This was the view as I came down the driveway on Thursday night…pretty much the same thing I see every night when I get home…maybe a few more puriri on the concrete and the grass…tis the season…

…and, like most nights, a little dog waits…

I had expected that the previous night would be the last time that this view would be truly mine, that by Thursday evening I would be someone else’s tenant after ANZ sold my home at auction on Thursday morning…

But just after 10AM…

…less than an hour before the auction was due to commence…

Our assumption is that ANZ New Zealand found 1 News’ attentions rather unwanted and inconvenient and pulled the pin to neuter the story planned to air on Thursday evening. We can only assume that because ANZ has still not contacted me to tell me why the auction was cancelled – or even to tell me that it has been cancelled – or indicate where the journey may take us next; or even propose a way ahead…

Well, it’s not entirely true to say that I haven’t heard from ANZ: they did send me a new bank card yesterday…

…but its silence of this more dramatic turn of events is a major concern. Not so much that it has failed (again) to keep me informed but as a sign that ANZ New Zealand simply does not get it. It doesn’t get the most basic functions of customer service or even the most fundamental survival skill of not digging its hole any deeper…

Perhaps, I am so scary that the members of its board and or executive team are still drawing straws to see who gets to contact me. If so, team you need to harden up and start living some of the leadership stuff you are always talking about. Leadership is not about mega-profits or meeting targets; leadership is about taking it on the chin when one of your crew (or a few of them in this case) screws up…leadership is about doing the right thing…

So, ANZ New Zealand, here’s the expectation, just for future reference…I would expect that if you are going to put someone through the forced sale of their home, and then cancel that sale at the last minute – for any reason – you will front for that decision and tell me personally. You have my email address, my home address (that’s the place you were selling from under me, you get that right?), and my phone number…

I would certainly expect that some THREE working days later, you would have summoned up the moral fortitude to explain yourselves and why you have decided to commit me again to this limbo of the unknown…

By now I had expected to be well engaged in plan after this, knowing what, if anything, I walk away with after the auction, developing options, hopefully sussing out a small piece of land on which to start again, or, worst case, making plans to depart the Mountain community…

What’s your plan now, ANZ New Zealand? Will you wait till all the furore over the FMA/RBNZ report dies away and the media is distracted elsewhere to have another go at an auction…? Will you play divide and conquer with me and my ex-partner to still try to regain the money that YOU so recklessly loaned without proper security or process…?

Before you stick your hand back in the fire, please…remember that the matters you found so uncomfortable when when the media asked you about them are not so much those of the initial lending but your conduct over the last five years where you applied deception and misdirect to obstruct any opportunity for a fair resolution to the issues at hand…

In parting, I can leave you no more damning an indictment than that written by Patrick McInerney on Thursday morning…

Not only are Pat’s words great in their own right, in distilling a complex issue down to a few short paragraphs, there are also a humbling reminder of the communities of which I am a part, even those where actual contact lies deep in the past…

I have been quite blown away by the response to my plight…I have been stopped in the street by people with inquiries or best wishes, called and messaged by comrades who I have not seen in over a decade…this all has been a reminder that we are never truly alone and nor should we feel that way…

Signing off today from Limbo…

#ANZdotherightthing

Into the unknown….