Hard News: The Trophy Hunter
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It kind of suggests that you could wear a good hat and nothing else,
Please, get that image out of my head.
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I saw the highpoint of Dennis Miller's career a couple of weeks ago on C4's Fright Night.
Tho' he was outclassed by Erica Eleniak. -
Craig, do you know nothing of the story? They got those bastards with the help of Thomson. The call for Thomson's resignation is crap political point scoring. You should know better, oh I forgot, you still hold a candle for the right wing ideology, eh.
I was going to break with tradition and not rise to your usual flame baiting projection, but fuck it...
Here's my "ideology": Accountability and transparency aren't just for the people who can't afford slick lawyers and PR flacks. When you're in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, it's just not acceptable to pass the buck when things go bad.
And while you're accusing me of wearing partisan blinkers (which is rather surprising considering I've been explicitly critical of Ryall's handling of this mess), I've got to wonder just how sympathetic you'd be if Thomson was the CEO of a privately owned hospital where substantial amounts of public money -- or the money of small 'Mum and Dad' investors -- were embezzled on his watch. I sure don't think co-operating with investigators would be any kind of mitigation in that case.
Any anyone who could type something like this with a straight face, just isn't worth taking seriously:
I think a DHB has a little more on it's plate than to look for fraud in it's IT sector.
What were you saying about being tired of competence?
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Here's Bill O'Reilly having his turn on it:
It's hard to get po-faced about this either. In fact, his show seems pretty much like a middle-america-wanka rap. Talk some parody, rag on someone who's expressing their ideas in an equally poetic and easily misconstrued way, and then end with some curious imagery involving a slave stoking a screaming crowd with angry rhetoric. Amusingly silly, just like gangsta rap. I mean seriously, 'how can we harness the sun'? FFS haven't these guys ever heard of Hoover Dam? Of course they have, they're just using it as an excuse to evoke images of baseball and apple pie for the buttons it will push in their target demographic. Very similar to going on about black oppression.
Not being part of the target demographic of either one, they both seem as crazy as a couple of steroid buffed professional wrestlers carrying on in their interminable interviews, as a prelude to their ridiculous staged fights.
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There's a letter to the editor from Thompson in today's ODT (sadly they don't put their letters on their web site) basically saying that he hardly knew the perps of the fraud (it was an overbilling by their head of IT dept to a fake company) - he'd remembered him presenting to the board a couple of times
The main perp (Swann) was known by some about town for having a rather expensive lifestyle, and had previously gone bankrupt - so there's a bit of finger pointing by people who think the hospital board should have noticed. Dunedin's a small place people kind of expect everyone knows everything about everyone.
I don't really expect the board to be that involved in employee's personal stuff - that's more a job for the management side of things - in fact I can imagine a board getting into trouble for being too involved in that sort of level - so Thompson's letter makes sense to me.
I have no idea what National have against him
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I have no idea what National have against him
Who appointed him to the chair ,Paul?
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he was elected
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Here's where I'm seriously pissed off by Ryall -- allowed another public health manager of dubious judgement or competence to play the richly undeserved role of martyr.
Can't agree Craig. I think the case for Thomson's non-responsibility is strong - all I can think that Ryall wants to insert one of his fellow NP members onto that Board to get rid of a LP man. I would have thought now Ryall has gone this far, he has to sack Thomson and state publicly the reasons for doing so. Otherwise, he will give the impression of a weak, loose cannon.
I also hear that Ryall is going around asking all of the DHBs 'How many managers have you got?', so naturally they are classifying $110k nursing manager as a nurse. Really, hasn't he got anything better to do?
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Peter Martin wrote:
The people of Otago re-elected him to the hospital board at the last elections, well aware of the fraud that had been perpetuated.
A corrupt douchebag called Ted Stevens only missed out on re-election to the US Senate by less than one point -- despite being convicted a week before the election on seven counts of failing to report gifts received from VECO Corporation and its CEO Bill Allen on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Doesn't mitigate his corruption or douchiness, and sure doesn't say much about the judgement of the good people of the great state of Alaska.
But demo-crazy's a bitch, whether in Juneau or Dunedin. And however much I shake my heads at the result, I'm pretty relaxed with the idea that you don't have to pass an IQ test to vote.
But I would like the people who are supposed to exercising stewardship over enormous amounts of public money supposed to serve the health needs of citizens and taxpayers to show a little competence, and accept the kind of transparency and accountability they like to demand of others.
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Here's my "ideology": Accountability and transparency aren't just for the people who can't afford slick lawyers and PR flacks. When you're in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, it's just not acceptable to pass the buck when things go bad.
I still don't understand. How is Thomson "passing the buck"? In what sense is taking a fraud to the police an abdication of transparency?
It just doesn't make any sense to dump Thomson in the circumstances.
And if you're going to do it, the least you owe the people who elected Thomson to the board (we was elected as a board member then appointed as chair) is an honest, public account of your reasons for doing so. Just saying "accountability" a lot and then refusing interviews doesn't do it.
And trying to get the guy to resign on the QT so you can get your accountability trophy is just lamentable behaviour. I admire your party loyalty Craig, but this episode has been bullshit. It's much more about Ryall marketing himself than it is about governance.
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A corrupt douchebag called Ted Stevens only missed out on re-election to the US Senate by less than one point -- despite being convicted a week before the electionon seven counts of failing to report gifts received from VECO Corporation and its CEO Bill Allen on his Senate financial disclosure forms.
Is it false equivalence time already?
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I think I'll let someone else answer Craig. I have said what I wanted to say. No offence meant or taken Craig, it's just that we wear different coloured blinkers I guess.
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As far as I can make out, John Britten was more of the same ilk as Sir peter blake, than Bert Munro. A remarkable leader of men, not the archetypal kiwi block, tinkering in the back shed. He inherited an engineering firm.
A substantial inheritance, but not an engineering firm as such. John's engineering expertise was certainly of his own making, but his projects required substantial help from many others. Not that you'd guess that from the doco.
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n reality, Murray McCully's can't-you-see-I'm-trying-to-have-a-holiday performance as foreign minister has been embarrassing.
I'm curious to know what this is in reference to. McCully has spent most of the last week in PNG and the Solomon Islands, attending the Pacific leaders forum and visiting the RAMSI mission respectively, both reasonable things for the Foreign Minister to be doing. I haven't heard any snarky gossip from anyone who went along on the trip about McCully's behavior - do you have inside gossip?
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I don't think he 'passed the buck" either - he called the police and had the hospital employees support the prosecution - I've worked for companies (in the US) where executives were caught embezzling and the company just hushed the whole thing up.
I don't know much about Thompson, I think I did vote for him at the last election (from memory he's a doctor but I could be wrong)
there is a merger at the upper levels going on between the Otago and Southland boards, I winder if this is really a power play in that process (time to look for a Bill Birch pulling the puppet strings behind the curtain ...)
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Not quite Paul..he was appointed ,after his election, by the then health minister...Pete Hodgson.
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I haven't heard any snarky gossip from anyone who went along on the trip about McCully's behavior - do you have inside gossip?
No, no, no. I was referring to his apparently reluctant role as a minister when asked to comment on the Gaza assault. It got slightly farcical.
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I admire your party loyalty Craig, but this episode has been bullshit. It's much more about Ryall marketing himself than it is about governance.
Well, Russell, I don't admire being called a party hack no matter now nicely. And since I've suggested Steve go get stuffed for doing the same thing, it would be partial to leave you out.
Would be out of line to repeat that I'm very far from impressed with Ryall's handling of this, but aren't quite willing to accept Thomson and his colleagues are fragrant martyrs either?
Is it false equivalence time already?
No, but if Stevens had another three thousand odd votes he would have been the legitimately elected Senator from Alaska. Wouldn't make him any less of a corrupt douche, but still legitimately elected.
And agree with me or not (I can safely assume the latter?) I still say in perfect good faith that I've got doubts around the judgement and competence of Thomson and the ODHB. They're legitimately elected, but I'd respectfully suggest thre's plenty of fools out there with an electoral mandate.
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I can't see a reason to slander Thomson with being of "dubious judgement or competence" and you haven't provided one. Whatever. I think I'm with Steve in feeling that I've said my piece.
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I've got doubts around the judgement and competence of Thomson and the ODHB
And if you have any evidence about that to add to what we've read so far, please do share.
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I think a DHB has a little more on it's plate than to look for fraud in it's IT sector.
"I'm sorry I was too busy to notice" doesn't cut it as an excuse with me and
"I'm sorry I was too busy to notice for 5 years" is worse
IT is still one of those "mystery" areas that tend to get left to their own devices. Would Thompson have known how much he SHOULD have been spending on technical support?
Fair enough that every board member cannot be expected to have expertise is all areas of a business although it would be nice if the skills of the board were representative to cover different aspects.
However, the issue is governance, not whether Thomson knew how much it costs to upgrade your firewall or whatever.
The board shoulld have ensured disciplines, processes, procedures, audits, checks, balances were in place to minimise the chance of seomthing like this happeneing.
Having said all that, Ryall's dithering is perplexing, something's up
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But here's the thing: why was the minister making this private call in search of a resignation anyway? If he truly believed there was a public case for Thomson's departure, why not publicly say so? Why not, with all due attention to process, actually sack the guy?
Because if he does that and produces a set of snowball reports on the board then he might have no choice but to sack them all. A quiet resignation would be politically preferable to that kind of debacle.
Case in point:
The irony, of course, is that Ryall has also made great play of reinstating seven dismissed Hawke's Bay District Health Board members; reversing what he claimed was the unacceptable political interference of his predecessor, David Cunliffe in sacking them. But at least the HBDHB had demonstrably lost the plot: reports were commissioned into its dysfunctional performance; the minister issued a public warning to the board. It looks like a model of process...
...in how a minister can make his government look like overbearing schmucks and lose politcal support the local (Hawkes Bay or Otago - take your pick) electorate. Something a quiet resignation would have avoided.
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Meanwhile, here at Tolley watch we see our stellar education minister demonstrating her grasp of her portfolio by dismissing not one but two school boards within her first 100 days.
I know no more than than what I read on stuff, but the latest school got a shocking ERO report, which said that staff were abusing children, using language, and physically.
Which you would have hoped the board would put a stop to, and if they didn't, they'd be out on their ear and the minister would appoint someone who'd clean that shit up.
Unless there's more to the story, I fail to see what the problem is with Tolley.
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IT is still one of those "mystery" areas that tend to get left to their own devices. Would Thompson have known how much he SHOULD have been spending on technical support?
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the way this is normally done by boards is to commission an independent report periodically (say bi-annually) comparing IT spend in your organisation with industry standards. They don't cost a fortune either.
CIO's fear these reports I can tell you.
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But demo-crazy's a bitch, whether in Juneau or Dunedin. And however much I shake my heads at the result, I'm pretty relaxed with the idea that you don't have to pass an IQ test to vote.
No Craig, no offense taken. Keep on truckin'.
No, but if Stevens had another three thousand odd votes he would have been the legitimately elected Senator from Alaska. Wouldn't make him any less of a corrupt douche, but still legitimately elected.
I think the false equivalence is:
1. Stevens convicted of corruption.
2. Thomson not convicted, or even suspected of corruption. Indeed, involved in bringing corrupt person to prosecution.
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