Another week, another week of chronic stupidity from the Council. It seems hard to fathom, given the amount of flack that Tory has weathered over the last couple of years, but they seem hell-bound on doing stupid things yet again, and spending money that they do not have, on things that are not necessary. Sigh…..

This time the fresh stupidity is the response to the call for fencing off the entire waterfront. Joel McManus bet me to it in terms of publication date, with an excellent piece on the Spinoff, linked here, and in it he says “There are four options on the table: 

• Install full edge protection fencing and complete lighting works

• Remove temporary fencing and complete lighting works

• Retain temporary fencing and complete lighting works

• Install fencing in key locations and complete lighting works“

There are, of course, many other ways to respond to the issue, but what seems to be done here is in every case to propose some new, probably brighter lighting – and certainly more of it around the waterfront, and possibly some new fencing. I’m not sure where the new lighting is meant to go – above deck or below deck? Let’s have a look at some of the other possibilities.

First up has to be the option to leave it as it is, but to put in the equivalent of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – it works perfectly well for the rest of Aotearoa, so why not here. By that I mean the simple addition of a regular spacing of life belts, which are jaunty, easy to use, low cost, and could give Wellington some much needed ticks in the life-saving space. How much is a floating rubber ring? My first web-search says I can buy one for just $99 Aussie dollars – so even if one is stolen per week, the proposed $11 million would finance somewhere around 100,000 of these – that’s enough for a thousand life rings per year for a hundred years. And a thousand rings over a two kilometre waterfront would mean a spacing of one every two metres. Job done lads, its a good un.

Second possibility must surely be some more ladders. Assuming that it is only drunken pissheads that are falling in to such an extent that they cannot save themselves, positioning a ladder for them to climb back out again seems like a relatively simple solution too. I’m quite inclined to think that the effect of a splash into the water would most likely have the immediate effect of waking the falling person up quite quickly, and for them to rapidly set their sail for the nearest way out of the harbour, back onto dry land. It is pretty protected around the waterfront, and full of wildlife (other than soused teens), like birds, fishes and occasionally mammals, none of which can climb ladders. So let’s put in some more ladders – again, cheap as chips. Seriously – only $200 to $400 each. Buy 30 of the buggers, enough for one every 60m all the way along. That’s only $11 thousand, not $11 million.

Why isn’t Wellington City Council doing some basic maths like this, figuring things out themselves, instead of agreeing a sum of $11 million and only then asking what the issue is? Who the fuck is running the shop these days? Which numbskull agreed to go ahead on installing a cycleway directly above pipes that they KNEW were well past their best-by date, and highly likely to blow (as I believe they did so today). I mean seriously, where is the brain of the WCC ? My apologies for the rude language, but for God’s sake – has no one at the Council got a shred of common sense?

There are other, cheaper methods to combat the scourge of drunken revellers, although now that they have killed off Homegrown as well as the Rugby Sevens, there is going to be a lot less drunken people wandering along the waterfront. Actually – I take that back – the annual WOW fest still draws in major numbers of punters, and I’m sure they are imbibing champers by the bucketful. Generally however, the grey rinse girls are a lot less likely to get so pissed that they fall into the harbour. I think that so far, of the seven people who have (tragically) lost their lives, they are all male? Hold the line caller, I’ll go and check…

Nothing that I can find on their sex or gender, but I think it is fairly likely that they are all male. Men are generally more stupid than women and they die all the time doing stupid things. Don’t believe me? Watch Fail Army. Read a Skateboard magazine.

What other methods can we look for before spending more millions that we don’t have, on fencing that we don’t need, and that no-one except a clueless coroner asked for? Alternative solutions people – give the City your alternative solutions! Floating pontoon? Netting? Free water-wings to every punter who leaves on his own and looks unsteady on his pins? Bungy cords tied around people’s feet?

Of course, the danger is that every single thing that you do risks even more the chance that “the silly bugger” would try even harder to jump into the harbour. Put a fence up, and some fat plonker will try to vault over it. Stick barbed wire on the top and someone will get out the pliers and speed it off the scene. Any more suggestions?

Fish

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