Bitter rivals on course for showdown for RSA

By JAMES GARDINER

A showdown looms this morning between war veterans and other Auckland Returned Services Association members in a bitter battle for control of the association.

Security guards have been hired and some members expect their annual meeting to degenerate should officials try to bar those they consider opponents.

The heart of the dispute is a battle for control of the association. President Chris Yates has had majority support on the executive in recent years but there has been growing disenchantment with the way the association has been run.

Allegations of improperly conducted elections, financial mismanagement, and even a punchup at an executive meeting reported in January by the Weekend Herald have not gone away.

Instead, when members of the 637-strong association gather today, the hostilities are expected to resume in earnest.

The national office of the Royal New Zealand RSA, concerned about what is happening in Auckland, offered to supervise this year's elections but was told to stay away.

Auckland also refused the RNZRSA's request for information about its disputes with members, according to national president David Cox, who wrote to all Auckland members last month.

A potential rival organisation, the New Zealand Veterans Association, has been set up by Mr Yates and his supporters under the Incorporated Societies Act.

It was incorporated in October last year by the Auckland RSA's solicitor, Geoff Hanlon, and has largely the same aims and objectives as the national RSA body.

Mr Hanlon declined to say who had paid him for that work or what the association's purpose was, saying he had "no instruction" to discuss it.

Unlike most other RSAs, Auckland's has no clubrooms. It is simply a charitable organisation involved in organising Anzac Day ceremonies and selling poppies to raise money for the welfare of members. It rents central city offices for administration and employs two staff.

But it does have about $2 million in trust funds, although in recent years that money has been severely dented by $70,000 or more in legal bills as a result of members taking legal action against the leadership.

The annual report for 2001 shows that net poppy sales income was just $17,402 - down on 2000's $26,020 and well short of the $30,000 executive members had been told by treasurer Peter Campbell to expect in June.

In a newsletter last month, Mr Yates accused veterans Bill Grupen, Jim Newman, Les Pipes and Graham Gibson of treachery, arrogance and lack of integrity.

"We will defeat these perpetrators, these men with little or no honour," he said.

That resulted in Mr Cox defending the four in his letter to members expressing his disappointment at Mr Yates' attack on them.

Mr Grupen, Mr Newman and Mr Pipes - all former executives - were the trio who took legal action over the results of the association's 2000 election.

Mr Gibson is an executive member who was punched three times at a meeting last year by another executive member, welfare officer Steve Matheson.

Matheson was charged with assault, apologised and got police diversion. He and Mr Gibson were to be censured but that was dropped after Matheson, previously a close Yates ally, quit on health grounds.

Mr Gibson then had his bid for the presidency scuttled on a technicality, leaving Mr Yates to be elected unopposed as president.

He was then suspended for 30 days by the executive on a 6-3 vote that means he is technically barred from today's agm - but will attend anyway.

The suspension arose from a complaint by a barman at Mr Yates' pub, the Freeman's Hotel, about Mr Gibson sending a campaign letter to his home address.

Another executive member to resign since January is Neil Williams of Five Star Finance, a company which tried to convince the RSA to invest $150,000 of its welfare funds with it, offering portable toilets leased to the North Harbour Stadium as security.

Five Star owns the Freeman's Hotel building.

It was Mr Pipes who objected to the deal. He was later replaced as an RSA trustee by a disbarred former lawyer, Peter Desmond Swain, who in 1988 was convicted of stealing $25,000 from a client.

Mr Yates said in January that Mr Swain's background would be investigated but he has stayed on the executive and is standing for re-election as a "qualified lawyer" self-employed as a consultant.

He refused to talk about RSA matters. "It's a blanket decision that most of us have made," he said, then hung up.

He and Mr Yates voted for Mr Gibson's suspension, along with treasurer Peter Campbell, vice-president Andi Tolich, Norm Pollard and Dave Stewart. Mr Stewart is also employed at the Freeman's Hotel.

Voting against the suspension were vice-president Grantie Stembridge, Peter Duncan and Alf Hartnell.

Mr Yates said Mr Gibson would not be admitted to the meeting and nor would the press or public.