I’d love to have a real life conversation with Luxo right now – to see if he is regretting his decision to get into bed with his fellow Cerberus heads. New Zealand is now absolutely a shit-show, and if we really wanted a Government to destroy everything, then this is the right one. Funny though, I don’t recall the Dalek phrase being employed at all during the campaign, but it sure is being echoed up and down the streets now. So, what have we got?
Police officers leaving in droves, to Australia – more pay, more sun, less crime, because the crims have all been sent home here by now.
Nurses have already left, Health system is in tatters. Trans-Tasman movers are booked out solid for months into the future. Doctors all retired to the coast some time ago. Only replacements we can get are from India, but the immigration department won’t approve the visas for Indians, so they are all working as Uber drivers instead. Great strategy, sure to fail – every day!
MBIE lays off 600 people in a day – or was it more? I know a lot of them are useless no-hopers, but what I worry about is that they are the ones that are staying behind. And that if there were ever any good, competent staff there, they have now moved on (to retirement). Are there ANY architects left there? Or is it all 14 year old schoolboys in short pants?
DoC lays off 130 people, which is about half their entire staff!!?!! Jesus, we may as well just go out and kill all the flightless birds ourselves right now, save ourselves the wait. Shoot a kakapo today! Have a takahe for tea, everyone! Bag yourself a Real Kiwi !
Building companies going to the wall every single day – and this in our time of greatest need.
Kāinga Ora being told to stop planning ahead and buying land.
Kāinga Ora planning ahead anyway and importing Vietnamese prefabs as fast as possible, but now the crunch is coming because the Minister for Stupidity has sold the land off anyway. Leave the prefabs rotting in a field somewhere in South Auckland. .
Another headline today that Chief Hologram himself, has said he wants to sack all the Senior Civil Servants (earning too much) and just run the place on half the amount of young ones. Bound to be a huge success. Isn’t that the reason why Fletcher Building forgot how to build things, and decided to just burn everything to the ground instead?
What else have I missed?
Too cynical? Or not nearly cynical enough? 60 – was it worth it?
As much as this government can’t organisae its way out of a Paper bag, , there are all sorts of games being played by both sides with the current staff cuts
“DoC lays off 130 people, which is about half their entire staff!!?!!”
As at December, DOC had just under 2800 staff, and according to Radio NZ this morning 100 of the roles being removed are currently vacant!!
“The plan would mean the disestablishment 270 positions and creation of 140 new roles. That would result in a net reduction of 130 positions – although 101 of these were currently vacant.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513964/department-of-conservation-aims-to-establish-20-new-roles-amid-layoffs-plan
Whoops – yep, I got that wrong. I thought that they had said 130 out of 270 positions were being disestablished, and thought that they meant they only had 270 positions in total. As long as they don’t cut the actual people doing the work in the field… perhaps desk-based positions are not so vital. I was just hearing some horror stories from people involved with DoC and their are certainly some idiots behinds desks there. Wild men and wild women trapping possums and stoats and feral cats – and shooting pigs and goats – that’s what we need more of !
The media is awash at the moment with stories of job losses and incompetence
Keep in mind that govt spending is like a tide that goes in and out on a three year minimum cycle
Yes the Nats are too focussed on roads, hadn’t heard about the Vietnamese prefabs
Personally I’d like something in housing more like the Singaporean idea of building then financing people into their own homes (Interest had an interview podcast with an Aussie housing expert recently
https://of-interest.simplecast.com/episodes/cameron-murray-the-great-housing-hijack-pfuRvwDX
) and that is based on my unshakeable belief that giving people stuff for free without them having skin in the game means that they will trash it
I shudder to think how much a KO house costs to build compared to a private company
I am perfectly sanguine about losing a whole pack of seatwarmer consultants but I agree that you may well be right with your excellent line
“I know a lot of them are useless no-hopers, but what I worry about is that they are the ones that are staying behind”
I’m not arrogant enough to think I know all the answers but I could see the NZ spirit being drowned in a cavalcade of self-appointed experts sticking their noses into everything and clipping the ticket yet creating nothing of value and taking no responsibility
Fucking Aecom “engineers” are too scared to get into a scissorlift/EWP to inspect work
I had over 6 H&S inspections on one site in a 5 week stretch and they got basic things wrong like how long an extinguisher tag lasts for- muppets who take money out of a business and create nothing of value
We are no longer the NZ like the West Coast where a treefall blocking the road is gleefully set upon by the locals as free firewood and cleared in no time but surely we are the country where people can look at what is wrong and set about fixing it
Not just 3 parties but while we are politically non-partisan enough we should rope in at least Labour to sign up to whatever common ground we can agree upon
If nothing else that will minimise the surprises when we swap Tweedledum for Tweedledee
So what would you call a 4-headed dog?
“Up to 90 jobs to be cut at NIWA – 13% of its workforce”
April 9, 2024 – News from PSA – https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=159499
“NIWA, one of New Zealand’s leading climate research agencies, is set to lose up to 90 jobs, at a time when our climate crisis is worsening. “This is utter madness at this critical time for New Zealand,” said Duane Leo, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has told staff 85 to 90 positions will be lost, of which 30 are vacant. The proposed cut amounts to more than one in ten staff – some 13% of its workforce. This comes on top of cuts of possibly hundreds of jobs at the Ministry for the Environment and the loss of 30 scientists and engineers at Callaghan Innovation announced yesterday.”
OK – can anyone please explain to me why, if an organisation has been asked to save 6.5%, that they cut 13% of their workforce?
No answers yet – so I’ll have a go myself. Is it as simple as saying that Salaries are 50% of the total bill for any organisation, and so to get 6.5% saving, you need to sack twice as many staff ie 13% staff cut should save 6.5% overall? Is that it? No other way of saving money except for cutting people? Couldn’t do something like, 30% salary cut for the top echelon of the staff, or maybe installing a salary cap of max $100k a year (still seems like a lot to me) and recoup all that fat back into the pool? Move offices into cheaper accommodation? Lots of empty offices around at present.
Like many people I suspect, I am tempted to look away when these ritual bloodbaths are enacted.
Of course I have teeth-grinding experiences of bureaucrats who have ridden the managerial tide to positions of maximum obstructiveness. Some people who achieve apparent invulnerability in central and local government organisations do lack empathy for others whose work brings existential challenges. I have worked in effective opposition to any number of them over the years. Sometimes, a bit of schadenfreude might be the privateer’s only comfort.
However, those obstructionists and grey suit wearers are not endangered. This process, like those launched by Bill English, Ruth Richardson and Roger Douglas has nothing to do with making organisations better fit for purpose. It is about being meaner – not leaner; about deliberately reducing government services in obedience to the monetarist mantra – less service, less government, less tax. Let the tap be further opened on the upward flow of wealth.
Ok so why do we, as a country of about the population size of Sydney, need two weather bureaus? (NIWA and MetService)
Why what seems like 40 DHB’s?
I’ve seen the waste in FENZ and KO firsthand
There is a great deal of reinventing the wheel
There are a truckload of people doing sod-all in this country
It’s like a judder bar on the road
Some clipboard type fresh graduate has decided that it will slow traffic and make us all safer
Yet every delay to people’s time impacts their ability to earn money and hence pay tax to keep the whole place moving
It literally retards progress
There are plenty of people working hard and doing their best and we owe it to them to get rid of the dead wood
Capitalism may be a dirty word to progressives but the capitalist system has lifted more people out of poverty more effectively than all of these charity handouts ever will
Yes money taints everything it touches that is true but we are often, as a nation, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good
Trouble is, having two weather services is a perfect example of Friedmanite dogma in action. Competition is apparently more important than effectiveness and the race to the bottom just speeds up – cf tertiary education.
Isn’t the reason for two weather forecasters just a perfect example of Scope Creep ? Met Service was meant to be doing Metropolitan weather forecasts, and NIWA was meant to be studying the science of the seas and the skies. Trouble is, it always looks like the neighbour has more fun, and so they grew more and more alike. Now they both want to eat each others cake rather than just stick to their own.
Exactly
Youve got METVUW
https://www.metvuw.com/forecast/forecast.php?type=rain®ion=nz&noofdays=10
YrNo from Norway
https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/daily-table/2-2179537/New%20Zealand/Wellington%20Region/Wellington%20City/Wellington
Rural weather which is my new one I’ve found
https://www.ruralweather.co.nz/forecasts/Wellington,%20Wellington
as well as all the other usual suspects
windy
https://www.windy.com/?-40.958,175.656,5
and all the others
It’s fair to say that there is competition in the space, so what does Metservice do with their “orange level” bullshit again? I don’t have a particular axe to grind but it just seems like an egregious waste of finite taxpayers money to spend on a double-up
It’s not cutting services for the sake of cutting, it’s more looking at what we are doing with finite service allowances and directing funds where they can do the most useful good
This sort of thing is easier in a smaller country than a larger one – at least in theory
On another note, despite people in my world referring to RNZ as RadioRed, I hadn’t thought that the liberal bias in the media was really that strong but the amount of doom and gloom about the direction that this govt has taken politically has me reasessing that belief – podcast The Detail is a particular case
This is exactly what I voted for and I’m as happy as a dog with two dicks – in fact I just bought a large motorbike which is always a source of joy
There is a reason that you evolved with a gap between your legs and that is to put a motorcycle there
Moped, trailbike, whatever
Looking at the current media landscape with all the hairshirts I suspect we have a case of what in the UK was referred to as the “quiet Tory” * which was no-one sticking their head above the parapet to admit to voting conservative given the culture wars but come election time, the conservative vote came out
These days the only sort of thing that gets my goat is this crap
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/unlicensed-hastings-driver-toppled-motorcyclist-drove-right-over-him-causing-fatal-injuries-then-fled/FQQTSGFKRRDO5DMPNS7W4E4WI4/
Kill a man and basically get away with it
Stone cold bullshit, that fucker oughta be in jail
*obv this was a few years back and Keir Starmer will be the new British PM
That Angela Raynor is great, just like how I really admire Chloe Swarbrick for her guts and style but would never vote for her policies
You just know that both/either of those two would be great fun to get on the piss with
So many things in there to respond to ! 60, one day we are going to have to meet in person, cos you intrigue me. Perhaps we should corner Chloe in a pub and all go for a drink already. I don’t know who Angela Raynor is though – (goes away, looks her up, and yes, I agree!). It’s interesting though, we obviously move in different circles, I have never heard the expression RadioRed before. What is it about property I wonder, that turns someone into a conservative as soon as they own a house and start to think about property development?
Now, as you say, you voted for this mess of a government, and you were happy because at least it meant that you wouldn’t have your gun taken away, or something like that. Did I get that right? But would you also agree that this government just seems to be undoing things, rather than actively doing things? And yes, of course I could agree that Labour under Hipkins seemed completely incapable of making a decision – either a good decision or a bad decision, but no decisions at all were going to get made that day.
Once upon a time, mass-membership political parties hammered out policy in public at conferences, published that policy in a manifesto, and then let the electorate make an evidence-based decision. The government then took policy implementation advice from a career, politically neutral, public service.
That was then, but this is now.
New Zealand is now seeing Powerpoint presentation devised talking-point policy delivered free of charge by lobby groups, removing the need for that independent, politically neutral public service.
You get what you vote for – is that why “the wisdom of crowds” is going out of fashion?
What is it about property I wonder, that turns someone into a conservative as soon as they own a house and start to think about property development?
I would express it more as saying that those who rebel in youth often see things in terms of hard options rather than soft options and that tends to align conservative
Also keep in mind Churchill’s line about those who aren’t socialists at 17 have no heart and those who aren’t conservatives at 40 have no head
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350245472/government-investigates-4km-tunnel-under-wellington
Looks like it takes more than two weeks for an April Fool prank to make it out of the Beehive…