Rudman's city: A thorn between two roses

By BRIAN RUDMAN

It doesn't pay to leave your body armour at home if you are a member of the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust. On Wednesday it was knife in the back time for chairwoman Pauline Winter.

Doing the plunging was her Powerlynk team colleague Karen Sherry. Which seems only fair because it was just over a year ago that Winter did the same thing to Sherry.

And lurking in the wings, helping to mastermind both the coups, was that Machiavelli of the South Seas, former National Party president John Collinge.

Confused? Well, it's all rather simple if you keep in the forefront of your mind that Mr Collinge is desperately keen to return to what he sees as his rightful position on the board of Vector, the electricity line company that the trust owns.

With Mr Collinge and his Citrat colleague, Mike Buczkowski, outnumbered on the five-strong trust by the three-woman centre-left Powerlynk team - if that's the correct word - of Sherry, Winter and Coralie van Camp, his only chance of achieving his ambition has been to divide the opposition. That's been a doddle for the old pro.

The Powerlynk team has been shaky since it came on the scene to fight the October 2000 trust elections. Sherry was a trustee who defected from the Citrats to lead the staunchly anti-privatisation Powerlynk ticket.

During the election campaign, Sherry had some unkind things to say about Mr Collinge, who in his time had served as chairman of the old Auckland Electric Power Board and as a member of the Mercury Energy and Vector boards.

Referring to her backing for him in the past, Sherry said Collinge had "performed dismally" when they had been on the Mercury board together.

Sherry became chairwoman of the trust after the election but was ousted by her Powerlynk colleagues soon afterwards in a difference over how three years of backed-up dividends were to be distributed to consumers. It's been no-speaks between Sherry and her two partners since.

Towards the middle of last year, the trust employed corporate headhunters Farrow Jamieson to do a "governance review" of the Vector board. At that stage, the reappointment of two directors - John Lindsay and Peter Drummond - was coming up for review.

It seems the consensus was for enlarging the board from its five members to broaden the skill range on offer. The headhunters came up with several possible candidates and suggested trustees do the same.

Collinge offered himself and three or four other names. Van Camp tossed in a couple as well. Buczkowski threw his own name into the ring as well, but has since withdrawn it.

Collinge and van Camp apparently rubbished each other's lists. In the end, the headhunters came up with a shorter list of 10 or so, which left out most of Collinge's names and all of van Camp's.

Things got messy from then on in. Collinge insisted on his nominees being interviewed anyway. He also took part in the interviews of prospective board members, even though he was himself a candidate.

This culminated in an unholy scrap about the whole process at a trust meeting before Christmas at which the two consultants from Farrow Jamieson were present along with board chairman Wayne Brown.

Winter and van Camp were adamantly opposed to Collinge's participation in the process because of his candidacy.

They also opposed his candidacy. The headhunters expressed their unease about the ethics of the situation.

Sherry, who says she was deliberately excluded from the discussions, says the whole carry-on was "a disgusting exhibition of a weak shareholder in front of the company, which was unacceptable".

She says at the end of the meeting "it became increasingly obvious that the trust was simply not functioning".

Enter white knight Collinge, proposing to restore Sherry to her throne. This despite all the bitterness that had passed between them.

Both deny the suggestion that this is one good deed that will, in turn, be rewarded with another - Sherry's support for Collinge's bid for the board.

"I am no one's handmaiden," Sherry declared to me.

As for Collinge, he says it was a case of "inexperienced people" wanting a go. "We gave them a go and feel now there's a better option. To get back to experience so the objectives of the trust can be better and more efficiently managed."

As for his role in the board selection process, he says that will be reviewed at the next trust meeting on February 14. He says claims of conflict of interest are Labour-Alliance inspired.

"Of course I've been sitting in on the interviews, but not in judgment of myself, naturally."

Sherry is not averse to a trustee director, but insists Collinge is not necessarily it. She also sees a way round what others see as Collinge's conflict of interest.

She proposes selecting two extra "ordinary" directors, which the full trust can do. Then the trust would select one of its own as a special trustee director. At that stage, Collinge and any other candidate would leave the room.

The irony of that situation is that on leaving the room he would immediately lose his majority on the trust. At best the vote would be two-all.

And you wonder why putting the power lines underground is taking so long.