Shades of grey

February 28, 2009
When it comes to local politics in Nelson, Grey Power certainly has plenty to say. But who are they saying it for? Geoff Collett tries to find out. -------------------- Hanging on the wall of the Grey Power Nelson offices, smack-bang in the heart of grey Nelson - Strawbridge Square, Stoke - there's a copy of the organisation's mission statement: "To be the appropriate voice for all New Zealanders", it vows.
Now, here's the appropriate voice in full cry - Grey Power's latest proclamation against the Nelson City Council, an organisation that the oldsters' lobby group is increasingly painting as some kind of evil empire. "Such tactics can only be considered wholly improper, and a highly arrogant and over the top, Mugabe-like reaction to criticism of, or challenge to, unconstitutional, undemocratic, illegal, illogical or otherwise imprudent policy or actions." And on it goes.
Most weeks they're at it, a handful of familiar names railing through the letters to the editor column in The Nelson Mail or some other forum about the latest outrage they're seeing perpetrated against Grey Power's people.
But lately, things have got a bit murky. Grey Power Nelson may proudly announce itself to be the biggest chapter of the organisation in the country, and its spokespeople may thunder about protecting the interests of the city's elderly, particularly those on fixed incomes. But when it comes to its long-running criticism of the city council, the question is becoming increasingly unavoidable. Has it been hijacked by a small club who have decided to make council business - and council bashing - their hobby?
One of its principal targets on the council, Pete Rainey, thinks so, saying he reckons many in the city are sick of hearing the negative approach from the group's local body spokesmen and promising that he will be questioning their mandate from now on.
It might seem like a straightforward question to ask - just who are Grey Power's representatives speaking for when they front up at the council to argue their point over this or that? But the answer is not so clear-cut.
Things have become a bit messy in that regard over the past couple of weeks, after one of its committee members and a long-time council critic, Daphne Stevens, presented a submission on its behalf to the city council about a regional arts strategy.
Grey Power's version of events is that Stevens departed from the script and mixed up her own, controversial, views on the merit of public art with the official line agreed to by the Grey Power committee. If Stevens claimed to be speaking on behalf of Grey Power's 14,000 members (actually 12,149, according to the latest official tally), she was quickly put right by a flood of letters to the Mail from unimpressed Grey Power members who disagreed.
But that still left unanswered the question of who Grey Power was speaking for with its official submission on the subject, which announced that the organisation would "seek draconian legislation, spearheaded by the new minister for local government [Rodney Hide], to restrict major expenditure outside council's core functions".
While its president, Gordon Currie, says that "we're a very effective lobby group with a very large membership", in almost the next breath he's insisting that "we do not say that we're the voice of all our members, because our membership covers I would say just about every religion, creed, race, political, social, religious beliefs, so we have to be extremely careful".
So, ask the question again: who exactly are they speaking for?
A discussion with Currie and one of his committee, Alf Newman, is good- natured and frank but a clear answer proves elusive.
Newman produces a 1000-word article prepared by him over Currie's name for the Grey Power Nelson website. It's headed, "Who represents who". Mostly, it's a diatribe in response to the sort of criticism Rainey makes, that Grey Power local body critics can't claim to speak on behalf of the organisation's members.
The article is the source of the dark quote above about Mugabe-like goings- on at Civic House, and it continues for much of its length in a similar vein. But it makes clear: "Because our membership is a totally diverse body that traverses the entire spectrum of opinion on any single issue, the local bodies subcommittee goes to extreme lengths to avoid taking a for or against position on any specific proposal, as clearly it would be improper to take such a stance without first canvassing the entire membership." And it adds: ". . . the committee is responsible to the members, to lobby for the welfare, best interests and majority good of the membership".
Then it goes on to challenge the council's own right to be representing the Nelson community, accusing it of cronyism, pork-barrel politics, back- scratching, conflicts of interest and political patronage.
Currie argues that members of the Grey Power committee are elected by the wider membership each year and suggests, in a roundabout way, that its elections give the committee a clearer mandate than the council receives from its own elections.
Then again, last year's Grey Power Nelson election saw a little over 1 per cent of the total membership take part, about 150 people. There was a contest only for the president's job, with Currie seeing off a challenge from former city councillor Alan Turley. There weren't enough nominations for the committee jobs to warrant a vote, so all nine hopefuls got on, and they have since co- opted another member, Dan McGuire, to join them. If it suggests a degree of apathy, there are those who see value in being involved: two Nelson city councillors, Mike Cotton and Ian Barker, are committee members, and in the past a parade of other councillors, mayors and mayoral hopefuls have sat on the committee.
Currie admits the election turnout wasn't overwhelming. He readily acknowledges that a sizeable number of Grey Power members probably join up ($15 a year, or $25 for a couple, with a lower age limit of 50) solely to get a Grey Power discount card, which can save them money on a huge range of goods and services around town. And it needs to be loudly stated that the vast majority of Grey Power's work goes on beneath the radar, as an advocacy and support group helping its members in all manner of day-to-day ways.
But when things get political, Currie's assessment is: "There are two ways of looking at it: we're doing such a good job that they're quite happy with what we do . . . [or] we're such a bunch of a...holes no-one wants to come along."
Currie has held the presidency for 10 years and has also got himself elected to the Tasman District Council. While he's not the world's most polished holder of public office, he is certainly affable. He mangles the language when he talks - a sizeable proportion of nouns become "watchamacallits", people's names take new shape and form (city councillor Aldo Miccio becomes "Addo Micko"), he swears a bit and veers off on tangents.
But, as he says himself, he's passionate about Grey Power. "I protect Grey Power tooth and nail. I don't really and truly honestly like criticism of Grey Power because, hang on, we're trying to do the best we can, but it's perceived by some that we are aggressive, we are attacking . . ." Newman finishes the sentence for him: "Well, c'est la vie."
The fall-out from Daphne Stevens' comments has thus been unpleasant. Currie is keen to make the point that he was in Murchison at the A&P show last weekend and, of the dozens of people who dropped by the Grey Power stand, nobody raised the issue that had been raging in the Mail's letters column all week. He is not really moved by "25 letters" from unhappy Grey Power members set against the total membership of 12,000 (and he is particularly venomous about one letter written by a couple of young teenagers urging a broader outlook on art than Stevens offered, but which Currie took as an attack on Grey Power - "I'm sorry mate, that's just bloody ridiculous, it's pathetic actually, it shows the intelligence of people who are breeding kids like that").
He admits that things got ugly at Founders Park in Nelson the day after the Daphne Stevens story appeared in the Mail. The group's paid secretary and some volunteers were operating a stand there and copped it; people "were just about running to come over and vent their spleen about the comment".
Of course, Grey Power knows how to dish it out too, and maybe that's its problem? Its own history notes that it was born out of the anger of pensioners over superannuation cuts - so is the Nelson branch an angry outfit? "No, " retorts Newman. "Only with the editor." Nelson Mail editor Bill Moore, that is.
What's their beef there? "Because he is blatantly and openly opposed to Grey Power. Read his editorials, " Newman says (a reference in one to Grey Power as "serial whingers" was particularly resented).
But back to the point. Might their feisty, aggressive approach to their campaigns be part of the problem?
"We don't go out . . . to pick a fight, " Currie says. "What we're concerned with first and foremost is to try to keep costs down to our senior members who are living alone with the benefit as their only income."
McGuire, who along with Newman and Errol Millar makes up the Grey Power Nelson local government subcommittee, makes a similar point.
"We're probably the only organised opposition to some of the stuff that the council is doing and naturally . . . they're going to get upset with us. There are certainly members of the council that don't like the opposition."
Grey Power, or at least its local government subcommittee, seems particularly aggrieved by Nelson City Council; Newman says relations with Tasman District Council are polite and amicable.
"They [the TDC] are relatively law- abiding; they [the city council] totally disregard it. They are just determined come hell or high water to put policies in place and to hell with what anybody says or what the process is."
There is, it seems, some deep-seated resentment at play here.
Newman himself says that he was drawn into his role with Grey Power after a long-running dispute with the council, which he doesn't want to go into publicly, but it is obvious that things have got ugly on occasions.
Nelson Mayor Kerry Marshall, meanwhile, seeks to sound reasonable, pointing out that his council has sought to engage with Grey Power - "we recognise they are a group which has some status in a lot of minds" - but adds that "I get a bit disturbed about some of the letters in your paper" from Grey Power quarters.
"Some are almost defamatory. Some are incredibly personal."
He can, to a point, brush it off on the basis that some of those involved indulge in such activity "instead of collecting stamps".
He accepts they have been appointed by their organisation, but he for one doesn't listen to their submissions as being the voice of the elderly in Nelson.
"I think there is a question of credibility in regards to some of the slants they've taken in regards to what council does.
"I have my doubts they represent 14,000 people, but they do represent a group of people in the community and they're perfectly entitled to have their voice heard, but if . . . it's histrionic or whatever, then there's a credibility issue . . .
"They are making some points. Sometimes I will agree. Most times I don't."