I have just read the most important article published about sport in New Zealand. It is written by Dana Johannsen and is published on the Stuff website. Her article discusses plans some athletes have to form their own union. That fact alone is sufficient to make Johannsen’s report essential reading. However, even more significant is the insight the article provides into the deception rife in the halls of sporting power.

The facts are simple enough. There are currently two competing plans to establish an agency to represent the interest of athletes. The first is a traditional trade union being promoted by a group of elite rowers and cyclists. The second is an agency established and funded by High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ).

As is often the case, the dispute over representation is laying bare the stark avarice for power at HPSNZ. Its leader, Raelene Castle, is acting with all the blunt force of an old-fashioned union buster. In my opinion she has no interest in justice for Olivia Podmore or Alan Thompson, or Aimee Fisher, or me. This is simply an “Amazon-style” grab for power.

Johannsen makes the valid point that of particular concern in the HPSNZ proposal was this Raelene Castle gem. The new agency they said, “would need to take a “collaborative approach to public statements/media” and “support and enhance existing HPSNZ or NSO escalation systems/processes”. In other words, it would not be a union at all. It would be exactly like the rest of their stinking organisation – like Canoeing, Cycling and Rowing – a bought and paid for public relations propaganda vehicle for the Castle mob.

I am certainly not comforted by hearing one of the highest paid people in New Zealand sport say we need the athlete’s representatives to sell our current systems and processes. Castle seems to have no idea it was her people that provided the money for Olivia Podmore’s bribe. It was her people that refused to provide me with the swimming Marris report. It was her people that supported the scheme to get rid of Alan Thompson. And she wants a union to promote, without question that litany of dishonesty. All I can hear is, “spear or arrow, how would you prefer to be hunted, it’s your choice.”

And at the end of the day with Castle, it all comes down to money – someone else’s money. Johannsen reports that, “Castle stressed the new organisation would be independent. “We agree that it needs to be organisationally separate, which it is, the reality is that unless there is financial support from HPSNZ, there is no other way for this athlete group to be funded.”

That Castle utterance must rate as one of the most moronic things I’ve heard in a while. The new athlete’s organisation must be separate but will publicly support HPSNZ’s policies and will be paid for by HPSNZ. That sounds really independent to me. That sounds like a good union capable of holding Castle to account. That sounds like a union that could threaten an athlete’s strike a month before the Commonwealth Games. That sounds like an organisation capable of demanding more money and improved conditions for athletes. I doubt Keir Hardy would identify Castle’s quango as an example of all that is best in trade unionism. Anyone who believes Castle’s nonsense, I have a really nice house in the Russian quarter of Donetsk to sell you.

In the meantime kick another Castle grab for power into touch and get behind those rowers and cyclists who are doing what’s needed.