"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." (Alice in Wonderland).
With new people around council tables it will be even more important when people try to communicate ideas to each other that they use clear and unambiguous language.
Partnership is a confusing Humpty Dumpty word.
Tradies and lawyers and the like have traditionally run their businesses as partnerships.
We also had partners for dancing.
Now the person you turn up with in a car to a party has become your partner. And everyone who does business with us wants to call us a partner.
For personal relationships we have rules about who are considered partners for legal purposes. These rules also describe what to expect from such relationships.
And in business we have legal rules governing partnerships. Often there are partnership agreements which cater for such matters as a majority rule voting structure where needed.
In a business context people are usually very careful about who they go into partnership with and the rules that are put in place around the relationship.
Recently, however, there has been a move towards calling all sorts of business-type relationships partnerships.
Part of the attraction seems to be that by calling something a partnership it gives the relationship an air of being in this together, being on the same side and jointly going in a particular direction together. This provides for a photo opportunity and some flowery words, with no understanding by anyone of what is going on.
This shambles and lack of understanding matters.
Big anonymous companies and government departments particularly like this approach. Think power companies, councils, banks, in general people who spend other people’s money.
The worst problems seem to come from government, both central and local.
We have people described as partners who have contracts with each other, for example those who deliver bus services or dig up our streets.
Calling your suppliers partners not only masks the true relationships between the participants but also makes it much more difficult for those making payments, using our money, to hold people responsible for carrying out the work. While you would not pay a tradie at home for doing work which has not been done or not done properly, it is more tempting for an institution using other people’s money to pay their "partners" for lack of completion of projects and ongoing work.
We have customers or clients called partners. This seems to be an attempt by those who are hoping to be paid to drag others into a relationship which fudges expectations of what each party should expect from the other.
Some of the more expensive "partnership" arrangements indulged in by government are groups set up as a collection of institutions such as the expensive Grow Dunedin Partnership, where millions of dollars have gone to die with little accountability and little to show for the money spent. The so-called partners have input into how to spend the money but none of their own money is involved.
The money comes from ratepayers but the councillors have little say in how the money is spent.
"Partnerships" involving government and mana whenua are also fraught. Ngai Tahu has encouraged changes to its agreements about its relationship with the ORC, saying "people forget what their role is and what their responsibilities are ... .."
Behind this comment are two important issues.
For a partnership to work we need a clear agreement as to what each party’s roles and responsibilities are. With relationships with mana whenua we fail dismally if we are not all in agreement about what we are entitled to expect from each other, and how we will conduct ourselves.
And we also need to have the relationship clearly written down so people can be held to account and not "forget" what the expectations are.
My opening bid for what partners are as follows:
Partners have a common purpose.
Partners have investment in the common purpose, either all the same investment or in clearly spelt-out proportions.
Partners work usually through consensus but if push comes to shove majority rules. This and other rules of engagement are clear in written arrangements.
Partnership is not a useful arrangement when there is a clear and more appropriate relationship, for example supplier and customer.
Those who assert partnerships may have other ideas.
But we should all know what they mean when it is our money and influence exerted by our representatives that is involved.
- Hilary Calvert is a former Otago regional councillor, MP and DCC councillor.
