Glenn inquiry’s severe setback
The inquiry set up by the New Zealand-born billionaire Sir Owen Glenn to look into the reasons for the country’s appalling record of child abuse and domestic violence was an odd creature from the outset. While no-one doubted Glenn’s seriousness of purpose – he was, after all, prepared to put up $2 million of his own money to back the inquiry – and his wish to do some good in an area in which every other kind of action, public and private, seems to have been pretty well ineffectual, it seemed an odd undertaking. Such inquiries are normally set up by governments with a view to changing policy and practice. The best Glenn could hope for was yet another airing of the problem.
Nonetheless, he managed to attract a fair array of the great and the good interested in the subject to carry out the project. But no sooner had he done so, than troubles emerged. A few weeks ago, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, many of those who had been recruited abruptly left. Now, with the revelation that 11 years ago Glenn himself was accused of physically abusing a young woman, ‘‘a family or household member’’, in Hawaii, the wheels seem to be falling off the enterprise entirely. More than half of the original 25 who signed up to it have left.
Glenn insists that there is no truth to the allegation against him. Unfortunately, the record of the event, whatever it was, is not clear and Glenn, for what may be good reasons, has chosen not to say more about it. Glenn pleaded ‘‘no contest’’ to the allegation, a procedure permitted by the law in some American states whereby the defendant neither admits nor denies the charge. After a sixmonth probationary period, the charge was dismissed. Glenn says he chose that course, as many other defendants caught up in the American justice system before him have done, to avoid punishing expense.
The details of the incident are, at this distance, no longer important. What is important is that Glenn did not disclose the matter, either publicly or privately, to those he was asking to lend their names and expertise to his cause. That left the unwelcome news to emerge in possibly the most damaging way possible – as a ghastly surprise in a Sunday newspaper headline. After his experience in the glare of unwelcome publicity over his support for NZ First, it was an astonishing error to make. It fails the first test for those in the public eye nowadays, of full disclosure of anything potentially embarrassing.
Glenn has declared his wish to use his vast fortune to do things of benefit to the country in which he was brought up. He has already done so with generous benefactions for the business school at the University of Auckland and gifts to Christchurch after the earthquakes.
The inquiry into child abuse and domestic violence might have done some good for an apparently intractable problem. Unfortunately, its credibility has been severely compromised. Glenn has said he would be unfussed if it no longer carried his name. He may have to find a way to distance himself from it even further if he wants to give it a chance to survive.