Planet FM's LGBT radio host Lexie Matheson is under pressure to make good on her promise to walk naked down a busy Auckland street. Questions have to be asked each year about how much money is raised by the Queen of the Whole Universe pageant, said Matheson live on-air on Thursday morning. "I will walk naked down Broadway in Newmarket if the New Zealand AIDS Foundation can prove to me that the money that was raised as income, with the expenditure taken away, was more than $10,000.” "Start walking girlfriend!' responded the Creator/Director of the pageant, Jonathan Smith, yesterday, reiterating that the money raised was $26,362.25 plus gst. NZAF chair Jeremy Lambert has also made a statement on the controversy. On GayNZ.com's messageboard late yesterday he thanked our website users for taking a keen interest in the Foundation and it's work, and made clear the Foundation takes questions of accountability extremely seriously. “As such, we have tried our very best to answer the numerous questions that have been raised by Lexie to date." ”That being said," Lambert continued, "we believe a balance needs to be struck between spending considerable amounts of time answering the types of questions Lexie has posed and the need for us to focus upon preventing the transmission of HIV and supporting those people living with the virus.” Lambert said the Foundation was satisfied with the considerable amount of information it has supplied to date relating to the pageant event, and made clear the Foundation's internal financial procedures are robust and that independent annual audits from Deloittes will continue, with fully audited accounts available to members at each AGM. This means we may well be waiting until late next year's NZAF Annual General Meeting for audited proof of the pageant's profits Matheson needs before her ‘naked walk' can commence. As regular poster ‘Ibne' says of the walk on our messageboard: “I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but of course being a person of such probity and deep ethical standards, I know she'll keep her word.” Matheson is also in trouble over a ‘cheeky' comment on the radio show liking the NZAF to ‘BroTown'. “It's like BroTown down there,” she stated, relating a comment Matheson's colleague had made in support of the fact that the foundation has many Maori and Polynesian staff. Addressing Matheson directly on our messageboard after the programme, Lambert said the comment concerned him somewhat. ”I believe you mischievously repeated a comment that likened the National Office to “BroTown” on-air this morning. I am trusting that you are not focusing upon me specifically because of my (and my partner's) ethnicity.” Matheson immediately defended herself, saying there were problems with the phoneline and she had had only 20 minutes to ‘come up to speed' before the Lambert interview. “I attempted to 'fill the gap' by relating a comment that a colleague of mine had made in support of the fact that the Foundation has many Maori and Polynesian staff - he described the workplace as being 'like bro-town down there'. As he is Maori I can only assume it was OK for him to say that. "Why it's not OK for this white honky to tell the story is beyond me and why you would think I was being 'mischievous' eludes me also.” Ref: GayNZ.com (m)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Saturday, 16th December 2006 - 12:00pm