.
In any case, David Bradshaw, who replaced Sturt as director in 1997, brought a very different style to the office.
Bradshaw had spent more than 20 years as chief legal adviser to the State Services Commission. He was once described by Law Commission president and former Labour Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer as a "model public servant - careful and determined".
While it's clear that charisma was not top of the list of attributes the new job required, his distaste for bureaucratic idiocy is nevertheless endearing.
Even though he retired from the job last year, Bradshaw is still media shy, and it could be argued that his indifference cost the office valuable publicity during his leadership. While some journalists appear to have taken this personally, it's an attitude Bradshaw appears to have applied to almost everyone.
His disdain for some of those in the police hierarchy, for example, is obvious in papers the Ombudsman ordered the Government to release to the New Zealand Press Association under the Official Information Act.
The papers backgrounding the decision to abolish the office are littered with remarkably frank comments from Bradshaw, who clearly became increasingly alarmed that his opinions were being ignored.
In a memo to Attorney-General Michael Cullen in August last year, for example, he noted: "One impact that no one in Wellington seems to appreciate will be the need for the police to recruit 34 new literate and competent staff, without sexual perversions as part of their make-up."
Although the SFO is a government department, it is required by law to act independently when considering investigations, or deciding to prosecute.
It's a responsibility Bradshaw took seriously. In 2000, for example, he enraged MPs by refusing to hand over advice the office received from Crown prosecutor Simon Moore about its chances of succeeding with a case against a crucial Winebox transaction.
But some found his passion for the job somewhat alarming. He made no secret of the fact that he believed civil liberties often got in the way of justice being done.
Perhaps aware that it was his last stand, in his last report to Parliament he described Sir Geoffrey's beloved Bill of Rights as "the rogue's charter".
"In complete contrast to the provisions of the Serious Fraud Office Act, the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act have been used to a large part by offenders to seek to avoid accountability for their actions and to prevent law enforcement agencies getting to the truth of a matter," he argued.
National's associate justice spokesman, Richard Worth, reflected the view of a few fellow lawyers when he wrote in a newsletter for his constituents last year that plans to abolish the office were a good idea.
"The Serious Fraud Office for a number of reasons has lost the confidence of a significant section of the community," he suggested.
"Some assert it behaves with a high-handed arrogance; more significantly there have been a number of substantial court losses in recent years where the judgment should have been made not to press or pursue charges."
Worth has since partly backtracked, noting in Parliament that Bradshaw's replacement, Grant Liddell, is "a competent director" with "an enviable reputation in the law".
While Bradshaw's opposition to the decision to scrap the office has been painted by ministers as understandable, given his role, he insists he is not actually opposed to the new agency.
What has upset him is a decision to change the way that staff would carry out their investigative work.
According to a handwritten note of an official meeting on the issue, the decision to change SFO powers was made "high, very high". Sir Geoffrey's name was mentioned.
Ironically, it was Palmer, as Attorney-General, who set up the SFO. But he appears to have had a change of heart over its special powers.
According to a Ministry of Justice paper, the Law Commission now considers such powers are justified "only in limited contexts" and that there are "insufficient controls upon and safeguards around their use".
Cullen also gave some insight into the reasons for scrapping the SFO when he told Parliament last September that he was uncomfortable that the SFO was answerable to him rather than the Commissioner of Police, given its investigative role.
"Therefore, the possibility arose and discussion occurred as to whether the two agencies should be combined, particularly given the fact that there is a change in the chief executive of the Serious Fraud Office due in the near future," he explained.
OFCANZ has been given much the same criteria as the SFO to consider fraud: it must be serious and/or complex. But somewhat alarmingly, the third criterion - "any relevant public-interest considerations" - was dropped from the draft legislation.
The omission is important, says Bradshaw, because without it there is the possibility that frauds involving smaller sums by public officials - such as the $150,000 or so of expenses that Auditor-General Jeff Chapman was caught fiddling - might get overlooked, or would be handed to the police to prosecute, with their more limited powers.
A section which allowed the office to liaise directly with Australian agencies was also dropped, as the police have a more bureaucratic system.
But it is the change in procedures which really concern him.
Under Ofcanz, staff would have to go to a judge, instead of the SFO director, each time they wanted a notice to compel someone to hand over documents or turn up for an interview. What's more, they would have to specify details such as the questions they wanted to ask.
Given that around 1000 such notices are sought each year, not only would running off to court waste thousands of hours of staff and judges' time, but unlike the director, judges - quite possibly different judges each time - would not be familiar with the intimate details of each case, says Bradshaw.
For examination orders, staff would have to persuade judges there was no other way of getting information - a situation which could get particularly complex if the judge wanted to challenge what is being asserted. In most cases, permission would also need to be sought from the Commissioner of Police, and in some cases even the Secretary of Justice as well.
After all that, the person being interviewed would not have to answer questions if they believed it would be self-incriminating.
The convoluted process would make it difficult to interview two or more people at the same time, says Bradshaw. And it could even force staff to resort to search warrants, which are far more intrusive.
"If you want to look at powers, look at the powers we have given police to deal with `terrorism', and how many cases of terrorism have we got in New Zealand? We can detain them, and search them, for something that is really remote for New Zealand. But look at what we do for serious fraud, which is right here and now. It's a joke for anybody other than the legal profession."
The day the new agency was announced, SFO staff didn't bother coming back to work after lunch and former staff admit morale is low. Several people have already left, and others are waiting to see what develops before deciding their next moves.
David Hassall, a former forensic accountant for the SFO who now works in the private sector, can't understand the logic behind the Government's plan.
"Why destroy an efficient organisation for something that nobody knows how it's going to go?" he says.
"Without wanting to take anything away from the police, the stuff they do is generally not nearly as complex. You're usually dealing with guys who have a lot of money, and can stall the process. While they'll still operate effectively, probably, you're going to have more failures, and people are going to get off, and there will be longer investigations."
Another former employee, Alex Tan, is more sanguine. A former cop who now works as a forensic accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tan admits he was initially opposed to the plan, but now believes staff will simply adapt.
While some ex-police staff may be reluctant to go back into a police environment, he thinks others will probably relish the chance to work on a greater variety of cases.
"I know senior management at the SFO have been working their arses off to make sure this works well, and make sure this is a success. The only downside of this whole thing is the level of uncertainty at the moment for everybody."
Contrary to claims by some politicians that corporate fraud appears to be on the wane, Tan believes that, if anything, the office's workload is likely to increase over the next couple of years.
"The current economic environment is such that the ingredients are there for more fraud to take place. The average time for a fraud to be discovered is about 12 to 18 months, so we will see a lag of fraud really coming to the surface this time next year or the end of next year."
While Tan has nothing but praise for the police he has worked with at PWC, Phil Roigard, a former SFO senior investigator who now works as a private eye, remains sceptical that the new agency will still give fraud the attention it deserves.
"The police, and even more so today, operate on a priority basis," he notes.
"Perhaps in the new organisation they'll have a slightly different hierarchy there which will remove it from police activity, but if they don't it's still going to be susceptible to the same pressures and prioritising as they have been traditionally, which means that fraud tends to suffer."
The SFO itself is already struggling with its current workload. In any year, it tends to juggle around 50 cases, but in the past couple of weeks it has taken on six major new files.
Although one new forensic accountant was recently hired to replace someone who left, another vacancy has yet to be filled. Liddell admits recruitment could become an issue.
"It's certainly an issue of some concern, certainly in the minds of staff ... given that we'll be having a different brand than we do at the moment," he says.
Liddell comes from the Crown Law Office, where he was most recently Acting Deputy Solicitor-General. He applied for Bradshaw's job before the Government decided to abolish the office, and at this stage has agreed to stay on only until it is transferred to Ofcanz - or until further decisions are made.
While he is understandably reluctant to reveal his personal view of the plan, he admits the situation is stressful for staff.
"People are doing their best. They are working very hard, and partly it's a coping strategy. But it is very demanding and we are certainly very busy, and a lot of our work is in the public eye."
Indeed. Just to add to the pressure, Liddell also has to decide what to do about the complaint laid by Act MP Rodney Hide regarding New Zealand First's party donations. That Peters has made his contempt for the office all too clear, and that his vote will be crucial in passing any legislation to abolish the office, is an irony that is hardly lost on Liddell.
"I have indicated that [a decision on Hide's complaint] would take a matter of weeks and I'm still confident that would be a matter of weeks," he confirms.
In the past, the office has had no hesitation in investigating MPs, including National's Murray McCully, former NZ First MP John Delamere, former Labour MP John Tamihere, and former Act MP Donna Awatere Huata.
But political pressure remains a touchy issue. Back in the early'90s, an SFO investigator unforgettably told the Winebox inquiry that Sturt had decided not to pursue the case because "our friends in Wellington" would not be pleased.
Although Sturt denied it, all three directors can perhaps console themselves it could be worse - they could be running the British SFO. Its director, Robert Wardle, recently resigned amid allegations he bowed to political pressure not to investigate a 43 billion ($116 billion) arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. The House of Lords has since overturned a ruling by the High Court that Wardle acted unlawfully in halting his inquiry. Given that the Saudis threatened to withdraw co-operation over terrorism intelligence, the director did the right thing "as British lives would be put at risk", one lord noted.
Asked if his style will be different in any way to his predecessor's, Liddell says he hopes the office will be much better at telling people what it's doing and why.
"And quite consciously I have attempted to engage the organisation in the business of government, which is I think important. We're a government department and we can't simply retreat to Auckland and not have regard to the important issues that central government wants us to have regard to."
The new organised crime agency has already begun to establish itself at police national headquarters in Wellington, and will shortly begin hiring. SFO staff have been assured they will remain in Auckland, which begs the question of just how much synergy will be able to be achieved.
However, Liddell says he recognises the main challenge in the short term will be keeping the office's highly specialised staff. Already, the private sector is becomingly increasingly competitive.
Managing public expectations over its investigations into failed finance companies could also prove tricky. To the chagrin of many, losing hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money through foolishness, carelessness and even sheer greed does not necessarily constitute fraud as the law is written.
If the Government goes ahead and changes the way the office works, it will immediately affect those investigations. And more changes are possible next year, if a whole new set of powers related to search and surveillance methods are introduced.
It is possible, Liddell concedes, that long-running cases could end up being conducted under three different sorts of statutory powers.
"It does offer the prospect of confusion, but I'm sure that can be managed by wise and careful oversight. But ... where there's legislative change, it does offer up litigation opportunity, let me put it that way."
In fact, as Liddell admits, the decision to change the way the SFO's powers work is really a test run for the new powers the Government has said it intends to give to all police in the near future. The Law Commission has already admitted, in its report on search and surveillance powers last year, that some of the measures are likely to prove controversial and will require "close parliamentary scrutiny".
While it may or may not have been the police's intention, it is hard to avoid the conclusion, says Bradshaw, that more white-collar criminals are likely to get off the hook, in order to allow the police to get tougher on gangs.
In a letter to Bradshaw last September, Police Commissioner Howard Broad noted the Law Commission's suggestions that production and monitoring powers be available "for general criminal investigative purposes" and not just specific law enforcement bodies such as the Serious Fraud Office.
"Police do not view this as an erosion of powers but a distribution of more effective powers to the wider law enforcement community," he wrote.
Liddell concedes there are some advantages to be gained by integrating some aspects of the SFO's work with the police.
"Whether it can be done successfully is, I think, a tough issue for Commissioner Broad and his team in order to achieve the sort of success that's being hoped for."
Meanwhile, another Bill giving Ofcanz the power to seize the proceeds of crime - known as civil forfeiture - is also under way. It had been originally intended to make the SFO the "recovery agency".
But Suzanne Edmonds admits she is getting impatient. While such turf wars go on, the fact remains that someone is still far more likely to be thrown in jail for stealing a car than stealing someone's life savings, she believes.
She hopes that at least one good thing will come out of the misery she has witnessed: that politicians will realise that victims of white-collar crime have as much need for support as those who are bashed, burgled or raped. Unlike some victims of street crime, many are unlikely to ever be able to "move on", she notes.
"Older people particularly, they live their lives on trust. They were brought up on it. This was the generation that didn't lock their doors. The worst thing you can do to people in life is breach their trust. And people feel as if the State has let them down, because it has allowed this to happen."
In any case, the Government will soon be forking out plenty more money, as many of the older victims of finance company collapses who have lost their homes are forced to move into State-subsidised rest homes, she predicts.
"And it's going to be paying for them for a very long time because they'll be in them sooner rather than later, because some have nowhere else to go. They are quite literally getting sick from worry."
