Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: How many children with cancer would an editor's salary cure?

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  • Graeme Edgeler,

    a variety of shadow spokesmen ... would also ask numerous questions which could be asked in one

    I suspect that's either the MP (or their researcher) learning from experience that many questions that could be asked as one get answered as one without anywhere close to the information actually sought.

    Your questions - wanting a breakdown of waiting lists - might well ave been answered there were 10 families on the waiting list ... when there were also 10 on the B waiting list and a further 10 on the C.

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Actually, it reminds me of a Gartner Group review that criticised HNZC for operational costs out of kilter with comparative organisations in New Zealand (no-one could name any organisations comparastive to HNZC though).

    There were 6 highly paid analyst programmers in my team alone pretty much answering PQs & OIA, and building systems to make it easier to answer those questions (and Board reports). Goodness knows how many communications people dealing with the rest.

    How many private companies have to wear that sort of cost? (Dunno, maybe there are some, and HNZC definitely should be reporting this stuff - the criticism on those grounds rankled with me though.)

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    I'm always amazed by how tight a leash even relatively senior public servants are on with respect to entertainment expenses

    when i was at IRD we had two dockets for drinks at the christmas party. total cost? $8.

    the food was a buffet however, in petone. your average buffet will come in under $25 a head.

    and that was it. not a cent more was spent on us, and people were saving how flash it was.

    meanwhile, back when i was the fixit/handyman at an auckland law firm while studenting i got plastered on expensive wine, and was given a hamper containing among other things, caviar.

    i'd been working for them for 4 weeks...

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Your questions - wanting a breakdown of waiting lists - might well ave been answered there were 10 families on the waiting list ... when there were also 10 on the B waiting list and a further 10 on the C.

    We'd report that as a matter of course each month anyway - on the website, to the board & the ministers office, the media...

    One spreadsheet, NHU down one axis, A,B,C & D across the other, national totals at the bottom.

    When I was getting 45 a month, that was from a "good MP". Their predecessor was sending hundreds & hundreds for the same info (and getting 45 answers from us).

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    Any HR person in a national organisation will tell you how important it is to keep the key people in the organisation on the same page and working together. People get to know each other. Skills and knowledge are shared and everyone wins. The result in smoother operation and greater efficiencies more than pays for itself.

    White at IBM and AT&T, I used to attend conferences all over NZ, in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I never once heard a shareholder carping about the cost or the media highlighting waste. I was able to make contacts within the organisation that aided me hugely in my work inside a big, complex orgnisation.

    What we are seeing here is one of the standard tools in the media's election year bag of tricks. It's a waste of print.

    National has just told every Kiwi who knows the how and why of these things that it either doesn't understand investing in your people or it doesn't care and will use them as pawns in a political game.

    Put it this way. Where does national stand on investing in the people of New Zealand? Let's look at the list:

    They made tertiary education a private asset, leaving students in professional courses with mortgage-sized debts, forcing many to go overseas as debt-refugees. Labour has not fixed this.

    They wiped apprenticeships. Cheaper to import skills than train our own people.

    They opened up markets and allowed industries to be destroyed without spending $1 on aiding the retraining displaced workers.

    With a track record like that its fairly clear that National sees NO value in investing in the people of New Zealand, or this history would be a very different one.

    The bitching about this conference is just tip of the iceberg.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Well during my tenure HNZC were lauded for their transparency, speed & enthusiasm for answering all the PQs & OIAs they could.

    Andrew, I'm very sure you were the very paragon of animals. Dealing with the local DHB (or whatever the hell they were called in the mid-ish 90's) during my brief and inglorious career as a provincial hack, painful. Even the mosu innocuous request for information became a bloody war of attrition, and to be honest I just gave up more often than not. At least I was getting paid to be dicked around, what must it have been like (is like?) for members of the public?

    I dunno about other places, but my work is very cautious about fringe benefit tax.

    And quite sensibly too. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't loopholes around things like entertaining been closed up over the last decade or so?

    I didn't say that. It would be as silly as pretending you're going to ban staff at crown entities from having national meetings.

    And I didn't say that either, so we're one-all. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    It is mainly in the public sector these sort of faddish bonding sessions still happening – most corporates got bored with them in 90’s

    Excepting, presumably, Fonterra, Telecom, Aventis, ANZ, Solar Turbines, Tertra Pak and Toyota, who all choose the same five-star luxury lodge in Taupo as the "APN team" does.

    Tane at The Standard got some costings. Conclusion? HNZC couldn't have got even a basic hotel and venue much cheaper than they got the lodge.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    when i was at IRD we had two dockets for drinks at the christmas party. total cost? $8.

    To save the dept money when at dinner after some "Future Leaders" workshop (the luxurious Overses Terminal), our group of 6 or so deputised me to go to New World & get wine (as per instructions issued as part of some sort of exercise). Long story short, that attempt at frugality certainly did save the taxpayer, due to the machanics of the rules, I wore the lot. A "very sorry" from the GM who refused to sign it off. Who demanded we attend the damned thing anyway.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    Craig: The biggest waste I see in the public service is the apathy and disillusion that creeps in after years of being publicly kicked around like a football. Peopel begin to feel it doesn't matter what sort of job they do, some politician is going to crap on them anyway...and too often from a position of willful ignorance for political advantage.

    That is a serious cost to taxpayers and it is directly caused by media and politicans' beatups. Even there, there would be a lot of good and reliable hard working people who have been tainted by association.

    The number of genuine scandals like in Immigration is small compared to the number of beatups like this HNCZ conference thing.

    There is a real cost to denigrating public servants. You risk having them turn up for work but not actually motivated to do any......I wish National actually understood what makes people tick. They prove over and over that they don't. Not really.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Excepting, presumably, Fonterra, Telecom, Aventis, ANZ, Solar Turbines, Tertra Pak and Toyota, who all choose the same five-star luxury lodge in Taupo as the "APN team" does.

    I nearly bit at this one too. As someone who now works in the Corporate Learning industry & who sees what a lot of corporates do (until we advise them otherwise with any luck)... I was wondering which specific corporates ever got bored with them?

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    White at IBM and AT&T, I used to attend conferences all over NZ, in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I never once heard a shareholder carping about the cost or the media highlighting waste.

    How long ago was that -- because I don't think it's a bad thing at all that there is a more critical eye is going on corporates where executives and senior managers treat themselves to lavish exit packages and 'team-building' junkets on the one hand, while signing pink slips and seeing the share price go down the toilet on the other.

    Scrutiny and accountability. What a bitch.

    National has just told every Kiwi who knows the how and why of these things that it either doesn't understand investing in your people or it doesn't care and will use them as pawns in a political game.

    And perhaps most people in the public sector get that public scrutiny goes with the territory, and aren't quite so bloody precious about it.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Rex Widerstrom,

    I see Craig has beaten me to it, but it's a point worth re-stating: Why couldn't this have been done by video conference?

    Most of us who've been to conferences know that the information delivered by endless hours of PowerPoint could just as easily have been done online.

    Getting to travel, spend the night in a nice hotel, have some posh nosh and generally get a bit of a break from the humdrum routine is part of an unspoken bargain between us attendees and the organisers - "If you promise to try and pay attention while we drone on, we'll let you have a bit of fun in the evening".

    Most conferences - including this one - are a huge waste of money. However if APN choose to do so, the only people entitled to grouch are their shareholders. When a state agency does it - especially, as Craig points out - one whose "clients" would benefit from the money then yes, it is a legitmate target, even if it's the National Party who're making the bullets.

    Perth, Western Australia • Since Nov 2006 • 157 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    And perhaps most people in the public sector get that public scrutiny goes with the territory, and aren't quite so bloody precious about it.

    we live with public scrutiny of our actions every day craig.

    how about you practice some of that calling a spade a spade you're so proud of and recognise this story for what it is, a media beat-up?

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Dealing with the local DHB (or whatever the hell they were called in the mid-ish 90's) during my brief and inglorious career as a provincial hack,

    If you mean Dept Building & Housing - it was probably the Ministry of Housing in those days.

    If you mean HNZC in those days, well that was before my time :) But it reminds me that in my early days, to get a feel for what these questions meant & how they should be answered... I trawled back through years of PQs. There was one particular National Minister of Housing, under whose governance, if the answers to PQs weren't from a complete incompetent (to be diplomatic), must have been deliberately misleading.

    the very paragon of animals

    I'm sure too - but the powers that were were far more interested in keeping off the front page of newspapers by being honest, than they were in hiding anything.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    One last comment. I've worked in Corrections, on the floor in a prison. I've seen a lot of sensational un-information about Corrections over the years from both the media and - sadly - cynical polititians.

    The way the media - especially editorial writers and columnists - have cover the state sector is often simply poor. Cynical politicians of any stripe often talk rubbish about "bureaucrats" by the column-foot and it is often left unaddressed by anything resembling reality.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • dc_red,

    Excepting, presumably, Fonterra, Telecom, Aventis, ANZ, Solar Turbines, Tertra Pak and Toyota, who all choose the same five-star luxury lodge in Taupo as the "APN team" does.

    Tane at The Standard got some costings. Conclusion? HNZC couldn't have got even a basic hotel and venue much cheaper than they got the lodge.

    Good work there, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, 'the lie is half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on.'

    And then there's the obscene cost of some 3rd party conferences, typically held in dark, shitty, overly-air conditioned "ballrooms" (read: bunkers) in nondescript international hotel chains.

    The per day registration fee alone can be approximate to the fee including food and accom. at HNZC's considerably more pleasant Taupo venue.

    Oil Patch, Alberta • Since Nov 2006 • 706 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Paul Wood,

    I think a bit of junket for public servants is an investment in their utility and performance - otherwise its a pretty soul-crushing employment (I'm sure many on here can attest to that). Good Business Practice and why should a government department be any different. That this is a total media beat up is a fact as established as evolution and global warming (and yet, for some reason people keep wanting to debate them as well).

    Christchurch • Since Jan 2007 • 175 posts Report Reply

  • dc_red,

    Getting to travel, spend the night in a nice hotel, have some posh nosh and generally get a bit of a break from the humdrum routine is part of an unspoken bargain between us attendees and the organisers - "If you promise to try and pay attention while we drone on, we'll let you have a bit of fun in the evening".

    Most conferences - including this one - are a huge waste of money.

    I sometimes think along similar lines ... although I wouldn't go so far as to say most conferences are a huge waste of money (some I've attended have been tremendous), there's too many for my liking that are just an excuse to socialize, get rip-roaring drunk, and then try not to vomit during your presentation the next morning.

    The latter leave me less than impressed.

    Oil Patch, Alberta • Since Nov 2006 • 706 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    __Dealing with the local DHB (or whatever the hell they were called in the mid-ish 90's) during my brief and inglorious career as a provincial hack,

    If you mean Dept Building & Housing - it was probably the Ministry of Housing in those days.

    I think Craig might have meant District Health Board. Or CHEs. Or... whatever other stupid name National renamed them to.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Shep Cheyenne,

    Rex, I'm sure we've all been subjected to death by powerpoint, but as Mikaere said, facetime is important.

    From living in Christchurch & the centre of anything is in Wellington or Auckland, it is really good to meet the boss, et al.

    Since Oct 2007 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    I think Craig might have meant District Health Board. Or CHEs.

    Oh no, not the block of CHE's argument again. Can't these apologists for National think of anything else, like policy for instance.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    there's too many for my liking that are just an excuse to socialize, get rip-roaring drunk, and then try not to vomit during your presentation the next morning.

    Orgy on Taxes! Pictures at Six!

    (note to editors: any old suits-with-drinks conference file footage will do.)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Dealing with the local DHB (or whatever the hell they were called in the mid-ish 90's) during my brief and inglorious career as a provincial hack,

    Oh that reminds me (and I posted but a CBD power cut (2nd in as many weeks - a sign of thing to COME!) stole it...

    When at HNZC, on the odd occasion we were out on the town on a post event piss up, if anyone asked, we worked for MSD.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    And I was once mildly censured with issuing my team with written instructions for what to do and say if anyone was arrested (the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions).

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    ...censured for issuing....

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

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