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History may not look favourably upon the provincial unions if they vote to install their version of what best practice governance for New Zealand Rugby (NZR) should look like.
Maybe, a few weeks ago, that wasn’t the case. A few weeks ago, history didn’t have a clearline of sight on those tasked with shaping it the way it does now.
The provincial unions were facing having to decide between backing their own mitigated blueprint for governance change, or voting for NZR’s equally compromised and tarnished vision of how board directors should be appointed and by whom.
It was a battle of bad ideas, neither side willing to accept that there was a better, fully researched and expertly put-together proposal sitting right in front of them.
But for whatever reason, NZR’s board has had an epiphany and worked out that the 134-page report that landed in late August last year is not the harbinger of doom they so clearly thought it was nine months ago.
NZR gave the so-called Pilkington Review tentative approval when it was first published, but then proceeded to take a deeply sceptical stance on many of its recommendations.
Perhaps it was because the review was co-sponsored by the Rugby Players’ Association, who made it a condition of any continued negotiations about a potential private equity deal with US fund manager Silver Lake.
Possibly NZR didn’t like being held to ransom like that. Maybe the board simply feared the prospect of change, or feared being pushed into change that was not of its own making.
That was until now, and the surprise announcement that the board has effectively given up trying to push its own strangely concocted and confused transitional plan to change its governance structure, and has instead decided to ask the unions to vote in favour of adopting the key recommendations of the independent review.
This has drastically changed the dynamic of the Special General Meeting that the provincial unions called for two weeks ago.
New Zealand Rugby's governance saga will conclude on May 30. Photo / Photosport
What will happen now is that two proposals will appear on the ballot at the SGM on May 30.
One will be a proposal put forward by the provincial unions that will be finalised next week.
It’s a plan that supports having nine independent directors, but will have the caveats of insisting that three of them have served for at least two years on a provincial board; that at least one board member has “lived experience, knowledge and understanding of te ao Māori in a complex organisational context”, and likewise, at least one member “must identify and have lived experience as Pasifika with ancestral and authentic cultural connections and an ability to apply a Pasifika world view in a complex organisational context”.
The other proposal will, according to the statement put out by the NZR board: “Give effect to the key recommendations outlined in the independent governance review published last August.”
The details are not yet finalised, but it will effectively recommend that in future, nine independent directors are appointed by an independent committee.
The nine directors will need to satisfy the appointments panel that between them they possess a pre-agreed range of skills and experiences to ensure that all facets of the game are well served.
There also needs to be a transition plan set out with this proposal, detailing specifically how change will be handled and by whom.
There’s also still a bit of detail to clear up about how current board members stand down and then re-apply, but that should be made public in the next few days.
And the unexpected arrival of this proposal to adopt the review’s findings has left the unions in the crosshairs of history.
Previously, when two bad proposals were on the table, the unions were able to convince themselves they were the champions of progressive change, tirelessly and selflessly battling to deliver the better pathway – one which had more chance of setting New Zealand up for long-term success.
But now the landscape has been redefined, and they will have to justify why they voted against the proposal that was produced by experts and built on in-depth research.
Now they will have to decide on what basis they can say their plan is better than the one put forward by industry experts who took the better part of six months and hundreds of interviews to form it.
History will wonder now that it has two proposals lined up side-by-side like this, whether the unions fell on the right side.
Wellington chair Russell Poole says there is not universal support among the unions for their own proposal, but that until more detail is released about the alternative, it’s unclear how much support it will have.
He says that ultimately the most important thing is that one of the proposals wins a two-thirds majority on May 30, as there is unanimous agreement among all stakeholders that it would be disastrous for the game to retain the status quo.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
