Kerre Woodham: What a shambles they've got into down at TVNZ

And to think when I was a little girl growing up in Waihi I wanted to work in television!

I got my wish, up to a point, but I have never been so glad in all my life that my mortgage, my professional life and my professional future is not now tied to TVNZ.

How on earth did the organisation get itself into this mess?

The damage control is appalling. There have been high-profile presenters caught up in pay rows before - remember April Bruce? - and other extremely popular presenters have left - like the gorgeous Jim Hickey - and the public hasn't had to endure the ghastly image of TVNZ eating its young.

If it was a private company, it would be bad enough. When taxpayers not only have to put up with witnessing all this nasty in-house fighting, but have to pay for it as well, then it's very little wonder viewers are turning away from Close Up in their droves.

TVNZ has its own public relations department, its own lawyers, its own professional schmooze artists - and if ever there was a time when these people had to get out there and publicly relate, provide sound legal advice and schmooze, it's now. And yet still the horrors roll on.

We had Ian Fraser resigning. We had the Employment Tribunal bag TVNZ for its poorly written contracts. We had Susan Wood claiming vindication, but from the sidelines it looks like a pretty hollow victory.

You might win the battle, but unless you win the hearts and minds of the people, you won't win the war.

We had TVNZ claiming everything was roses between Susan and the company, and then we had Susan's highly paid lawyer claiming things certainly were not.

We had TVNZ selling off Judy Bailey's personal items of clothing while she was on leave, and while it's common practice to auction items of clothing the company has paid for, images of vultures pawing through Judy's drawers come to mind.

And in the midst of it all, we had Bill Ralston go overseas.

What a sorry mess!

Meanwhile, over on the other side of town, TV3's news editors are allowing the schadenfreude to go to their heads and are leading their news bulletins with the stories of the dramas at TVNZ no matter what else has happened during the day.

It seems an impossible situation. Susan Wood is legally right in demanding her employers pay her the big bucks she's used to. But the knowledge that the Close Up presenter is being paid that sort of money is a literal and metaphorical turn-off to the vast majority of the public.

She's a lovely woman, and very capable at her job - but just in the last week, I've met nurses and prison officers who are lovely people too, and they appear to be extremely competent at their jobs. They've done the maths - and they know one Susan equals 10 nurses or 16 prison officers. Susan says she's worth it - there are others who beg to differ.

And the fact Susan feels aggrieved about the amount she's earning shows she's been working at TVNZ too long. She's lost her sense of perspective. She's comparing herself to Judy Bailey and Paul Holmes - and she's neither of those people.

I work with Paul Holmes, too, ostensibly doing the same work, and yet I'm not paid the same as him, and nor do I think I should be.

At least I assume I'm not paid the same. I don't know how much he gets, and nor do I care. It's none of my business. My contract is between my employer and me, and if I don't like it, I can leave and back myself to get the same sort of money, or better, in the real world.

But the thing that's really galling is all these players are going to end up walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars no matter what the outcome. What's a little bit of hurt and humiliation when you know you've got a cast-iron contract and/or the best lawyer in town?