Loading helper before controller

Don't know exactly why this is (haven't looked in the code itself), but you can use an initController method instead of __construct to do what you want.

PHP Code:

public function initController(\CodeIgniter\HTTP\RequestInterface $request, \CodeIgniter\HTTP\ResponseInterface $response, \Psr\Log\LoggerInterface $logger)
{
    // Do Not Edit This Line
    parent::initController($request, $response, $logger);

    $this->_defaultAdminPerms();
}