Sun 20 Dec 2015 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
This is part two of an interview in which Auckland Pride board member Shirley Allan fronts for the board on a series of concerns about the way Pride is governed and it's Festival delivered. The interview was prompted by an open and angry letter penned by Pride's now ex volunteer coordinator Baz Bloomfield. You can, and probably should, first read part one of this interview here. Auckland Pride board member Shirley Allan The Auckland Pride Parade is now going to start at 6pm. Why was it decided to start at this earlier time? "[The parade producer] put forward his suggestions, we discussed it at the hui and we spent a bit of time on it, it certainly wasn't just a rubber stamp decision and ultimately we just decided to take his recommendation." What was his recommendation based on? "His experience." But, picking up on one of Baz Bloomfield's concerns, he's never done a Pride Parade down Ponsonby Road for Auckland and New Zealand's gay communities before, so therefore he has no experience? "That's a very, very small window to look at it through. There was a concern about pulling it out of night-time. What we discussed was that there would be a ceremony to open it but there will be a bit of korero and hoopla at the top before it kicks off. So yes, while on paper the parade starts at 6pm, that's effectively where the ceremony begins but the first float won't push off until later than that." The fear being voiced to GayNZ.com is that the whole parade will be more or less in daylight. "Looking at daylight savings and sunset times and all of that it is our expectation that by the end of the parade it will be full night or dusk. The idea is also to create a vibe at the end of the parade, for the parade not just to finish but for there to be a bit of a party ambience for an hour or so after the parade." The route has been reversed, what's the reason for that? "Because of how we want to finish the parade. The idea is that coming from Western Park and moving through to Three Lamps it just meant that at the end of the parade it was all just done, the floats got taken away and it was over. "It's our intention that at the end of the parade before any of the parties start that people aren't left with nothing to do for an hour or so, that there's a little bit of a segue in there, a little bit of a party atmosphere, and Western Park is clearly the place for that, not Three Lamps. That's the basic logic and we'll be getting the full plans from [parade producer] Nick once they're more concrete. But there'll be a couple or three floats that will be put in position and there'll be a bit of fun centered around those." Will there be food, drink, music, entertainment? "Yes, although I'm not sure about drink, not being fully aware of the logistics. There has been licensed stuff down that end in the past so I assume that could continue in some capacity and mean there is more vibe happening. A lot of the floats have music so there's an opportunity there to create a portable kind of stage." GayNZ.com will interview the parade producer in the next few days for an update about plans and progress towards staging the iconic parade. A big change from previous years is that in February the big party is scheduled for the same night, after the parade. There are two ways of looking at having the party the same night as the parade and going way back to the days of the Hero Festival it's been argued back and forth numerous times. One view is that the parade is the natural precursor to the big party and people are all hyped up and ready to go and they transfer over to the party and continue. The other view is that with the considerable time and resource that have to be marshaled to create and run the parade and the party, they mutually cannibalize each other. "That's the eternal conundrum," says Allan. "Personally I think it's a great idea. I guess it will come down to the community. I would like to note that it came across loud and clear to us at both community forums that having the party after the parade was a much better idea than splitting them. THE TREATY In his open letter Bloomfield expresses great concern, as have others, about the dropping of the Treaty provisions from Pride's constitution and mission statement and that they haven't yet been reinstated. He mentions that he's been told the Treaty was 'lost in translation,' that progress has stalled because Pride is waiting for charitable status and there's nothing on the Pride website. "He is talking about me there. I was at that first community forum and he asked that question of me and he responded. That's one of the personal reasons I wanted to have this discussion as well as it being in a professional context. "I take umbrage at any individual, regardless of their ethnicity or their culture or their age, that dares to question my culture and my approach to my tikanga. And that's what that is. This is a personal thing for me. I was very, very clear at that community forum around that. I did use that phrase 'lost in translation'. For me, one of the first things that I did was read the constitution, the deed and the strategic plan and the business plan. These are the baseline documents for any organisation. In the business plan and the strategic plan the commitment to observing or respecting the culture is very, very present. It's mentioned in several places and certainly in the strategic plan it's one of the very first things that you will read. So if you go to the constitutional document, which is relatively new, it's not there. And that was glaringly obvious to me at my very first board meeting and certainly something that Phyleshia [Brown-Acton, a fellow board member] had also raised." How, when an organisation re-jigs its formal structure from a trust to an incorporated society, as Pride did two years ago, does something as important as the Treaty commitment get 'lost in translation'? "In the transfer across that stuff was gone. But it hasn't gone from the working documents. I wasn't present for any of that stuff. I've combed the minutes and I can't see how that happened. I know there were some flash lawyers who said 'Yes, we'll do you up a constitution,' and I wonder if it just wasn't combed through carefully enough. "Phyleshia wasn't on board when the constitution was created, I think she came on just afterwards, and certainly it's a lot of paperwork and administrative bureaucracy and multiple organisations you have to go through to get these things updated and changed... you know what government departments are like... I'm trying to form another NGO and it's taken me six months to get a letter back from the companies office. So there was quite a vigorous process that was gone through but that disappeared. "It was a terrible mistake, personally I'd like to think it wouldn't have happened on my watch, it was certainly one of the first things I saw and I know it's very important for Phylesha. Speaking now in a larger board context, I challenged the board about it straight away and they were all like 'Shit no, we're totally on board, what do you mean it's not in there?' "I don't know what else to say, I don't want to be tried, I don't want to offer you a fatuous statement. But [after] this festival we will be going through an incredibly rigorous planning process with the wider membership, not just the board but also our consultant membership and we will be revisiting that. This constitution will be corrected in a variety of ways. Te Tiriti for me is vital and I give my personal guarantee that that will go back and if it doesn't I will resign, it really is that straightforward. You can hold me to that and I say it with supreme confidence because I know that it will go back in, everyone at that table wants it. "We also have to fix a whole lot of back-end clauses that are missing or that are worded poorly to ensure that we meet charitable status and there's a big area around membership that we want to address. There are three chunks of work that need to be done and I'm not going to rush it. I'm not going to send a bit of paper into the companies office and wait four months and then 'Oh, we've got to put another bit in, oh, now... ' You've got to have an annual general meeting every time you want to change it, so I want to do it once and I want to do it right, I want to do it when we're not leading into a festival. I want to do it with clear heads. That's the process." It's clear Allan takes the whole Treaty clause matter seriously but also deeply personally. As she has talked her demeanour stiffened, her words became more forcefully delivered. She pauses for a momen,t staring towards a printed copy of the Bloomfield letter, then lets rip. "I will not be spoken to like that, I will not have my culture challenged and you can feel free to print that. If he wants to go toe to toe on this then come" THE DAWN CEREMONY Focusing back on the other content of the Bloomfield open letter,quite a lot of it is based on him talking to the parade producer about the Pride dawn festival and being unhappy about the responses he got. "That's not part of the parade. I don't think Baz understands the difference between the festival and the parade. There will be a dawn service. Ngai Whatua will be involved, Tahi [Paitai, the festival curator] is all over this like a rash. Ta'i has networks in the Polynesian community and I feel very confident that he'd be speaking in a much firmer tone around this. Protocol will always be observed on any project that I'm in and just because Baz doesn't understand it, that's not my problem. "The dawn ceremony will be simple like it has been in the past. For the last two years we've had Mika and his crew do it. Mika's not available this year or maybe Ta'i hasn't approached him, but there's no raru there. I'm not quite sure, but we're going to move on to another group that Ta'i works with that are fantastic, I'm pretty confident that they're the same crew that performed at our gala opening earlier this year. I've been to a couple of other events where they've performed, their work is outstanding and their tikanga's excellent, they're all takataapui, gay, lesbian, trans. It's going to be a pretty cool gig I reckon, short, simple, crack of dawn, a karakia, a bit of a waiata, have a cup of tea and all go home for a lie down." Bloomfield reckons that board members believe they are only accountable to the funders. Given the Auckland Pride board's historical lack of communication with the glbti communities and reluctance to engage and be publicly accountable, this is the kind of belief that could easily take root in our communities. It could even be true? "It's not true. That's Baz's personal opinion but it's certainly not the case. Due to the length of this interview and the importance of the subjects being covered GayNZ.com has decided to break here so we can give due weight to the remaining content, including the overall festival, financial accountability, Pride's membership, and lingering questions around last year's Proud Party. Time willing, this final part will appear on Monday. Jay Bennie - 20th December 2015