Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does Netball NZ know how bad this looks?

How is it possible that the Dame Noeline Taurua crisis has actually got worse today? How is it possible that she's got her job back today and this thing has still got worse?

I'm getting the impression that Netball New Zealand do not realize how bad this is today.

If they don't realize the enormous damage that Dame Noeline has done to them by going on at least three radio interviews and one TV interview and saying repeatedly the same thing -  that she does not know how she was stood down, that there was no investigation to clear her before she was brought back - if they don't realize how enormous this is, I can't explain it to them.

They're not responding today to Dame Noels' comments and they're not saying if she's right or wrong. 

All we know is that the Netball New Zealand minder who was with her when she was doing the interviews told her to stop telling Mike Hosking that she didn't know why she was stood down.

Now let me, for the benefit of everyone - but particularly I think for Netball New Zealand - explain how bad this is.

None of us here in this office can think of a single employment disagreement that has been dragged out in public like this for this long with this much interest in it.

Not even, I would say, the John Hawkesby-Richard Long case back in the late 90s, which was a really big deal at the time - not even that went on this long and was this badly handled.

None of us can also think of a single time when Mike Hosking interviewed someone over four interview slots, which is what happened with Dame Noels this morning. Even during COVID, Jacinda Ardern maybe got three slots maximum.

Noeline got four, that's how big this is. It's certainly big enough, I think, for somebody at Netball New Zealand to lose their job now.

I'm sorry to say this, because I've got a lot of respect for Matt Whineray, the chair of the board, but I think this is now big enough for him to actually have to consider standing down. Either him or the CEO Jennie Wyllie - or frankly, both of them.

Either that or they tell us that Dame Noeline is wrong and that what she said on air this morning was wrong.

But if her version of events is right, then what has happened to her is completely unacceptable, and Netball New Zealand must indicate that they think this - that they do not condone this kind of ill treatment of employees because their judgment is now in question.

We're all looking at this and thinking - if you can stuff up something this badly, what else are you going to stuff up?

They cannot afford for us to not believe in their judgment because they are now far from through the worst of what they're going through, with the financial crisis that they're in and the broadcasting crisis that they're in, right?

They have not actually solved their broadcasting problems and they have not saved the domestic competition.

If they want us to trust that they know what they're doing, and if they want us to not question them at every single turn, then I'm sorry - someone absolutely has to lose their job over this.

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