Quote of the year here, from 60mPa. You’ve got a point there…
60 was of course lamenting at the ability of the Serious Crash Unit or whoever they were, closing off the Remutaka Hill for 4 hours or so over the weekend because of a motorcyclist who had crashed. The old concept of keeping the public moving seems to have gone well by the bye… good thing that 60 wasn’t caught up in the traffic further down SH2, where apparently cars were corralled due to an excess of water, for up to 8 hours…
or an example from yesterday’s paper front page headline – $16.7 million scheme creates only 3 jobs or homes / whatever… There is something rather frighteningly inept about a government that could somehow spend so much money and have so little to show for it.
Alan, the issue isn’t that all the money is wasted. Sounds like the problem is the opposite: they haven’t been able to spend it! Whether from incompetence or external factors is not actually clear. The pandemic has completely rooted MOH’s ability to do almost anything else, it seems to me.
“A spokesperson for Health Minister Andrew Little said much of the $1.8m allocated thus far would not have been actually spent, and the programme had been delayed because of the impacts of Covid-19.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300362410/government-plan-to-move-mental-health-patients-into-housing-helps-just-three-people-in-18-months
Thanks for those comments Alan and Stephen. You’re probably right Stephen – but still, personally, I reckon I could have spent half of that in an afternoon, and housed a whole lot of people straight away. I think that possibly the reason MiniHealth (to use the original Orwellian speak) can’t do it is because they are not the right people to be doing it. How many architects and property developers do the MiniHealth actually have on their pay roll? Probably as many heart surgeons as on the MBIE pay roll.
Don’t expect good results from people who are doing things out of their expertise zone…
Haha Mini Health, brilliant
Note also the debacle of allocating quarantine hotel units – they don’t know how many are empty and the system is being gamed
Diesel vehicles get extra fees dumped on them rather than what they should do which is pilot more solar powered electrolysis units and gas up for a hydrogen economy like Japan
Farmers could farm sunshine and turn out Hydrogen for the tractors and utes and medical grade Oxygen (gee, where would we need that stuff?) using Christchurch tech from AF Cryo
https://af-cryo.com/hydrogen/
City folk don’t need doublecab diesel utes though
The cops are seeing more guns cos they only got 17% of them in the confiscation and when the cops pay 2 grand for an AR15 but the Mongrel Mob will give you $5k plus the government has called you a criminal to start with..
It’s not a political thing it’s a competence thing
Maybe it’s because I’ve been dealing with Aurecon and Kordia lately but I’m starting to crave the company of anyone who can just put two clues together
Like the way UHCC has changed the signs from Rimutaka to Remutaka – no big deal, just change the spelling on the new signs as the old signs get replaced through normal attrition
Sensible
Competent
Practical
I can’t be the only one, apparently in early lockdown there was a Google search spike of queries along the lines of “Ashley Bloomfield marital status”
Thanks for putting up with my ranting, Nemo – you’re a good fish
New Zealand stopped being able to “get stuff done” quite some time ago.
I suppose it’s a job creation scheme of some kind – the consultation, compliance, and endless review industries have sure soaked up a lot of people.
I totally agree with you over the lack of an ability to build anything in this country, LGWM is a prime example of this… and the stories are now emerging that the dream of Light rail to the Kilbirnie/Airport/Miramar could be over with Island bay being the preferred final destination…
(maybe someone worked out they did such a great job building the cycleway down there, they could step up and do the light rail too)
BUT, in regard to the crash on the Remutaka hill causing a 4 hour closure… this happened because it was a fatal crash… once it is clear that there is a risk that someone might die/is dead then a whole lot of Coroner processes are deputised to the police with regard to investigating the cause … they take a billion photos and measurements, often including 3D scans of the area, etc, basically so they don’t have to go back to the scene again… and the Coroner has enough information to conclude his investigation…
I think there was a change in SOP a few years ago after the Coroner criticised to police for being too lax in regard to providing enough information…
Hi Green
There was a non-fatal on the same hill maybe a month ago and the Serious Spastic Unit did the same thing – road not opened until after 6pm after the crash had been at around 2 in the arvo
I’ve met civil servants who are smart and work hard but these particular eedjits seem not to care
Totally with you on light rail though – 4 rails to the planes
Might it not be quicker to fly from Wellington International Airport to the Wellington Railway Station than to take ones chances through the Mount Victoria Tunnel?
Perhaps Air New Zealand could start a super-short-haul route?