In his appointment, Stephens joined former National Party staffer Megan Campbell, who was appointed to Sport NZ\u2019s board in 2024 by former Sports Minister Chris Bishop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood board members are paid about $45,000 per year.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s sport spokeswoman Cushla Tangaere-Manuel claimed it proved there was a coalition Government \u201cold boys\u2019 club\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cChristopher Luxon and his Government have been hard at work giving jobs to their mates at a time when they are telling New Zealanders to tighten their belts, and the unemployment rate continues to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cushla Tangaere-Manuel is criticising Dale Stephens’ appointment.<\/p>\n
She also pointed to the increased perception of corruption in New Zealand \u2013 a reference to Transparency International\u2019s latest Corruption Perception Index.<\/p>\n
New Zealand fell two points in the latest survey published this year but was still ranked highly in fourth place alongside Norway and behind Denmark, Finland and Singapore.<\/p>\n
Accusations of \u201cjobs for mates\u201d, also known as cronyism, are not uncommon as governments change their stripes. Labour faced similar criticism in 2022 when former Labour minister and Speaker of the House Sir Trevor Mallard was confirmed as New Zealand\u2019s ambassador to Ireland, a role he held until Foreign Minister Winston Peters ended it prematurely last year.<\/p>\n
Stephens, who has contested Christchurch Central and Ikaroa-R\u0101whiti for National, holds several governance roles, including as chairman of New Zealand M\u0101ori Tourism.<\/p>\n
He has formerly held chief executive roles at Touch New Zealand and Basketball New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Herald, Stephens said he had applied about this time last year and had intentionally avoided both Mitchell and Bishop since then.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a point of avoiding them because I didn\u2019t want that to colour in any way the process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t spoken to them, I haven\u2019t asked them anything, they haven\u2019t contacted me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephens claimed the application process was run by Sport NZ so Mitchell only learned of his name when he was one of two recommendations made.<\/p>\n
He dismissed any suggestion his appointment was \u201cjobs for the boys\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to think that I\u2019ve earned it through my experience in the sports sector.<\/p>\n
\u201c[$45,000] is hardly a high-flying, big-paying number, you know, it\u2019s a standard governance role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sport Minister Mark Mitchell said the appointment process was followed according to protocol. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
Stephens accepted it was \u201cunfortunate\u201d timing for the board appointment to be announced so close to his candidacy, but he claimed the board appointment had been long-delayed.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mitchell welcomed Stephens as a \u201chighly qualified and respected governance leader\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis appointment went through the usual rigorous process that you would expect for all board appointments across Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn independent panel made two recommendations from a group of candidates whom they felt held the requisite governance experience, skills and background to become members of the Sport NZ board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell confirmed he hadn\u2019t had contact with any potential candidates.<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his appointment, Stephens joined former National Party staffer Megan Campbell, who was appointed to Sport NZ\u2019s board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26652,17623,52371,806,2372,19956,10712,2562,5903,2082,13800,266,42,232,6721,28065,3556,117,43,4762,63622,2022,165,61,40,38,41,39,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-367339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-aotearoas","9":"tag-appointed","10":"tag-appointment","11":"tag-as","12":"tag-board","13":"tag-candidate","14":"tag-claiming","15":"tag-claims","16":"tag-election","17":"tag-for","18":"tag-giving","19":"tag-government","20":"tag-headlines","21":"tag-jobs","22":"tag-labour","23":"tag-mates","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-new","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-party","28":"tag-proves","29":"tag-sport","30":"tag-their","31":"tag-to","32":"tag-top-news","33":"tag-top-stories","34":"tag-topnews","35":"tag-topstories","36":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}