Netball Australia and Australian Netball Players Association heading to mediation amid ‘inadequately informed’ claims
As the netball pay dispute is forced to mediation, LINDA PEARCE reports that Netball Australia and its player union are now at odds about what information has been passed on to players.
Netball
Don't miss out on the headlines from Netball. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Player union vice-president Tara Hinchliffe has rejected Netball Australia’s claims that athletes have been inadequately informed about offers tabled in the protracted industrial dispute that she welcomes is now officially headed to mediation.
Hinchliffe, the injured Diamonds’ defender and Sunshine Coast Lightning vice-captain, said Australian Netball Players’ Association board members and delegates were constantly briefing their teammates on the details of negotiations.
ANPA rejected the latest offer from NA and the Super Netball clubs last week. The players are seeking a revenue-share agreement of 20 per cent of new sponsorships, while the governing body is insisting on a profit-share arrangement of 25 per cent beyond the initial $500,000.
NA chief executive Kelly Ryan told CODE Sports after the deadlock prompted strongly-worded public statements from both sides last Monday that it was “highly concerning” that ANPA had, it asserted, not taken past offers as well as the current one to all its players.
Ryan thus flagged bypassing the union’s administrators, board and delegates to approach the entire group directly. ANPA’s counterargument is that it is acting on the instructions of the playing group and only presents fair and reasonable deals based on those priorities.
Regardless, that prospect now appears to have been obviated by a commitment to enter the mediation route ANPA had sought, despite Ryan arguing that it would cause further delays to a CPA negotiation process that dates back to February.
While NA declined to comment on Monday, ANPA CEO Kathryn Harby-Williams told CODE: “It is a welcome development that Netball Australia has agreed to mediation. We hope it‘s attended in good faith with a willingness to listen and compromise, because merely reiterating the same arguments won’t achieve a resolution.“
NA and ANPA are now in the process of nominating prospective mediators in order that one can be mutually agreed upon, while negotiations on smaller issues than the revenue/profit share stalemate potentially continue in the meantime.
Ryan, who was in Brisbane on Sunday for the Diamonds’ second Constellation Cup victory over the Silver Ferns will not travel to New Zealand for the final two Tests.
Hinchliffe, who made her Test debut in January’s Quad Series before tearing her ACL at the pre-season Team Girls’ Cup, refuted Ryan’s claim that “despite our numerous requests for them to take our offers to the players they have continually refused to do that’’.
The Queenslander confirmed that she and ANPA delegate Cara Koenen were in regular dialogue with the full Sunshine Coast squad.
“Absolutely. I can’t speak for every club, but it doesn’t add up to what I’m hearing and doing at the Lightning,’’ the ANPA board member told CODE. “The players know probably as much as we know as a board, but they are also saying to us ‘We trust you guys, you’re in it, you know it, you get the business side of it’.
“There’s obviously a lot going on for different people everywhere, but everyone’s had the opportunity to login and we have fed back to them everything that we know.’’
Each SSN club nominates one ANPA board member and one delegate, and those involved include president Jo Weston of the Vixens, Paige Hadley, Sophie Garbin, Kate Moloney, Maddy Turner, Hannah Petty, Amy Parmenter, Jess Anstiss and Ruby Bakewell-Doran.
Hinchliffe insisted there had been no fracturing of the group’s solidarity despite the financial pressures on non-Diamonds in particular since contracts ended and player payments ceased on September 30.
“From the conversations I’ve had and the board meetings, it feels like everyone’s more united now than they have been for the last four months over it,’’ she said.
“I think the investment level now, obviously everyone’s got their own pressures, but I was surprised by the amount of input from the young ones that was ‘No, we’re doing this, we understand why, we want to fight for the sport, people have done it for us before’.
“From my point of view, after being part of weekly, sometimes daily, conversations for four months, mediation is the only way moving forward.’’
Harby-Williams reiterated ANPA’s compromise offer of a hybrid revenue-share model that NA had rejected on the basis it was unaffordable, and said: “A precondition of any deal is a better understanding of where all the money in the sport is, because financial transparency is an issue.
“We want a solution, which is why we called for mediation. The solution is simple: the players become partners in the sport. That’s achieved by a revenue-sharing model.
“How that’s designed is open to discussion. There are many different models and we have flexibility about that, and hopefully that’s how this can be resolved.
“It‘s not a true partnership where one partner is in complete control of costs and financial transparency. That’s not a partnership anyone would or should sign up for.
Revenue sharing solves these problems and so creates a real partnership.’’
More Coverage
Originally published as Netball Australia and Australian Netball Players Association heading to mediation amid ‘inadequately informed’ claims
The Vixens’ ’burning desire’ for redemption after 2024 heartache
Melbourne defender Rudi Ellis says the Vixens have not been lacking for motivation during the pre-season and has opened up on the heartache from their 2024 grand final loss that’s fuelling their redemption.
‘Intensity and ferocity’: Male training partners an upward trend
As Super Netball looks to lift its “intensity and ferocity” across the league, the signing of male training partners are increasing in popularity, with West Coast Fever coach Dan Ryan leading the way.