Tony Roberts, Chairman of the Historic Commission, today resigned from MSNZ citing disappointment and dissatisfaction with the direction Motorsport management was taking.
Roberts said that the Historic Commission had questioned the process by which Motorsport House was being sold and then questioned the secretive process of the sale, but received no meaningful answers to their questions.
Roberts says that as a major asset of the member clubs, the constitution applied to the sale and the member clubs should have been involved in the decision to sell and that the sale process should have been transparent.
“Without an auction, how do we know if the member clubs achieved the true value of the building?” he said. The building looks set to be sold for $1.3 million when the Government valuation was $1.53 million.
Roberts is also the President of the Historic Racing Club Inc., Chairman of NZ Historic Muscle & Saloon Cars and Chairman of the NZ F5000 Association and has been on the MSNZ Historic Commission for 20 years. He was the recipient of the prestigious MSNZ Ron Frost Award for his passion for Motorsport and the building of Hampton Downs Motorsport Park in 2011.
Mr Roberts’ resignation statement read as follows:
Resignation
Dear
Wayne Christie and the rest of Motorsport NZ Board. I tender my
resignation as a Historic Commission member and Chairman of the
Commission.
As you know, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the management
of MSNZ and the new CEO. I believe the board should be ashamed of
itself for trying to bypass the constitution in the sale of Motorsport
House and then trying to justify the sale process. Of all the emails
that I have sent to you over the last three months questioning what is
going on, only a few have been answered. This lack of response and lack
of transparency makes the Historic Commission feel that we are not
valued and suspect that the board would sooner we are not there.
Our work has not been followed through in the office and our opinions
not sought. As an example, we updated Appendix 6 half a year ago and it
has still not been included in the manual – why? We also had no
consultation on the 270% COD cost increases, which caused a lot of
consternation and disbelief in Historic Racing circles and the
compromise has only just been notified yesterday – after four months.
MSNZ has grown into a bloated bureaucracy that is a long way away from
assisting the competitor in Motorsport. After over thirty years of
working in various voluntary roles for motorsport and being awarded the
Ron Frost Award for my passion for motorsport, I am disappointed to be
leaving in this way, but value my integrity above all else.
Tony Roberts
Chairman
Historic Commission
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