By David
I desperately hope this post is a bunch of lies. I want the story to be a colossal misunderstanding; an error based on misinterpretation and ignorance. Because, if I have not made a mistake; if this post is true, the Coulter gang have plunged to depths I would never have imagined possible.
In previous articles, Swimwatch has identified examples of the Coulter gang’s deception. Remember the Project Vanguard committee that the AGM ordered to be made up of three Swimming New Zealand appointments and three representatives from the Regions. Annual General Meeting remits, however, have never worried the Coulter gang. That Committee now has five Coulter gang “yes-men” and only one Regional appointee. Remember the assurance given by Coulter and Byrne and Hemsworth that their Project Vanguard had no intention of stripping the Region’s assets. They told us the assets would remain in the disbanded Regions. And yet while they mumbled their assurance they knew that the law requires all Regions to have a clause in their Constitutions, that in the event of the Regions being wound up, their assets will be transferred to SNZ. That is the law. Remember the famous minutes of the Project Vanguard meetings posted on the SNZ website. When the Regions complained that the “minutes” bore no relation to what had gone on in their meetings, Hemsworth wrote back declaring that the “minutes” were not “minutes”; they were simply “notes” of what she thought the meetings had decided. The whole Project Vanguard exercise has been marked by deception and dishonesty.
However, if my discovery today is accurate, the Swimming New Zealand Board and their management team have stooped to a new low, way below the dishonesty of anything we have published before. If our findings are true the SNZ Board must not survive. It cannot be trusted. Here is what I think I found.
On Tuesday, 18 January this year, I wrote a Swimwatch story called “In the Vanguard of Political Intrigue”. The story began like this.
Approval from the membership will continue to be sought at the end of each phase of the project seeking continuation to the next. Any resulting outcomes or recommendations requiring constitutional change will need to be considered and approved by a Special General Meeting of SNZ.
“On Sunday 12 September 2010 this remit was passed at the Swimming New Zealand AGM. There are 22,000 members of Swimming New Zealand. Everyone should pin a copy of the resolution to their bedroom wall. It is the sport’s lifeboat on a sinking Titanic. The Board, its Chairman, Byrne and Cameron are required to obtain the permission of the regions before they can move Project Vanguard to the next stage. The current stage will conclude in February when Cathy Hemsworth submits her report to the SNZ Board.”
I think you will all agree that seems pretty clear. On Sunday 12 September 2010 the AGM of Swimming New Zealand passed a remit requiring SNZ to seek the approval of the membership before Project Vanguard could proceed to a new stage. The Regions ordered the Board to follow a clearly defined course and the Board is compelled to comply. Well, Hemsworth has now handed in her report and there is no sign of the Swimming New Zealand Board recognizing the obligation that – “Approval from the membership will continue to be sought at the end of each phase of the project seeking continuation to the next.” Instead the Board is giving every indication it intends to ignore a specific instruction from the membership. They are acting illegally.
So, I decided to write a story about the Board’s cavalier disregard of an AGM remit. I just hate it when people disregard the rules of the game like that. Their arrogance puts us all at risk. We live in a society where the “rule of law” provides a framework that keeps our daily lives honest. When people operate outside the “rule of law”, none of us are safe. This was clearly fertile territory for a new Swimwatch post.
So I went again to the Sunday, 12 September 2010 AGM minutes posted on the SNZ website. And do you know what I found? THE MINUTES HAVE BEEN CHANGED. THE REMIT REQUIRING REGIONAL APPROVAL IS GONE. HISTORY HAS BEEN CHANGED. This is what Swimming New Zealand has put in its place.
“Project Vanguard
Mr Berge tabled a retrospective motion:
MOVED
“That project vanguard seeks the ratification from this Annual General Meeting to continue this process recognising the independent regional funding streams. Any resulting outcomes or recommendations requiring constitutional change will need to be considered and approved by a Special General Meeting of Swimming New Zealand”
Chairman Project Vanguard Committee/Taranaki”
No mention any longer of “approval from the membership” continuing “to be sought at the end of each phase of the project seeking continuation to the next”. The original wording is still available in this document on Swimming New Zealand’s website, at the bottom of page one and the top of page two. In the event that Swimming New Zealand remove the remit from this document as well–as they have with the contents of the minutes–we have taken a screenshot of the paragraph:
Would you believe it? Coulter and his conspirators consciously resolved to take down the Minutes of an Annual General Meeting and eliminate a clause they found difficult. They knew they would lose a vote so they changed the rules; at the stroke of a pen they altered history. They replaced what actually happened, what was actually approved, with a bald-faced, deliberate lie. The original words now only exist in this supplementary document.
Does their arrogant disregard for the rules, for the Constitution, for the membership and for the sport, know no limits? They are no better than common criminals. They have relinquished all moral authority to be anywhere near the Board Room of an important New Zealand sport. They are despicable and deserve only our contempt.
So, what should happen to a Board and management team who alter Annual General Meeting minutes; who don’t like the instructions given to them by their stakeholders and who consciously ignore orders by obliterating them from history? Is that the sort of management team, is that the standard of honesty expected from an organization that takes $2 million a year from the public purse? On the Board of SNZ there are lawyers and commercial people who are expected to maintain ethical standards way superior to this example. What on God’s good earth are they doing? This is not the way SNZ’s main sponsor, State Insurance, runs its business. I’m pretty certain the executives of State would be appalled to learn their $300,000 was going to a bunch of crooks. SNZ’s Wellington Head Office is in need of a clean out. The top floor of the organization is broken beyond repair. It stinks. They should leave now before they cause any more damage.
