The Rogering Was As Jolly As Ever

The event to announce the winner of the 2015 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand was held in Palmerston North on the night of Saturday April 30th (it was won by IAG/State Insurance, with Serco as runner up, and Bunnings as a close third. The Judges’ Report is online at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/pdf/roger-award-2015-judges-report.pdf).

The winner of the online People’s Choice poll was Bunnings. There is no equivalent to the Judges’ Report for that poll. Most pleasingly, there was good coverage of IAG/State winning the Roger Award in the national media (e.g. Radio New Zealand, 1/5/16, “Insurer Gets Gong For Bad Behaviour”, http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/302737/insurer-gets-gong-for-bad-behaviour).

This was the first time that the event has ever been held in Palmerston North. And only the second time it has been held outside the four main centres (in 2014 it was held in Nelson. It has only ever been held once in Dunedin). Holding it in Nelson proved that the Roger Award belongs to all New Zealand, not just the main cities. We said at the time that we would love the event to be held in other provincial cities and towns, but the key ingredient is a local organiser or organisers.

And we found just such an excellent provincial organiser, namely Dion Martin (who has been CAFCA’s key contact there since the 90s, having organised and hosted my Palmerston North visits during my various national speaking tours, most recently in 2014). Dion organised the nationally renowned May Day concert in Palmy for 20 straight years, before taking a break in 2015 and coming to Christchurch for that year’s Roger event and CAFCA’s 40th anniversary celebration, where he injected the vital ingredient of song (good old working class and revolutionary standards) into both events. We decided there and then that Dion was our man.

The Roger Award event was combined with Unions Manawatu’s May Day celebration, Dion having revived the May Day concert (where performers compete for the May Day Cup). That Roger Award/May Day double banger was last done in Christchurch in 2015. The whole thing was a bona fide production, held in a central city theatre, with proper lighting, sound and all the trimmings. It was a Saturday night show and a very well attended one at that. The Roger Award event was the opening act.

The fantastically ugly Roger Award trophy was on display on stage next to the speakers’ lectern; the event consisted of speeches from myself, on behalf of the organisers (see elsewhere in this issue for my speech), and Chief Judge Sue Bradford, who came down from Auckland to announce the winners and explain why they won. Between our two speeches Dion (who told me that he did not want to know the winner in advance) had organised and scripted an extremely funny and entertaining “ugly parade” representing the six finalists.

For example, he himself adopted possibly the worst Australian accent I’ve ever heard to represent Westpac; Serco wore boxing gloves (because of the Mt Eden Prison fight clubs); MediaWorks swung a microphone; and the lean and hungry fellow who played IAG/State, with his dollar sign giant glasses and suit and tie, looked every inch the mean and grasping insurance transnational (he was my host for the night and I hasten to assure you that he’s nothing like that at all). It had the audience in stitches and was great fun (but with a very serious purpose). Wellington’s Brass Razoo brass band (which has previously played at some Roger events in Wellington) was on stage and played the appropriate Darth Vader music from Star Wars when the winner was announced.

May Day Concert

Once the event was over, Sue and I could join the audience and enjoy the May Day concert, the first one of Dion’s legendary productions that I’ve ever attended. It was very professional, with a high standard of performance. It’s not my role to review it, but I will mention a couple of things. Firstly, the whole night was dedicated to the late Peter Conway, who had not only been a veteran national union leader but a talented musician and songwriter, who was a very regular performer at Palmerston North’s May Day concerts throughout the years, including winning the May Day Cup more than once.

Peter’s band, Not The Day Job, performed this year, to honour his memory (obituaries of Peter by Bill Rosenberg and myself are in Watchdog 140, December 2015, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/40/11.html. Peter had also played at the Roger Award event in Wellington in 2010). The other act that I want to mention was the duo of Jack Leason and Forrest Chambers, who performed “Shackle Shuffle”, about the inhuman treatment of the “War on Terror” prisoners enduring indefinite imprisonment and torture at the Americans’ Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Jack is one of the sons of Waihopai Domebuster Adrian Leason and both he and Forrest were among the large contingent of Leason family members and other Catholic Worker activists who came to the Anti-Bases Campaign’s Waihopai spy base protest in January 2016 (Forrest had been our street theatre Uncle Sam). It was at the spy base’s outer gate, in blazing Marlborough heat, that I had first seen Jack perform that song, with his family and friends most enthusiastically performing the accompanying actions. I was so impressed that I urged Dion to get Jack on stage at the May Day concert. He didn’t win the May Day Cup but he would have got my vote if I’d been a judge (then again, I’m biased).

All in all, it was a great night, both the Roger Award event and the May Day concert. They fit together very well, and have done so every time they have been combined. Many thanks are due to the irrepressible Dion Martin, who was the main organiser of the whole thing, slogging his guts out in the process. Palmerston North did the Roger Award proud; thanks for having us.

So, now it’s on to the 2016 Roger Award. Dennis Maga has resigned as a judge. He has been replaced by Teresa O’Connor, who is the only new member of the panel. The continuing members are David Small, Dean Parker, Deborah Russell and Sue Bradford. The event to announce the winner/s will be held in Auckland, for the first time since 2011 (date and venue to be confirmed). Nomination forms are included with this Watchdog and there is an online nomination form on the CAFCA Website (at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/roger-award-2016-form.html). Get your nomination/s in and we’ll see you in Auckland in April 2017 at the event to name the winner/s.