Rebecca Rolls on self-awareness and lifelong learning

Hélène Malandre (0:14)

Hello, and welcome to Ethical Leadership, Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand, a podcast series commissioned by the Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership, Adi Tahi, at Victoria University of Wellington, and produced by advisory firm, Pocketknife. This podcast series aims to demystify ethics and make ethical leadership a concept we all become more fluent in, and a skill we all become more nimble with. My name is Hélène Malandre, Director of Pocketknife, and it is my pleasure to be your host for this fifth episode of our podcast series. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Rebecca Rolls. Rebecca Rolls is the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of Sport Integrity Commission, Te Kahuranui, that was established as an independent CRAN entity on 1st of July 2024 Rebecca spearheaded the creation of the commission as the Director of the Integrity Transition Program, guiding foundational legislation and overseeing the folding of drug-free sport New Zealand into this broader integrity mandate. Prior to this, Rebecca accumulated extensive public sector leadership experience with New Zealand Police, the Sirius Fraud Office, Department of Corrections, and as Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Sport New Zealand. A former elite athlete, Rebecca represented Aotearoa New Zealand as a dual international in both football with the football ferns and cricket with the white ferns. Rebecca is of Māori descent and affiliates to the Ngāti Porou Iwi.

So it's my pleasure to welcome Rebecca on the podcast today. Rebecca, a warm welcome to you.

Rebecca Rolls (1:45)

Thank you so much, Helen.

Hélène Malandre (1:46)

Rebecca, tell me, since you took on the role of inaugural CEO of the Sport Integrity Commission about a year ago, you have been very vocal in a positive way about integrity threats that sport and recreation participants face in Aotearoa, including, I understand, issues that are specific to Aotearoa's cultural context as well. It would be really helpful to start this interview with a plain English definition of what integrity looks like when it comes to sport and recreation. In your own words, if the commission was to deliver on its mission and, let's say, work itself out of a job, what would it really look like then?

Rebecca Rolls (2:28)

Sure. I mean, it's probably easier to talk a bit more about what integrity doesn't look like.

And through our policy work, we found out very quickly that it's almost impossible to define integrity from one person's perspective. And in our context, participants include not just those people playing and experiencing the sport and recreation, but also support staff and officials and administrators. So obviously, it's very, very broad. And our objective, our role was really simply to ensure that sport and recreation in New Zealand environments are safe and fierce. So it's a very simple answer to your question. That is what we would be looking for in a utopic kind of world in the future, is that environments are safe and fair and people aren't harmed further by them. And we seek to do that by preventing and addressing what we call threats to integrity. And that's when I talk about what things can put that at jeopardy and providing participant trust and confidence and integrity with an ELS.

Hélène Malandre (3:22)

That's interesting. So the language, safe of fear, safe of threats. It's really interesting because it's grounded into what you don't want the experience to be like. It's grounded into the fear, it's grounded into the threats and we want to move away from this. You have mentioned a couple of more positive words here in terms of confidence. And do you want to tell me about this? Because obviously you were at the very roots of the creation of the commission. Why do we have to start from a place of fear and threat?

Rebecca Rolls (3:51)

So, I guess to make an environment safe and fair, we have to make sure we're really clear about what is not acceptable. And that, for our work, became much clearer for people to explain. And so that includes things like doping in sports, getting activity or manipulation of sport, racism, discrimination that's unawful, as per the Human Rights Act, bullying, violence, abuse, misconduct, corruption and other fraud. And so those behaviours are very much, when we defy a threat to integrity, that's what those include. And also, we are responsible for ensuring that organisations responsible for preventing those threats are meeting their obligations. So, while it doesn't feel very strength-based to say these are the prohibited behaviours effectively, when we looked at defining what it would look like, there were a lot more gaps and much harder to articulate. And then it's open to interpretation a lot more. So, in order to achieve our purpose, that's why we defined it.