News 18
Ashburton Guardian
Saturday, June 14, 2014
www.guardianonline.co.nz
■ TEAM NEW ZEALAND
Weeks away from going under The clock is ticking for Team New Zealand. Without an immediate cash injection the syndicate are, in the words of boss Grant Dalton, “gone by the end of the month”. However, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce has just ruled out any immediate cash injection for Team New Zealand. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so the syndicate yesterday invited the media to their Halsey St base in a thinly veiled attempt to make one last plea to the New Zealand tax-payer to keep the doors of the syndicate open. Worried the “hysteria” and “negative rhetoric” around the rules for the next America’s Cup is hinging efforts to secure further bridging finance from the Government, Dalton has stated his case to the for the team’s continued involvement in the event. Although Dalton said the syndicate has never been in a better position from a sponsorship point of view, the money he has lined up won’t kick in until February next year once the venues for 35th America’s Cup and qualifying series is known. So Team New Zealand is reliant on government funds getting them through to February. At a media conference yesterday afternoon, Mr Joyce ruled out any immediate cash injection. He said he wanted to see the sponsors front up first, Newstalk ZB reported. Dalton says he has private money lined up to help tide them over in the meantime, but those donors aren’t willing to hand over a cheque until the Government is on board.
Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton.
While privately Dalton says the Government have been receptive to continuing their investment in Team New Zealand, they’re nervous about the public backlash in election year. So it rests on Dalton’s shoulders to try to convince the New Zealand taxpayer it will be money well spent. But with Oracle Team USA widely criticised for tabling a protocol stacked in their favour, the task of trying to convince New Zealanders entering the 35th America’s Cup is a worthwhile endeavour has become all the more difficult. The general reaction from Kiwi fans was ‘tell Oracle to go and get stuffed’. That approach won’t hurt Oracle, it will only hurt Team New
Zealand, says Dalton. He claims the protocol isn’t as bad as some, including the Herald, have been suggesting. “It isn’t that bad. These guys aren’t doing us any favours, let’s be realistic about that -- it is the America’s Cup. But it isn’t that bad,” he said. Dalton points out the task facing them in the last campaign was an even steeper mountain to climb. In 2010 when the protocol for the 34th America’s Cup was released, the extent of Dean Barker’s multihull experience was sailing a Hobie catamaran on his Christmas holidays; they had no firm commitment from sponsors; Team New Zealand didn’t have a design team with multihull exper-
Photo NEW ZEALAND hErALD
tise, while Oracle had just won the America’s Cup in a giant wing-sailed multihull. “We don’t see the odds being stacked anything like they were last time. We were starting from absolute scratch, we’d never even seen a wingsail, let alone designed one. “So the project doesn’t worry us at all, there’s nothing in the Protocol that scares us off,” said Dalton. “In many respects we’re strong than we have ever been. We’re operational, we’re sound, we’ve got a lot of sponsor interest. But we have a serious cash flow issue and we have a New Zealand public that is critically important to us.” Dalton also played up the
importance of yachting in this country, pointing out New Zealand’s long association with the America’s Cup and the positive spin-off that has had for the marine industry and the Auckland waterfront. “The first memory I have is Clive Roberts and Chris Bouzaid -- Heligoland 1969, Rainbow II [in the One Ton Cup] -- it started there for my generation and it’s grown through Laurie Davidson, Bruce Farr, Peter Blake. All that history brings us to this point. “If we go, there ain’t no coming back. The start-up price of a team from scratch is so astronomical that it will never happen in this country.” - APNZ
John Banks: ‘It’s a tragedy but no regrets’ By AdAm Bennett The events leading to the end of John Banks’ Parliamentary career yesterday have been “a tragedy” but he has no regrets, remains upbeat and is glad to be alive, Act’s departing Epsom MP says. Mr Banks’ resignation as an MP after he was found guilty of electoral finance fraud became official yesterday. “It’s not the way I would have wanted to have left but if you’re going to have a very long, very full commercial life and a very long and very full political life then you’re going to have rainy days and in recent months the rain has been raining,” he told
NewsTalkZB political editor Barry Soper this morning. “It’s a tragedy but no regrets and I’m not a victim, we just look forward and we keep going.” In an apparent reference to those listed in obituaries yesterday morning, he said: “There’s a lot of people alphabetically listed on the back page of the newspapers today that wish they were me”. Much of Mr Banks’ term in Parliament as Act’s sole MP has been marred by the initial allegations of electoral fraud related to his failed 2010 bid for the Auckland supercity mayoralty and his subsequent trial and guilty verdict on charges
of knowingly filing a false electoral return. However, he didn’t regret his return to national politics three years ago. “What a great honour and what a great experience it has been for me to work with an outstanding individual like John Key and his kitchen cabinet in particular and generally the cabinet of the National Party and my coalition friends. “I’ve enjoyed it very much. Of course it’s been tough and I’ve had the bad times and bad days but overall it’s an been an experience that I could never have expected again and I got, which was great.” Politics was “a noble profession and something to be proud
of and I’m grateful for the opportunity”. Mr Banks’ sentencing and the issue of whether he will be convicted will be considered by the High Court on August 1. Mr Banks’ resignation would automatically trigger a byelection unless Parliament passes a motion with 75 per cent majority to prevent that. The National Government will introduce the motion next week and Labour, which until now remained uncommitted, this morning said it would support it. Leader David Cunliffe said that at a special caucus meeting earlier this week it was decided Labour would not force the bye-
lection “because it is not in the public interest”. However he wanted to mark Mr Banks’ last day as an MP by calling on Mr Key to support Labour’s members bill to scrap the coat-tailing provision under which Act had retained Epsom. “Act’s final foray into Parliament was an abject failure. The deal done by John Key and John Banks in a bid to bring Don Brash back into Parliament backfired spectacularly. John Banks has been nothing but an embarrassment for National this Parliamentary term. “National needs to end the manipulation of the electoral system in Epsom – voters there have had enough.” - APNZ