RODNEY HIDE: You wanted names. Here they are, lanyards and all

In my last column I had some fun with three corporate submissions against Parliament's bill to define a woman and a man. Reader Tall Man wasn't impressed by my discretion. "Name these corporate numpties," he wrote.

Fair enough. Submissions to Parliament are public documents, written to be read. So let's read them and see who signed what. I'll leave the name-calling to Tall Man. I'm more interested in what these people do all day, and what their own words tell us about how they think.

First, a reminder of the menace. The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, from NZ First's Jenny Marcroft, defines "woman" as "an adult human biological female" and "man" as "an adult human biological male". That's the whole terror.

Fletcher Building

Fletcher's submission lists two contacts: Wendi Bains and Sean Park. Newsroom reported them as its authors, describing Ms Bains as chief health and safety officer and Mr Park as an operations manager. Fletcher's website has her as Chief Safety and Sustainability Officer.

On a building site the hazards are falling, crushing, cutting and electrocution. The remedies are harnesses, barriers, hard hats and someone with a clipboard unafraid to stop the job.

But the safety profession has grown a second head. It's called psychosocial risk. Once the job extends to how things might make workers feel, the hazard register never ends. Even a dictionary qualifies.

Hence: "environments perceived as exclusionary, inconsistent, or uncertain are associated with reduced engagement and increased attrition risk".

Note "perceived". As I read it, that's the managerial mind in one word. The problem is never the thing. It's the perception of the thing, and perceptions need managing.

Fletcher tells Parliament it has "Gender Affirmation Leave and Transitioning at Work Guidelines", and warns a legal definition would end up "removing their effectiveness immediately". So Parliament mustn't say what a woman is because a company guideline says otherwise. In my reading, that's the HR worldview exactly: the policy manual is the fixed point, and the law of the land must bend around it.

Silver Fern Farms

I said Silver Fern's submission came from its rainbow group with the company's blessing. It's better than that. The heading reads: "Submitted by: Silver Fern Farms Rainbow Community / With the endorsement of Silver Fern Farms Limited." At the bottom are two signatures: Dan Boulton, Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Carter, Chief People Officer.

So this was no staff club freelancing. The chief executive put his name to it.

A chief people officer is what we used to call the personnel manager, before personnel were promoted to people and the manager to the top table. Alongside hiring and pay rounds sits a growing portfolio called "culture". It's the culture end of the business, as I see it, that writes submissions to Parliament.

And what a submission. The bill, we're told, "signals to a generation of workers, students and future citizens that New Zealand is not a place that values them". Further: "There is no neutral way for a state to legislate that a category of its own citizens does not exist." And the clincher: "That is not clarification; it is erasure."

That's not the language of a meat processor. As I read it, it's the language of the protest placard. Everything is a "signal". Writing down the meaning of a word becomes a verdict on whether the nation values a generation. The submission also holds forth on cancer screening and insurers. Not, I'd have thought, core skills at a meat works.

Then this: "Silver Fern Farms has made public commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion". Commitments made by whom?

Silver Fern Farms Limited is owned 50:50 by the Silver Fern Farms Co-operative, which is to say farmers, and Shanghai's Bright Meat Group. I'd be curious whether either owner was keen on the company lobbying Parliament over the meaning of "woman". Farmers can ask at their co-op. I'd love to hear the answer.

Orion

Orion runs the power lines across Christchurch and Central Canterbury. Its submission, for Orion and its subsidiary Connetics, is signed by Vivienne Wilson, Policy Lead.

Generally, a policy lead reads what government proposes and tells government what the company thinks of it. A lines company has plenty to say about electricity regulation. But Orion opposes this bill "because we do not consider that it aligns with, or gives practical effect to, our core values".

There you have it. Parliament legislates for the country. Orion checks the result against its core values.

The bill, Orion warns, "will contradict all of these frameworks and likely create legal and administrative chaos". Chaos, in Christchurch, from a definition.

Now the bit every Cantabrian should note. Orion's own submission says it "is a Council-owned company, with its shareholders being the Christchurch City Council (via Christchurch City Holdings Ltd) – 89.3% and the Selwyn District Council – 10.7%."

So a lines company owned by ratepayers, and paid for by power consumers, has told Parliament its core values on the meaning of "man" and "woman". Did anyone ask the councillors? Did the councillors ask the ratepayers?

How they think

Put the three together and, in my opinion, the mindset is plain. They don't argue about what is true. They argue about what is "perceived", what "signals", what is "lived". The vocabulary is "lived reality", "lived gender identity", "psychological harm", "attrition risk". Every word of plain English becomes a risk to be managed, and managing risk is the job.

Not one of the three offers its own definition of a woman. You'd think, with all that expertise, one might have.

So here's my suggestion. Fletcher shareholders have an annual meeting. Silver Fern's farmers have their co-op. Christchurch and Selwyn ratepayers have councillors, and elections. Ask politely. Who decided the company should have a view on this? Did the board know? And what has it to do with building houses, processing lambs and keeping the lights on?

A woman can be defined in a sentence. It took three big outfits several pages to explain why she mustn't be.

Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader