Much of the debate surrounding my application to the Human Rights Review Tribunal (HRRT) for access to the Marris Report involves the word confidential. The views of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) are very different from mine.

In my view an agency responsible for a main-stream sport, dependent on public membership and reliant on the government for the majority of its funding has a duty to every New Zealander to be open and honest with as much information as possible. Members should receive Board minutes. Information on legal disputes should be posted on SNZ’s website. Members own the organisation. Almost without exception – the members need to be told what is going on.

The Board of SNZ don’t see it that way. Board minutes, that used to be published, are locked away in Steve Johns’ keeping, hidden from the membership. The clear assumption of the SNZ Board is that the organisation belongs to them. The membership is secondary, objects to be kept in the dark. I have a dozen letters and emails that in one way or another tell me SNZ’s views on an issue and add the qualification that the letter or email is confidential, not to be published under any circumstances. And to reinforce their paranoia for secrecy, I am threatened with having my membership suspended if I dare let anyone know what SNZ has said.

The contradiction between my belief in the rights of the membership to know and the Board of SNZ’s demand for secrecy is as frustrating as all can be. What does SNZ have to hide? What are they scared of SNZ’s membership finding out?

Take, for example, the decision of the Privacy Commission to find SNZ guilty of interfering in my privacy and their recommendation that SNZ undertake a course of privacy training. That is important news. The membership has a right to know that the agency responsible for their children’s sport has been found guilty of mismanaging privacy issues. Parents will be rightly concerned that their children’s information is being handled by an organisation that a government agency is recommending undertake a course in privacy.

Why weren’t those circumstances posted on the SNZ website? Why did SNZ revert to the secrecy that caused them their problems in the first place? What an ideal opportunity the current dispute would have been to turn a new leaf, to display a new openness. But instead SNZ reverted to type. They said nothing and threatened anyone who told the truth to the membership. It is disgusting.

I have published as much as I can about the Marris Report dispute. But believe me the amount I have been able to tell you, the members, is far less than I would like, far less than you should be told. My hope is that the proceedings of the HRRT together with the tradition of open justice will force SNZ’s hand. Hopefully a by-product of this dispute will result in a more democratic, a more open sport; a better place for New Zealanders to play.

After all what are SNZ so scared of? This is the sport of swimming. It is not the Five Eyes spying cartel or the secret files of the SIS. I’d love to know the policy behind the Board’s decision to hide almost everything from the membership. Are they so insecure in their ability to govern? Do they make too many mistakes? Are they up to no good? The point is we just don’t know. When our leaders hide everything, when they won’t reveal what’s in the Marris Report, we are entitled to believe the worst. Does Marris question SNZ’s handling of the investigation? Does he find incompetence? Again we just don’t know.

But be assured as far as I am able Swimwatch will report on the progress of the Marris Report dispute. I want to avoid losing my SNZ membership, although for the life of me I don’t know why. So I couldn’t get onto the pool deck at the National Championships. So what? You get a better view from the stands anyway. The last thing Eyad needs at the Nationals, is me bagging on into his ear while he warms up. Eyad would probably send SNZ a thankyou letter if I was banished into the stands.

But back to the Marris Report. No posts on Swimwatch does not necessarily mean nothing is happening. It maybe just that I have been threatened by SNZ. But fear not the truth will be told. Eventually the full story will see the light of day. If you see me sitting in the stands at a future Nationals read Swimwatch. It will probably tell you why.

Should Caster Semenya, the South African Olympic 800m champion be allowed to compete without testosterone reducing medication? That question is bound to polarise opinion at any gathering of sports people. I understand, but do not agree with, those who believe that a high testosterone count is such a huge advantage that the integrity of woman’s sport would be permanently harmed if women like Semenya are allowed to run in their natural state.

I recently read an article written by a law professor who had also been one of America’s best middle distance runners. She strongly supported the IAAF decision to impose drug doping on Semenya in order to reduce the South African’s testosterone advantage. Unbelievably the American lawyer argued that the principle at stake was the same as Para-Olympic sport. A para athlete wanting to compete in the XY category had to have specified physical injuries. The AA category required a different set of physical problems.

The specifications were put in place to protect the fairness of Para sport. An athlete with two legs and one arm could not compete against an athlete with no legs and one arm. Women, the lawyer argued, were a similarly disadvantaged species that needed rules to protect their inherited weakness; their natural inferiority. They were a special and inferior species that needed protection. The rules Seb Coe was demanding were protecting women’s lowly status.

I am appalled by that argument. Comparing an open species of able human beings, called women, with athletes with a disability is disgusting. Being female is NOT a disability. Being female is not a handicap that needs protecting. Semanya is female with an advantage. She has more testosterone than most. So what? John Walker had inherited advantages. So did Seb Coe. So does every athlete that wins an Olympic Gold Medal. None of them are normal or average. Semenya is not normal or average either. That does not mean she should be banned or forced to take drugs to chemically alter her natural advantages.

It needs to be remembered that Semanya only just manages to beat female runners that Seb Coe would consider “normal”. Semenya’s best time is miles behind the women’s world record and the best times run by several women in the past. If Semenya’s advantage was so beneficial that it justified chemical intervention it is not working all that well.

I wonder what Coe would have thought if the IAAF had demanded he take drugs to slow him down. Not such a good idea then. And yet like many men, take abortion as an example, he is 100% happy to interfere in a woman’s right to control her own body. In this case Coe finds no problem peddling drugs to a black African women. He thinks that’s fine. In Coe’s mind how dare Semanya challenge his male view of what constitutes a normal female athlete.

That control mentality must have frustrated and annoyed women for thousands of years. I never had the problem of course. But I think I know how annoyed I’d be if some London bureaucrat called Lord Coe came to me and said, “I think you run too fast. I think you are too male. Here is a chemical, I have no idea what its side effects will be, but I’m ordering you to take it anyway. It will make you weaker and that’s good.”

Coe is disgusting. “I’m just protecting women’s sport,” he says. But he is not. He’s just another male interfering in a woman’s right to choose.

And I have no idea how some justify the logic of fighting to get drugs out of sport; some who fought for years to stop the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans and the East Germans taking performance enhancing drugs and now support the IAAF imposing a chemical regime on Semenya. Coe has become the IAAF’s Manfred Ewald and some are fine with that because Coe is making women chemically weaker. That terrible Manfred Ewald was making women chemically stronger. We can’t have that, can we? Performance enhancing drugs – bad, performance reducing drugs – good. That logic of that is beyond me.

And so I am delighted that a Swiss Court has put Lord Coe in his place; in a small misogynistic box somewhere in the south of England. The Court has ordered that the Arbitration for Sport’s ruling that Semenya must start a course of hormone therapy must be put on hold. Well done Switzerland. The good guys sometimes do win.

Drug free sport no longer means everyone except Caster Semenya. The goal of drug free sport can again become our ideal.

“The surprise news – which completely blindsided athletics’ governing body – means that the Olympic champion and other DSD athletes can compete in distances ranging from 400m to a mile without medication until at least 25 June.

Semenya’s lawyer, Greg Nott, who hailed the decision as “morally uplifting and so good for Caster”, revealed that his team had asked for the suspension when they appealed the court of arbitration for sport’s ruling in Semenya’s case last week.

“The Swiss court has ordered the IAAF to suspend immediately the implementation of the regulation with regard to Caster and has given the IAAF until the 25 June to respond to the suspense of effect,” said Nott. “It is absolutely positive news.”

Semenya’s Swiss counsel, Dr Dorothee Schramm, also welcomed the decision. “This is an important case that will have fundamental implications for the human rights of female athletes,” she added.

The Swiss ruling will also encourage Semenya’s team that the Swiss federal Supreme Court could set aside the CAS decision in its entirety. They argue that the IAAF’s policy is unfair and unnecessary, and say unwanted hormonal drug interventions could have uncertain health consequences on athletes.

Semenya is supported by the World Medical Association, which has declared the IAAF regulations to be contrary to their basic ethical principles.“

In a short statement Semenya thanked the Swiss judges for their decision. “I hope that following my appeal I will once again be able to run free,” she added.

And so do I, Semenya, so do I.

This post is my final report on the Stuff article that discusses my application before the Human Rights Tribunal to see the Marris Report into complaints made about my coaching. For some reason SNZ is running scared, determined to avoid me seeing my privacy information. Why does it do that? What is in the Marris Report that turns the President of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) into a lump of wobbly blancmange? Why is Cotterill prepared to absorb the accusation from a government agency that his organisation is in need of privacy training?

We know for certain SNZ is not protecting David Wright. That means there is either something in the Report that is so shocking about SNZ that Cotterill is prepared to put up with any shame rather than have the Report’s contents revealed. Or Cotterill is so scared of one of the complainants, Susan Turner, suing SNZ on some spurious charge that he would rather have SNZ’s reputation shredded that run the risk of Turner’s wrath.

I don’t know what it is, but in my view, there is certainly something that has exposed the limits of Cotterill’s courage – or lack of it.

This brings me to the sentence in the Stuff news article I want to discuss. The journalist, Dana Johannsen, said this.

David Wright has been, “the source of constant antagonism towards SNZ for more than a decade. The archive of his blog,” she said, “is a tome of bitterness towards the national body, with his distrust of the leadership spanning multiple regime changes.”

In my previous Swimwatch post I discussed the implications of the term “tome of bitterness towards the national body” Here is a summary of what I said.

Dana Johannsen also says, “his distrust of the leadership spanning multiple regime changes”.

The implication of this opinion is that I am obsessed. Johannsen is attempting to make the case that I must be a fanatic because I was a critic of an early SNZ regime. When that regime changed, when I got what I wanted, I was still a critic. When the regime changed again, I continued to be a critic and so on for what Johannsen calls “multiple regime changes”.

The phrase “multiple regime changes” is verging on fake news. A respected news organisation, like Stuff, should not indulge in embellishment. Including the current regime there have been three SNZ regimes during the current Swimwatch era. Until 2012 SNZ was managed by Chairman Coulter and CEO Byrne. Then for four or five years Chairman Layton and CEO Renford led the organization. Most recently Chairman Cotterill and CEO Johns have been in charge. So that’s three regimes. I guess that is “multiple” but three does not really meet the implications of the term “spanning multiple regime changes”. That’s a journalist wanting to peddle her personal opinion, rather than accurately report the news. The idea is to convey the view that I was a complainer who SNZ could never satisfy. My complaints represented a short-coming in me rather than SNZ.

However that is not the case. There might have been three regimes but the policies have stayed the same. My complaint is not with the six individuals who have run the place. Through the years I have said that a hundred times. My complaint is about their policies. The reason I continue to complain is because through what Stuff calls “multiple regime changes” the policies that have caused swimming to fail, have not changed. My complaint is with twenty years of the same policies not three changes of personnel.

For example in 2002 my daughter was selected to represent New Zealand in the Pan Pacific Games. She made a semi-final and shared a relay New Zealand open record. When she arrived home SNZ sent her an invoice for $3,000 for the cost of her airfare and accommodation. Move forward 16 years and New Zealand world championship swimmers were charged $5,300 to attend the World Championships in Japan. I complained in 2002 and complained again in 2018. It might be a sin, as far as Stuff is concerned, to complain about something a few regimes apart. The reality is, whether the invoice was signed by the then SNZ CEO in 2002 or by Steve Johns in 2018, the complaints are the same complaints.

The policies that have reduced New Zealand’s elite performance from two Olympic Gold medals in 1996 to one Commonwealth Bronze medal in 2018 are the focus of my concern. The same policies, in the same period, have seen income, government funding, membership and the number of coaches decline by an average of 18%. Because the leadership has changed three times should we take Stuff’s advice and ignore the sport’s steady decay?

A good analogy might be that a hard right conservative will find very little that a left wing government does acceptable. Similarly a left wing liberal will find very little to support in a conservative government. Even when the leaders change the policy differences remain. The philosophical disagreements are just too extreme. And so for example when Coulter, Byrne, Layton, Renford, Cotterill and Johns spent $30million on a failed centralised training policy – sure I complained. But, contrary to the accusation implied in the Stuff report, that was not because I was an inconsistent whinger. The reality was that for twenty years I was a consistent critic of the same policy; the same appalling waste.

Cotterill is as smooth as butter. In this case, it seems to me, he has conned the socks off a Stuff reporter who should have dug deeper into the substance of his spin than she did on this occasion.

My previous Swimwatch post discussed a number of the Chairman of Swimming New Zealand’s comments. Bruce Cotterill made these in an interview with Stuff reporter Dana Johnannsen. In this post I want to focus on just one claim made in the interview. My purpose is to illustrate the problems of dealing with Swimming New Zealand (SNZ). They indulge in a constant stream of half-truths and compromised honesty.

Dana Johannsen said in her Stuff report that I have been, “the source of constant antagonism towards SNZ for more than a decade. The archive of his blog,” she said, “is a tome of bitterness towards the national body, with his distrust of the leadership spanning multiple regime changes.” The implication of that; the meaning behind a “tome of bitterness” is that I am merely a disgruntled and rancorous whinger. She is inferring that my opinions should be taken with a grain of salt because I’m making them all the time. I would remind Dana of the adage – “bad people get away with bad things when good people do nothing”.

What would Dana have done? Was it wrong to protest when New Zealand’s best swimmers were charged $5,300 each to represent the country at a World Championships? Was it a mistake to highlight the Kapiti girl who lost her front teeth diving into the shallow end of the Kilbirnie Pool? Was it an error to demand Wellington Swimming change the start of races to the deep end? Was it a blunder to point out the deception involved in signing Lauren Boyle’s world record application? Was there fault in highlighting the waste involved in SNZ’s centralised training policy? It took ten years but eventually even SNZ agreed with me and ditched that program. Are there any of those issues that Dana thinks should have been ignored?

And today should we disregard the fact that those running the sport have chosen to flout a recommendation of the Privacy Commission? Is it wrong to be concerned that the CEO and Board of SNZ have received a government agency recommendation that they undertake a program of privacy training? This is a sport involving 5000 young New Zealanders and those responsible for running it are told to go and learn about privacy. Should we pretend that didn’t happen? Because if we do Dana, events occur like a few years ago when I complained about a topless photograph taken in the girls changing room at the national championships and posted on Instagram and the CEO of SNZ told me it wasn’t a problem. Only after I complained to the police did it become a problem.

So, no I do not believe the issues debated on Swimwatch are the ravings of a delusional faultfinder. What is said here might not always be right. But a lot of what is said needs to see the light of day. Which brings me to the comment made by Bruce Cotterill in the Stuff report. Here is what he said.

“Cotterill strongly rejects Wright’s assertion that the outcome of the investigation was not shared with him. He says Wright, through his lawyer, was given “feedback” on the findings of the review.”

I need to be honest and confess, this sort of comment makes my blood boil. It is typical of what we used to call, “Auckland white shoes and pink socks yuppies”. Tell a lie strongly enough, tell it smoothly enough and the world will believe. Deflection is the stock in trade of the spin artist.

Cotterill says that I was given “feedback” through my lawyer. I wasn’t. I was in Saudi Arabia when Michael Marris spoke to my lawyer. I only know a conversation took place because a month after I began working in Saudi Arabia and shortly after the phone call between the lawyer and Marris I received the following email from Michael Marris.

On 3/07/2016, at 11:02 PM, Michael Marris <mem@stratgov.com> wrote:

Good morning David

I am in the process of finalising a report to Swimming New Zealand.

As I have assured you from our first meeting, you will certainly receive a copy of that.

As you have been recently unavailable to meet I have discussed, in-depth, my tentative views with (XXXXXXX) (whom I might add, has been a very strong and constructive advocate on your behalf).

I trust this will allow your concerns.

Kind regards

Michael Marris

As you can see the Michael Marris email tells me, the Marris Report was still being finalised, the discussion with my lawyer only involved the investigator’s “tentative views” and I had an assurance that I would receive the final report.

Let’s be clear, the Report was still being finalised when Marris discussed his “tentative views” in a conversation that did not involve me. As we all know “tentative” means “not certain or agreed”. In no way does a phone call, that did not involve me, about views that were still being finalised count as me being – as Cotterill claims – informed about the “outcome of the investigation”. That is dishonest spin.

Doesn’t Cotterill understand the difference between the words “tentative” and “outcome”? Clearly both the lawyer and Michael Marris did not confuse their casual conversation on the phone with my privacy right to the final report. Marris understood that because he said so in the email. The lawyer understood that because he never even mentioned to me the contents of their “tentative” conversation. And neither should he. At that stage the conversation was only hearsay.

Cotterill is clutching at straws. Any excuse for appalling behaviour will do. A phone call, that did not involve me, about tentative findings made while the Report was still being written in no way excuses Cotterill’s decision to interfere in my privacy by denying me access to the finalised Report.

Cotterill’s argument is duplicitous. He dishonestly wants to excuse the Privacy Commission’s findings that I should have access to the Marris Report. He is attempting to avoid explaining why the Privacy Commission found that he is in need of privacy training. But Cotterill’s spin is futile. I am entitled to the Report. The Report’s author promised me a copy. And the law agrees. No swimming pool full of Cotterill spin, no legal manipulation by a highly paid SNZ lawyer will alter that fact. Cotterill – give me the Marris Report.

But Do They Make Sense?

The Stuff article discussing my efforts to obtain the Marris Report contains the opinions of several parties. My views are reported. Nikki Johns and her father are interviewed. Susan Turner chips in with her opinions. And Bruce Cotterill, the Chairman of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) takes 451 words to express his thoughts.

My views have been beaten to death on Swimwatch. I want to read the un-redacted Marris Report. Why? Two reasons. To clear my name. And because the principle feature of the Privacy Act is to protect the access New Zealanders have to private information held by agencies like SNZ. Of the thousands of words written on Swimwatch about this issue those forty-one words tell you everything that’s important about my views, my opinions and my case.

Obviously my opinion is that the views of Johns, her father and Turner are suspect. Not that my opinion of those three is important any longer. I have consistently said that what Johns and Turner say now is of little interest to me. Their issues were resolved three years ago by a competent and thorough investigation. I will not participate in their attempt at re-litigation now. Double jeopardy is a well-protected safeguard in New Zealand.

What is important though is the view of SNZ Chairman, Bruce Cotterill. My case before the Human Rights Tribunal deals with access to my personal information. That is between SNZ and me. It has nothing to do with Johns, her father or Turner.

So let’s look at what Cotterill told Stuff. Because his thoughts are scattered through the Stuff report it is difficult to view them as a logical whole. So what I have done is copy text from the Stuff report each time it mentions a Cotterill comment. I have then posted it below as one statement. So here is the Stuff report of what just Bruce Cotterill has to say.

I will now highlight key points made by Cotterill and respond with my counter opinion.

“Could not comment on the specifics of the case while the matter is before the tribunal.”

This is nonsense. There is no rule or law that prevents Cotterill discussing his opinions on the case. Cotterill doesn’t want to come clean so he uses the Tribunal as a convenient excuse to avoid the reporter’s questions. It is ironic that for someone who couldn’t comment Cotterill then takes 451 words to tell the world his opinion. If that’s Cotterill’s silence, what’s he like when he does want to talk?

“There are a lot of issues at play”

This is a hugely important concession by SNZ. You see one of the reasons given by SNZ for refusing to provide my personal information was that it was, in the words of the Privacy Act, “evaluative material compiled solely” for one of the purposes allowed in the Act. And here we have Cotterill admitting the Report covers “a lot of issues”. The exception allowed in the Act simply does not apply. Thank you Chairman Cotterill.

“David has asked for a copy of the entire report”

Cotterill is right. I am asking for the entire Report now. However he is also twisting the truth – a not uncommon characteristic. The version of the Report recommended for release by the Privacy Commission contained significant redactions. It was not the “entire report”. Still SNZ refused to comply. The “entire report” maybe Cotterill’s excuse now but it does not explain his decision to defy the Privacy Commission.

“Cotterill strongly rejects Wright’s assertion that the outcome of the investigation was not shared with him. He says Wright, through his lawyer, was given “feedback” on the findings of the review.”

Let’s be clear. I have received four promises that I will be given the Marris Report. The CEO of SNZ verbally promised me the Report when the investigation was being planned. Marris promised me the Report in writing. SNZ’s disputes procedures promise me the Report. The Privacy Act promises me the Report. I’m not interested in some Cotterill alleged feedback telephone call to my lawyer. I was in Saudi Arabia and was never told about it. A casual conversation of that nature is an inadequate joke. I have applied for the Report. The law says I am entitled to the Report. Cotterill’s pathetic excuses about a phone call, no matter how strongly it is asserted, count for nothing.

“That involved going back to each of the people that participated in the review, and sharing the outcome of the review. If you’re talking to people that are saying that hasn’t happened, then those people haven’t talked to me, and I’m not aware of it.”

All that is rubbish. I’ve said this before but it is worthwhile repeating. Thousands of words have been written on Swimwatch, emails have been sent by me to SNZ, a year-long government enquiry has investigated my application and we are a month into a tribunal case and Cotterill expects us to believe he is “not aware of it”. Either that’s not true or Cotterill is incredibly stupid.

“If there was anything in that report which justified Swimming NZ taking action against any party involved in the review, we most certainly would have done so.”

Thank you Chairman Cotterill. That is clearly saying there was nothing in the Marris Report that “justified Swimming NZ taking action against” me. While that is comforting I still want access to my personal information in the Report to see what, why and how the investigator came to that opinion. And also to clear my name. And if I’m innocent Johns and Turner are as guilty as sin of making false and malicious accusations. They need to be sanctioned accordingly. New Zealand coaches should not be hung out to dry as I have been on this occasion.

“The most important thing we did was get a suitably qualified person to come in as an independent and deal with it. [Marris] took a lot of time and effort to the investigation and did a very thorough job.”

On this I agree 100% with Chairman Cotterill. The questions Turner and Johns are raising now are typical. They don’t like the result so the investigator is to blame. Like me, they accepted the rules before the game began. It is far too late to change that now the game is over and the score is known. Turner and Johns are in no position to question the competence of Michael Marris.

“One of Marris’ recommendations in the report was that the findings remain confidential to the board of Swimming NZ.”

Because I haven’t seen the Marris Report I have no idea whether this is true or not. Given that Marris twice promised me a copy of his Report I doubt very much whether any recommendation of confidentiality made to SNZ included me. That sort of duplicity is not the way I read Michael Marris. My guess is that Marris meant confidential from the general population – but available through the SNZ “conduit” to me. No other confidentiality promise was possible, permissible or legal.

It will be interesting to determine how the Human Rights Tribunal rules on these and other questions. One would have to say that after the negative finding of the Privacy Commission, if the Tribunal also rules against SNZ it might be time for the Board to seriously consider whether they are up to the job. Directors have a legal responsibility to manage the company well by acting honestly in the best interest of SNZ. That appears to have not happened on this occasion.