Here we go again. High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) has announced the 2019 government handouts to New Zealand sport. Swimming’s beneficiary cheque is $900,000; the same as it was in 2018.

What did we get from giving the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, otherwise known as Cotterill, Johns and Francis, almost a million dollars in 2018? One Commonwealth Games bronze medal is the answer. 2018 was a very busy year. A Commonwealth Games, a Pan Pacific Championships and a World SC Championships were packed into the twelve months. Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) sent teams to all three. The return of one bronze medal was pathetic.

Next week in London 30 of the world’s best swimmers, including 15 Olympic champions and twice as many World champions will gather in London to hear how their future could look and why they need a Professional Swimmers’ Association. They will discuss a fairer means of distributing the money earned by the sport. There is nothing fair about what happens now. Cotterill, Johns and Francis are dinosaurs whose days are fortunately numbered. Not before time, the world of swimming is changing. New Zealand will probably resist reform to the end. You would expect no less from dinosaurs.

We need to remember that the money paid to SNZ is our money. We are taxpayers paying to keep SNZ afloat. We have a right to ask; are SNZ spending our money properly? Are we getting the return we should? Are swimmers benefitting from the cash or is it being lost paying for an expensive bureaucracy?

As many will understand, I have my views on the merits of our investment. The whole thing is a draconian waste. All we are doing is paying to keep a bunch of overpaid Antares Place bureaucrats alive. They are neither useful nor ornamental. They cost a fortune and contribute nothing. I’d just as soon see the $900,000 taken into Sky City and gambled on one spin of a roulette wheel than wasted the way it is. Consider this, how in any way are the members of your club going to benefit from our million dollar cheque.

If any member gets good enough to swim for New Zealand Cotterill, Johns and Francis will make him or her pay from their own pocket to travel to the meet. The $900,000 will be used exclusively to pay for Johns and Francis to sit back in comfort free of any personal cost. Will Johns or Francis provide assistance with your club’s lane fees or coaching wages? No. They have spent millions on lane fees and coaching costs on the North Shore of Auckland while the rest of New Zealand starves. Don’t expect to see a cent in Whangarei, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Nelson, Timaru or Invercargill.

Someone is to blame for the 2018 “one bronze medal” plight of swimming in New Zealand. We know it is not the swimmers or the coaches or the local officials. For years that group has been criticised and blamed by the likes of Cotterill, Johns and Francis. Those guys would say anything to shift the blame. But six years ago the CEO of Sport New Zealand, Peter Miskimmin, engineered a coup d’état in SNZ. The change centralised power into Miskimmin’s office in Wellington and the Cotterill, Johns and Francis lair in Antares Place. With that power came great responsibility. SNZ was awarded a million dollars a year and had the power to do whatever it wanted with the cash.

But the downside is, when you have all the power, when you have all the money, the buck stops with you. Responsibility for the performance of SNZ lies at the door of Miskimmin, Cotterill, Johns and Francis. For six years and at a cost of $6,000,000 they, or others like them, have ruled the sport of swimming. In that time things have got worse and worse, until in 2018 New Zealand travelled to three international meets and came home with one bronze medal. In 2012 the bureaucrats demanded power. In the six years since then they have brought the sport to its knees.

And yet unbelievably the government has decided to give SNZ another $900,000 to waste. The problem is, it is worse than waste. What Cotterill, Johns and Francis do actually causes harm. The problems get worse. When on God’s good earth is the penny going to drop? Giving SNZ money is not working. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the results of the last six years and $6,000,000 they have cost. Why would HPSNZ back that record with another million dollars? Or are they as stupid as SNZ?

We have said this before, but the best thing HPSNZ could do for swimming is to close their cheque book and hand over no money at all. Cotterill, Johns and Francis would either have to become big boys and stand on their own feet or they would leave to sponge off some other gullible sport. Either way swimming would be better off. And face it, whether SNZ get $900,000 or nothing is going to make no difference to what happens to your club in Te Awamutu or Stratford or Blenheim or Queenstown. My guess is that freed from the bureaucratic controls of Antares Place most clubs would find the rush of fresh air liberating.

I’m serious. If the Regions of SNZ want to do what’s best for SNZ they would call a Special General Meeting and order Cotterill to give back the $900,000. The money has not been earned. It is not being placed in responsible hands. Until most of the money is paid to the people who earned it, the swimmers, it would be better spent paying teachers, nurses, doctors and police. They certainly deserve it more.