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Image: Madeleine Chapman
Image: Madeleine Chapman

MediaJuly 5, 2022

NZ plunged into deeper gloom as Auckland woman exposes cost-of-putting-pool-in crisis

Image: Madeleine Chapman
Image: Madeleine Chapman

Government expected to take urgent action to stave off public demonstrations over a delay in putting pool in.

New Zealand’s recent run of troubles began with the ravages of the Covid-19. Next came a cost of living crisis, its devastations fed by the economic fallout of the pandemic and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And today, If there were any doubt that bad things come in threes, another calamity: Kate Hawkesby is having to wait a bit for a new pool to be put in.

Already things were feeling bad all the time. Now they feel worse even aller of the time. 

In an exposé-cum-thinkpiece for Newstalk ZB, the Auckland resident laid out the new reality in unflinching, wintry detail. All they sought was “just a pool and the obligatory pool fence,” she wrote. “We had an engineer draw up the specs and submit it to council, routine procedure, nothing to see here. Then, to our surprise, the council comes back a couple of weeks later and says not only do we have to apply for building consent to build a pool, but now also a resource consent.” The council also expected money for their so-called consents. 

The cost-of-putting-a-pool-in crisis, which is almost certainly Meghan Markle and Jacinda Ardern’s fault, is expected to bring a swift response from ministers that have in recent weeks been locked in the parliamentary basement gluing toilet paper tubes to chalk to solve the plasterboard crisis. In the face of what some are calling a poolocalypse and against a backdrop of polling that underscores the government’s failure to frame a compelling narrative among New Zealanders who just want to put a pool in, a domestic pool taskforce will be assembled to consider new measures including a “turquoise” traffic light setting as part of an effort to placate an increasingly radicalised community of people who want to put pools in.

A spokesperson indicated announcements about timings for future plans could be expected to be revealed in the coming days.

“The nightmare that ordinary Kiwis face in trying to get a pool put in reveals just how our economic woes have deepened,” said one leading economist, who added: “And also the shallow end.”

Unconfirmed reports suggest desperate and disoriented New Zealanders unable to have pools installed have begun swimming in their cars or attempting to paddle in soup kitchen bowls of soup.

Policy-makers will struggle to persuade the public that they were caught unawares by the pool crisis, given the warning issued earlier this year by one community activist (Kate Hawkesby). Alighting on the supply chain delays, she declared, “We have to wait a year to get a new home pool,” five months ago.

In that essay, Hawkesby set out the hardship involved in pool ownership, laying bare the practical and emotional labour that can be overlooked by those who have large staffs to look after their pools. They can be “high maintenance costly experiences which never actually got used as much as you thought they would,” Hawkesby wrote. “Kids always promise to swim every day and then when you get a pool suddenly they’re too cold and don’t want to. My husband reckoned cost per swim was about ten grand.”

That’s not all. “They can sit empty and unused for many months, all the while you’re paying a fortune to maintain them. On top of that, many families travel during the summer school holidays so that’s lost time in the pool too.” 

Those reasons, together perhaps with the lasting traumas detailed in 2018 of attempting to actually rent a property to live in and encountering – content warning – “missing pool tiles”, meant that Hawkesby resisted putting a pool in until expensive overseas travel was off the menu. Now she’s left with a plan to build a pool, open borders and a national airline that refuses to put her pool on a Dreamliner. 

Only the naive, meanwhile, would imagine that the pool crisis has no flow-on effects. In an example of what economists call the chlorinated trickle-down effect, pool expenditure is reassigned to other essential goods. Hawkesby explains that her unnamed husband responded to the pool crisis revelations with a dirgeful, “Cancel the pool. I’d rather buy a Ferrari.” Isn’t that what we’re all thinking? And if we are, how long until we face the fourth unimaginable reality – not only is there not enough Gib board to go around, but good luck to you trying to get hold of a 620 cv V8 Portofino.


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Kamahl Santamaria (Photo: Supplied)
Kamahl Santamaria (Photo: Supplied)

MediaJuly 1, 2022

TVNZ admits it didn’t follow proper protocol when hiring Kamahl Santamaria

Kamahl Santamaria (Photo: Supplied)
Kamahl Santamaria (Photo: Supplied)

Documents released to The Spinoff show TVNZ knew it had breached protocol during its hiring of Kamahl Santamaria. But a week later, it launched an internal review. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.

TVNZ already knew it hadn’t conducted proper reference checks during the hiring process of broadcaster Kamahl Santamaria when it launched a review into what happened, correspondence released to The Spinoff under the Official Information Act has revealed.

In a letter dated May 31, three days after Santamaria’s resignation, deputy chair for the national broadcaster Kevin Malloy told then broadcasting minister Kris Faafoi that the company’s recruitment processes had not been adhered to correctly.

“The recruitment policy was not followed in that thorough reference checks were not undertaken,” wrote Malloy. Despite this, roughly a week later TVNZ announced it was launching an internal review of its hiring processes to determine whether protocol was followed ahead of Santamaria’s arrival at TVNZ.

Santamaria, who was hired by TVNZ to replace John Campbell on Breakfast after 16 years at Al Jazeera in Qatar, abruptly disappeared from TV screens on May 19, a few weeks after he started on the high-profile morning news show. TVNZ first attributed his absence to a “family emergency”, but it soon emerged he was the subject of at least one complaint of inappropriate behaviour from a female colleague at the public broadcaster. Santamaria’s resignation was announced on May 28. Reports subsequently emerged of similar complaints from colleagues at Al Jazeera.

Part of the email supplied to The Spinoff, dated May 31 2022, from TVNZ deputy board chair Kevin Malloy to broadcasting minister Kris Faafoi.

The terms of reference for the internal review, which was announced on June 8, stipulated that: “The Reviewer will also review and provide findings on whether decisions made by TVNZ were in accordance with TVNZ’s Recruitment Policy and related processes and practices in the recruitment and reference checking of Kamahl Santamaria.”

Malloy’s letter also noted that: “The Head of News and Current Affairs had worked with the candidate previously.” That’s a reference to Paul Yurisich, who had worked with Santamaria at Al Jazeera and was responsible for hiring him at TVNZ.

Yurisich is currently on leave in the wake of Santamaria’s resignation.

While TVNZ’s chief executive Simon Power told staff in early June he believed the company’s recruitment policy had not been followed consistently, Malloy’s letter, sent just a few days earlier, was more explicit.

Faafoi was first made aware of the situation involving Santamaria on Monday, May 23. A text from TVNZ board chair Andy Coupe asked the minister to call him. “It’s a marginal ‘no surprises’ issue,” wrote Coupe, in the message obtained by The Spinoff. Faafoi would later describe the issue in far more serious terms, telling media he was provided with a “high-level update” during this conversation.

A text to Kris Faafoi from TVNZ chair Andy Coupe on May 23 (Supplied to The Spinoff under the Official Information Act)

The question, as asked by Newsroom’s co-editor Mark Jennings in a recent opinion piece, is whether reference checks would have revealed Santamaria’s alleged improprieties. A former senior New Zealand media executive told The Spinoff that it was unlikely, and that the process for hiring a big name star such as Santamaria was normally no more demanding than for hiring anyone else. “It’s my experience that talent goes through the same amount of scrutiny as anyone else,” he said. “And in some cases, that’s no great deal. My experience has been that the reference checks are really done after you’ve made the decision to hire someone. In most cases a reference check doesn’t feed into the decision to hire someone.”

It was possible, they added, that you might uncover a disqualifying reason during the reference checks, but a candidate was unlikely to list someone on their CV as a reference if they were likely to give negative feedback. “I have a lot of sympathy for TVNZ, perhaps there were some breakdowns along the way… but in terms of the formal steps that were gone through, it really sort of doesn’t surprise me that you bring up things from someone’s past and you haven’t found it during the reference check phase.”

The findings of the review, headed by senior employment lawyer Margaret Robins, are expected to be released next week to both staff at TVNZ and the wider public.

The Spinoff previously asked TVNZ for information related to the hiring of Santamaria but was told this would soon be released via the review’s findings.

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