Senator moves to change ‘unacceptable’ panel name

Thursday 04 April 2019

A Senator has announced moves to change the ‘unacceptable’ name of a major States panel known as the 'Chairman’s Committee' in order to better promote diversity.

Kristina Moore, who heads the committee in question, which has oversight of all States review panels and monitors their expenditure, would instead like to see it named the ‘Scrutiny Liaison Committee’.

The Senator outlined her intention as she was questioned over what States Members can do to promote diversity by Wendy Orr, who once worked with Nelson Mandela and is now Standard Bank's Group Head of Inclusion, at a recent Leadership Jersey event.

Pictured: The panel taking part in a discussion about diversity at the Leadership Jersey event last Friday.

“I think as politicians it’s really important that we embrace different views and drive forward an agenda that is representative of what the people who have selected us to make those decisions really think and feel. We’re part of a very changing world and also it’s important that we enable that change,” Senator Moore explained.

“With my Scrutiny hat on, we’re about to lodge a proposition that will ask the Assembly to change the name of… the Chairman’s Committee. We’re going to stand up and say, ‘Well, we’d like to call that the Scrutiny Liaison Committee, actually’ because, I think, being a child of the 80s, I don’t mind being called a chairman, but actually I should mind.

“My new colleagues have said, ‘We’re not accepting that.’ And it’s not acceptable. By using our leadership positions to make these small changes, we can encourage other people to make those changes as well and have some action points in their own business and daily lives.”

Elsewhere during the panel discussion, the Senator, who came second highest in the Senatorial poll last year and is the States designated ‘breastfeeding champion’, emphasised the importance of mothers being given adequate places to express milk at work, while also suggesting there may be questions to be raised over the impact of single-sex schooling on the island’s children.

Pictured: The Senator explained that giving new mothers adequate breastfeeding facilities in the workplace was important.

Senator Moore appeared on the panel alongside Autism Advocate Jonathan Channing, Standard Bank CEO Will Thorp, Chair of LGBTQ+ charity Liberate Vic Tanner Davy, and Coop CEO Colin Macleod.

Mr Channing said that local businesses should not simply be focused on “visual” diversity, but could benefit from embracing “neuro-diversity” within their workforce.

He explained that businesses should move away from the “deficit model of difference” – seeing conditions such as autism as a disadvantage – and consider the new ways of thinking they can bring.

Mr Tanner-Davy, meanwhile, spoke of how it is important to “check yourself as a habit” for evidence of internal bias – even if outwardly professing commitment to diversity.

One of panel Chair Wendy Orr’s key themes was recognising that equality and equity are different – with the latter a recognition that not everyone starts on a level playing field and should therefore be what businesses strive for.

Mr Macleod and Mr Thorp both spoke of the importance of showing “vulnerability” as a leader.

Both explained that discussions of mental health in the workplace have become far more common, but agreed with one audience member that while it was now “easier to talk about mental health at work”, leaders should be more comfortable in sharing their own difficulties, as employees are often “terrified of exposing their own vulnerabilities”.

“It takes courage to be vulnerable,” Wendy Orr noted.