Recent Swimwatch posts have discussed the injustice of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) charging swimmers to represent New Zealand in the 2018 World Short Course Championships. A central feature of our outrage is the inequality between self-financing athletes and fat-cat officials, like Gary Francis, sitting back being paid for by us. But foremost in the overindulged category are New Zealand’s FINA officials who travel to these events. The past and current Presidents of Swimming New Zealand, Dr Dave Gerrard and Leslie Huckins, are in that category.

When these guys travel the world at FINA or WADA’s expense they really do live on the fat of the land. There is no user-pays for them. New Zealand swimming officials seem to have the view that, of course, swimmers should pay for themselves. Swimmers only have to train twice a day and compete against the world’s best. Gerrard and Huckins are officials. They have nine o’clock breakfasts to get to followed by two hour rules seminars. Besides that there are three remits to vote on. You try holding your hand up that many times. Of course they need to fly business class and sleep in 5-star hotels.

But foremost among the perks New Zealand FINA officials received is a daily expense allowance. In Dr Gerrard and Leslie Huckins’ case the allowance is probably around $NZ500 per day. On an eleven day trip to China for the World Championships, if they are going, Gerrard and Huckins will each be given $5,500 in spending money. Those two are possibly getting more in spending money than the $5,300 SNZ is charging New Zealand’s best swimmers to travel to the meet – it’s a bloody disgrace.

But what I find really interesting are the tax implications of these payments. Depending on what other income Gerrard and Huckins receive, this $5,500 income perk will be taxed at 30%. In other words Gerrard and Huckins will each owe the New Zealand Government $1,650. But the question is, will this income be declared? There are two ways we could find out. We could ask the New Zealand tax authorities to do an audit or we could ask Steve Johns to provide us with the information necessary to do our own audit.

After all Steve Johns has assured us that SNZ is in a new age of open and transparent government. In that spirit I am sure Johns could email me with a list of the SNZ members that, during the past five years, have attended FINA or WADA delegate’s sessions and how many days they were away from New Zealand. From there we can quickly work out how much daily allowance they were paid and what tax is due. We can then ask the tax department to investigate whether the tax was paid. Oh, and while Steve Johns is at it, could he let me know whether he was paid a daily allowance on his recent unnecessary junket to Japan and whether Gary Francis is being paid a daily allowance while he is at the World Championships?

The tax aspect of this interests me because the example Gerrard and Huckins receive from the top of FINA is not good. For example Dale Neuburger, FINA Vice-President and USA delegate, says he gives most of his daily allowance to charity and the amount he keeps is to cover his time away from work – his work, of course, is director of a consultancy firm that has million-dollar contracts running with FINA for organizing clinics and seminars.

We need to constantly check that Johns, Francis, Gerrard and Huckins are being honest. The ease with which Gerrard and Huckins take, paid for, business class flights and live it up in swanky hotels for free when New Zealand’s finest swimmers are struggling to pay for themselves suggests we have every reason to be cautious. New Zealand is an honest country. In 2017 it was ranked first in the world for honesty. We need to make sure it stays that way.

However even if Gerrard and Huckins have dealt with their tax properly, every swimmer on this New Zealand team should remember, if they bump into Dave Gerrard or Leslie Huckins around the World Championship pool, those two are being paid more in pocket money by FINA than the swimmers were stung by SNZ to get themselves to the Championship. That alone is enough to tell me that Huckins and Gerrard have little or no interest in their swimmer’s welfare. Instead of waking up late in some 5-star hotel, they should be working to find a way to raise the $100,000 it would cost to get every New Zealand swimmer to the Championships for free. That’s what a good boss would do. Seems these two don’t fit the description.