Isn’t detest a most unpleasant word. Even its synonyms are offensive – abhor, despise, loathe and abominate. Only two objects generate that degree of disgust in my life. Both broadcast on Newstalk ZB – one at prime-time in the morning, Mike Hosking and the other in the equally popular evening slot, Heather Du Plessis-Allan.

They are New Zealand’s answer to the American politicians, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is what Wikipedia says about Greene.

Greene has promoted far-right, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theories including the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as other disproven conspiracies such as false flag mass shootings, the Clinton body count, and multiple relating to 9/11. Before running for Congress, she advocated for executing prominent Democratic politicians. As a Congresswoman, she equated the Democratic Party with Nazis. 

I wonder whether any of that applies to the daily rants of Hosking and Du Plessis-Allan? We know the Broadcasting Standards Authority has already hauled Du Plessis-Allan over the coals for racist comments made about the Pacific Islands.  And so there maybe evidence to support the idea of “far right and white”.

Hosking too has been hauled up before the Authority on fourteen occasions since 2020. Once every two months someone has gone to the effort to file a complaint. In almost every case the Authority found Hosking’s outbursts were likely to cause offence but not beyond the limit of free speech. In September 2020 the Authority did rule that, “comments made by Mike Hosking were misleading in breach of the accuracy standard.” And so here too there is a question – is Hosking’s relationship with the truth as suspect as it seems?

I have used the word “rant” to describe what Hosking and Du Plessis-Allan indulge in every day. However, the word rant is woefully inadequate. I just can’t think of anything better to describe their constant, over and over again tirade of right-wing bluster. It is a world away from informative journalism.

For example, last night, the South African import was going on and on and on about what a good idea it would be to do away with the Queen as New Zealand’s Head of State. Clearly, she has no idea, or couldn’t care less, that New Zealand’s founding document was signed by 500 or so Māori chiefs as one party to the deal and the Queen (Queen Victoria) as the other party. The Treaty of Waitangi was not signed by a New Zealand Government. It was not even signed by the British Government. It was signed by the Crown, the Queen of Great Britain and about to become, the Queen of New Zealand.

Or is Du Plessis-Allan’s motive to do away with one party to the Treaty and achieve the ultimate pakeha rip-off – no Crown, no second party to the Treaty, no Treaty, no more reparations, no more protection and no more compensation. That sleight of hand would far exceed any land or cultural atrocity from the 1830s. Mind you, Du Plessis-Allan comes from South Africa. She may have learned how to strip native populations of their rights in a country expert at that skill.       

The Treaty is an important document for New Zealand and especially for its Māori population. And for that reason, especially if I were Māori, I would not have anything to do with damaging its validity. And I’d be telling Du Plessis-Allan to take her muskets and blankets and go away. We have no interest in selling the Treaty at any price.

I see the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is taking part today in a service to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years as New Zealand’s monarch. Once again Jacinda understands. And that’s a lot more than you can say about Hosking or Du Plessis-Allan. God save the Queen.

PS – It would be wrong to take this post as evidence that the author is a rabid royalist. I’m not. In fact, many of my ancestors came to New Zealand from Scotland. They supported Scottish independence. So do I. I know every word of the Scottish National Anthem sending “proud Edward’s army homeward, to think again.” But New Zealand is different. We are not ruled by Westminster. Scotland is. We are not even ruled by the Queen. But she is a signing party to our founding document and the safeguards it gives to those who were here before us. Both those deserve our protection.

Becoming a competitive international athlete from a small country like New Zealand, miles away from anywhere, has its own set of difficulties. The normal solution is to spend years traveling to America or Europe gaining the experience needed. John Walker did it that way. So did Danyon Loader. And so is Paul Coll. Steve Adams went to America and stayed to pursue his trade in the NBA. Some of New Zealand’s best athletes have traveled so often that the Olympic Games is almost just another meet against opposition they have raced a hundred times before.

Occasionally an inexperienced novice can bounce into the Olympic Games and win. But normally that event is where tough, hardened professionals accept the spoils of victory. So, how does a swimmer become a tough, hardened professional? On tours like Mare Nostrum is the answer.

That’s why I was pleased to see Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) arrange for a team of twenty-seven swimmers compete in the Mare Nostrum swim series. Three meets over two weeks is probably not long enough but it is certainly better than a weekend dash across the Tasman for the New South Wales Championships. The trick for SNZ now is to keep doing that sort of thing every year, over and over again. Whether it is the World Cup or the American Series or Mare Nostrum, SNZ must keep pushing swimmers to perform. There is no point in going once, ticking that box and staying in New Zealand. Gaining experience is tougher than that. It requires repetition.

How did Aristotle put it? “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Sure, there will be some who fail the test of repetition – don’t worry about that. They would have failed anyway. Others though will thrive and grow to become Walker, Adams, Loader champions. SNZ, for all that’s good in swimming, keep doing what you have begun.

Even in this first short trip you can see the beginnings of those who will thrive and those who will struggle. Most will find the experience too tough and will go onto other things. That is not a problem. Panning for gold requires turning over a lot of stones.

Here is what I mean when I say, “the beginnings of those who will thrive and those who will struggle.” None of this is a criticism of SNZ or any one swimmer. The purpose of the trip is to learn. So here is what I took out of their experience.

Twenty-seven swimmers went on the trip. In three meets they swam 253 races. The average number of races per swimmer was 9 – or 3 races per two-day meet. The highest number of races swum in the series by one swimmer was 17 and the lowest was 4. That all seems pretty normal. An average of 1.5 races a day for each swimmer seems about right.

Not so good – in fact pretty awful, was the ratio of personal best times. Of the 253 races only 18 (7%) were in personal best times. On a trip to race the world’s best swimmers New Zealand swimmers have to do better than that. Four swimmers swam 1 PB each, four swimmers swam 2 PBs each and one swimmer swam 6 PBs. Eighteen swimmers (66%) failed to swim a PB. This is international competition. There is work to be done. A PB opportunity has been missed.

Another measure of importance in a trip like this is how does each swimmer respond to the stress of travel, hotels, and competition. Do they flag and swim slower and slower as the days go by, or do they respond to the competition and swim faster as they adapt well to the stimulus of international competition?

For example, two swimmers had PBs and swam the following patterns in the three meets. This is a result swimmers should look for on a trip like this. It shows two swimmers thriving in the environment. Whether they were first or last in their race does not matter. They were set a challenge and responded well. The potential is there to grow and win.  

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
25.89	26.27	25.95	25.84 PB
1.04.08	1.01.86 PB	1.01.76 PB	1.01.61 PB

 On the other hand, swimmers can wither and die. They find the whole experience awful. All they want to do is party, party, party or catch the plane home and sleep for a month. For example, here are another two swimmer’s patterns of races.

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
2.05.29	2.11.33	2.13.35	2.14.39
24.76	24.89	25.09	25.21

And finally, there are swimmers that are neither good nor bad. They drift through the series with some good swims and a few disasters. The problem for this group is international champions have to do better than average. A better job next time is needed. Here are two examples.

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
28.38	29.66	30.67	30.27
33.35	33.88	34.10	34.84

A close look at the tour results and here is how I would evaluate the group’s performance divided into three categories – Good, Average and Work to be Done.

Good	Average	Work to be Done	Total
6	15	6	27

And so well done SNZ and the swimmers who took part. It is a start to lifting the standard of swimming here in New Zealand. I look forward to the same again next year. Excellence is a habit.

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.