By David

One team – an Exciting Future for Swimming New Zealand. That’s the title chosen by Swimming New Zealand for the current Project Vanguard. If ever the title of a document highlighted the treachery of its authors, this one does.

This is the organization that for years has stolen swimmers from clubs all over the country and moved them to Auckland’s North Shore. Not since the East German model has the world of swimming seen a more efficient poaching scheme. In Wellington, Gary Hurring has coached more North Shore bound swimmers than his father did living on the Shore. Canterbury and Otago have supplied their share as well. Swimming New Zealand became master poacher very easily. The only way a swimmer could access the Government’s money was to move to Auckland’s Millennium Institute where they would have the honour of being coached by the boss’s son. For a good swimmer wanting to be paid for their labour, Auckland’s North Shore and Scott Cameron were their only option. That sounds pretty East German like to me.

The project tore the heart out of elite Regional swimming in New Zealand. North Shore based swimmers began winning National Championships by hundreds of points. Regional Club competition ceased to exist. The privileged northerners were ordered to sit in segregated seating at the National Championships. They were made to wear segregated uniforms and were asked to restrict contact with their previous team mates. It was perfect segregation; perfect privilege. New Zealand swimming became a preeminent example of swimming apartheid. And it failed. Jan Cameron with all her access to the nation’s swimmers, with all SPARC’s money could not win a world swimming event if her life depended on it. Of the major Olympic sports her record is the worst. Like a drunk in a casino, Jan Cameron will leave the sport a looser.

And now the same individuals, who divided this sport; who tore it down the middle lay claim to a title like, “One team – an Exciting Future for Swimming New Zealand”. How dare they. Have they no shame? Have they no honour? Some of the tricks they have pulled in the past twelve months have left me speechless; altering minutes, terminating committees formed at an AGM and spending money without approval on Project Vanguard and golf club lunches. But their new title for Project Vanguard is a classic. The membership of the current Board of Swimming New Zealand knows no limits. There are no boundaries to their dishonour. Ten years of promoting division bring only shame to their use of the term – “one team”.

Let’s have a look at what else they say.

Swimming New Zealand constantly bang on about the fact that the sport’s constitution has been in effect for fifty years. The clear implication is that after this length of time it must be out of date. It must be in need of change. That argument is stupid. The United States operates a stable federal democracy based on a document written 223 years ago. The Magna Carta was signed almost 800 years ago and still contains democratic principles that remain on the statute books of England and Wales. Swimming New Zealand’s constitution is a well written federal document. It has certainly been instrumental in saving swimming from the worst excesses of the sport’s current poor leadership. Age is a specious and groundless argument on which to base a call for change.

Given the disasters that have occurred in Surf Life Saving you would think Swimming New Zealand would give up referring to the constitutional changes made in other sports. However the Coulter gang has never let facts get in the way of a good story claiming that, “we have examined the changes made by other sports in similar positions to ours.” Swimming New Zealand don’t mention that Surf Life Saving has lost a fortune since making exactly the same changes proposed for swimming. They fail to reveal that the Board of Surf has had to resign in disgrace. Only the Coulter gang would trumpet the disasters of constitutional change in Surf Life Saving and Girl Guides as a victory. However we need to remember that the Coulter gang also thought New Zealand’s swimming results in New Delhi were a sporting triumph.

Swimming New Zealand is becoming bolder in articulating their totalitarian socialist goals for the sport. They say, “This is best achieved through developing a single plan for swimming.” They recognise the importance of moving the sport forward “in a unified direction”. And like all good dictatorships they will create “a common set of rules, processes and way of doing things that allows the sport to make strategic decisions as a unified body.” Ironically the world’s worst dictatorships have used similar terms to describe themselves. In 1940 a Nazi political scientist described the German state as providing the “total representation of the nation and total guidance of national goals.” Coulter would agree with that. He makes the same claim for his Project Vanguard, One Team. And it is just not true. There is no evidence to support the view that the same rules for everyone are best. Look where the Cameron dictatorship got us. In fact, if the United States example is to be believed, diversity is a huge positive. Why should swimming in Nelson be delivered the same way as in Auckland? Why should New Plymouth have the same procedures as Napier? There is no reason at all. In fact there is every reason to believe that diversity is strength. It is good that Gary Hurring and I do not coach the same way, using the same methods. Swimming is stronger for that diversity. Swimmers have more choice as a consequence of our differences. Those who enjoy Gary’s training can train with him. Those who enjoy my training can train with me. Diversity is good.

And finally the Coulter gang is “going to place professional administration and club development staff throughout the country to support clubs and regions.” Can anybody explain to me how Coulter is going to “reduce costs” by paying people to do work currently done by volunteers for nothing. The same claims were made for Surf and they are now $1.6 million down the drain. Whenever Coulter places his professionals all around the country I do wish someone would ask him, “Hey Mussolini, how are you going to pay for all this?” I can’t see SPARC coming up with the cash, which means Coulter is planning to spend the Region’s money. This whole deal is about creating a bigger Swimming New Zealand empire; a bigger empire for Coulter and Byrne to rule.

No matter how the Coulter gang dresses this up, whether it is Project Vanguard or One Team, the Regions need to end this $250,000 folly as quickly as possible.