Latest / Best of Business / Kerre Woodham: New Zealand's conflict of interest problem

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Kerre Woodham: New Zealand's conflict of interest problem · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
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  Speaker 2: What I found more outrageous on the Internet yesterday was
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  Speaker 2: yet another example of this country's propensity for doling out
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  Speaker 2: jobs for the boys and indeed the girls. Every political
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  Speaker 2: party does it, every government does it. Rewards the party
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  Speaker 2: faithful in their generous donors and backers with cushy sinecures.
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  Speaker 2: Bloody grafter in chief would have to be Trevor Mallard's
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  Speaker 2: posting to Dublin, although would it, because there are plenty
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  Speaker 2: of other opportunities to point the finger. Look at Simon Bridges,
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  Speaker 2: the ex National Party leader, was appointed as the new
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  Speaker 2: chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Wakakotahi in March
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  Speaker 2: twenty four. There are many, many examples of political cronyism,
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  Speaker 2: and in the latest one, a key we Rail director
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  Speaker 2: has quit the board two years early after only a
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  Speaker 2: couple of months in the role. That's not the news.
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  Speaker 2: What is news is that he was appointed to the
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  Speaker 2: board at all, given his conflict of interest. Scott O'Donnell
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  Speaker 2: is a big player in trucking and freight and given
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  Speaker 2: some of the ten companies he's involved with supply services
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  Speaker 2: to Kiwi Rail. What on earth was he doing being
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  Speaker 2: made a director of Keiwi Rail. The conflicts required Treasury
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  Speaker 2: to put a management plan in place. The Conflict of
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  Speaker 2: Interest Mitigation Plan contained seven measures to manage conflicts, including
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  Speaker 2: recusing himself from board meeting discussions where there was a
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  Speaker 2: conflict of interest. It was simply unsustainable. He was being
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  Speaker 2: paid to do a job that he simply could not
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  Speaker 2: do because of the conflicts of interest. He ended up
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  Speaker 2: leaving meetings early and missing a gender items and became
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  Speaker 2: apparent that this wasn't going to work. He'll be stepping
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  Speaker 2: down next week and thanked for a service, but he
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  Speaker 2: should never ever have been appointed in the first place.
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  Speaker 2: So not only are there existing conflicts of interest, he's
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  Speaker 2: one of four directors of Dines Transport Tapanui, which donated
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  Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars to New Zealand first in July twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty four. The company's also involved in a project that
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  Speaker 2: recently received a government regional infrastructure loan Shane Jones slush
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  Speaker 2: fund of eight million dollars. And then he's appointed by
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  Speaker 2: Winston to the board of Kiwi rail. Yeah, it's just
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  Speaker 2: another example and it's so common that it barely registered.
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  Speaker 2: I mean I have to give credit to Radio New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand who were following this all the way through and
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  Speaker 2: business desk pointing it out going this no, no, no,
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  Speaker 2: this isn't good, this isn't right, this doesn't work. Do
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  Speaker 2: we have so few people in this country of five
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  Speaker 2: million who can do governance jobs and chief executive jobs
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  Speaker 2: that we have to accept there'll only be one or
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  Speaker 2: two degrees of separation. If that that there is always
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  Speaker 2: going to be a conflict. If you think of the
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  Speaker 2: five million of us, how many of us could do
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  Speaker 2: a chief executive job or be on a board, take
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  Speaker 2: a director's role on a board. Look at the yawning
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  Speaker 2: vacancies that we have for our major companies with a
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  Speaker 2: new one with Fonterra now, I mean Miles Hrrell could
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  Speaker 2: walk into about twenty jobs in this country right now,
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  Speaker 2: either in sports, governance or in business. There are so
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  Speaker 2: few people able to do the job. Do we have
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  Speaker 2: to accept that there is going to be a conflict
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  Speaker 2: of interest in just about every single appointment made. Do
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  Speaker 2: more of us have to put up our hands and
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  Speaker 2: do the director's courses so that you can find maybe
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  Speaker 2: somebody somewhere who doesn't hasn't made a donation, or hasn't worked,
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  Speaker 2: or hasn't been a politician who can then do the job.
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  Speaker 2: Or we're just simply too small. How we haven't appeared
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  Speaker 2: on the the dirt list of corruption is beyond me.
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  Speaker 2: It shows either a really really principled, closed doors approach
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  Speaker 2: to business in this country, being able to separate your
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  Speaker 2: different business interests and focus on them solely and leave
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  Speaker 2: everything at the door when you go in, or we
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  Speaker 2: just haven't uncovered it yet. I'd really love to see
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  Speaker 2: an end of the appointments of jobs for the girls
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  Speaker 2: and the boys. But then who would do the job
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  Speaker 2: when you look at the vacancies that exist right now.
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