The blatant effort by Raelene Castle to buy her way out of trouble needs to stop. In the wake of chaos in New Zealand sport Castle established a new complaint’s organization called the Sport and Recreation Complaints and Mediation Service (SRCMS). Castle has then spent thousands on advertising. The whole thing is an exercise in self-promotion. Look at me. Look at me. See what I’ve done. Castle’s behaviour screams self-interest. Just about everything about the Sport and Recreation Complaints and Mediation Service (SRCMS) is wrong.

For example, why is Castle wasting money? New Zealand sport has a perfectly good Sports Tribunal. It is capable of doing everything the Sport and Recreation Complaints and Mediation Service (SRCMS) can do – probably better and certainly at less cost. The reproduction of a new service was solely so Castle could wander around New Zealand screaming, “Look at me. Look at me. See what I’ve done.” But is New Zealand impressed? Not really, not when she is wasting money on a service we already have. Castle clearly needs to take lessons in “if it’s not broken don’t spend resources on fixing it”.

Castle’s new service also ignores the fact that New Zealand has a perfectly good judicial system of tribunals and courts capable of handling any dispute in sport. The last thing Castle wants of course is the next Olivia Podmore or David Wright or Alan Thompson using the country’s normal legal court system. Castle loses control. The Sport and Recreation Complaints and Mediation Service (SRCMS) is part of her empire. Athletes should not apply there for justice. $20,000 in a paper-bag worked before. In the current Sport New Zealand there is no reason for it not to work again.

The most basic tenet of good government is the separation of powers. The administration is separate from the legislature, and both are separate again from the judiciary. The checks and balances of separation are essential to our freedoms. That is what good governance means. Castle has a better idea. She wants to control the making of the rules, the administration of the rules and now the legal enforcement of the rules. And that, New Zealand sport, is a dictatorship.

But Castle knows she also has to sell her idea. One or two very nasty conmen in 1930s Europe were aware that the justification of their power required selling. They did it by lying. Tell the people they are better off and tell them often enough and they will eventually believe it. So that is what Castle is doing. Every internet site has wall to wall coverage of Castle’s Sport and Recreation Complaints and Mediation Service (SRCMS). It is causing me a serious nausea problem.

New Zealand needs to recognise the advertising is not there to promote justice. It is not there to help athletes. It is not there to prevent another Thompson, Wright or Podmore. The money is being spent to save Raelene Castle’s skin. She lives in the hope that her advertising spend will cause New Zealand to forget she was asleep at the wheel when New Zealand sport fell apart. Look at me. Look at me. See what I’ve done.

And so, this Castle excursion into a sporting judicial service should not be seen as improving the safety of athletes. In fact, the extension of Castle power makes us all less safe. Get on the wrong side of Castle and there is more chance of a Wright, or a Thompson, or a Podmore. It was after all Sport New Zealand investigations that preceded the death of Podmore and the assault on Alan Thompson. The likelihood of that being repeated has just increased.

What Castle should not do, is lie to promote her power grab. A thousand times on the internet she tells us that Sport New Zealand will, “run the service independent of any sporting bodies, clubs and organisations.” That lie is ridiculous. On the same line she tells us the new service “has been contracted by Sport NZ.” How would you describe Sport New Zealand? A sporting organisation? Raelene Castle could not lie straight in bed.

I have one argument with the lawyers who have agreed to participate in Castle’s grab for power. Being lawyers, they should know better than to support a dictatorship. It is not as though the bid for power was particularly subtle.

I have only had experience of one of the lawyers involved – Maria Dew QC. In that case I was particularly impressed with her integrity and honesty. She was strong. She was straight. In this case – inadvertently not so much. The willingness of good lawyers to help is being used to polish Castle’s image. The reason they are good lawyers should have taught them that their skills can be used by those with an ulterior motive.

LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. SEE WHAT I’VE DONE.