Department of Internal Affairs, the gambling authority

Comment received.

Russell Garbutt
2012/04/29 at 3:54 pm

Doesn’t it seem incredible that the DIA, when presented with an enquiry that on the surface appears to be more than dodgy, chooses to get a local investigator to phone one of the people involved, that investigator issues a warning to that person that things are being looked at for any future applications, chooses not to follow up with the appropriate people within the pokie fund – even when these people have what appears to be solid evidence that moves were made to obscure just who was really asking for grants. Did the DIA investigate with people like SPARC? Not to my knowledge. Seems to me that when anything is just a little bit too hard then the DIA run for the hills. Frankly, I can’t think of any work that the DIA have done in recent times that has really resulted in anything other than warning dodgy operations into becoming more covert.

*Sport New Zealand (Sport NZ) is the new name for the government organisation responsible for sport and recreation (formerly SPARC). -Eds

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See today’s story at Sunday Star Times by senior writer Steve Kilgallon
Pokie Funds: Case closed without call to whistleblower

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hocken Gallery

Hocken Gallery, Hocken Library 21 April – 18 August 2012
90 Anzac Avenue, Dunedin
Phone 03 479 8871
Open weekdays: 9am- 5pm, Tuesday: 9am – 9pm
Saturday: 9am – 12 noon
www.library.otago.ac.nz/hocken

Find out more about this exhibition at
http://library.otago.ac.nz/hocken/exhibitions
Take a glimpse at what Hocken has been up to recently at
thehockenblog.blogspot.com
View thousands of paintings at http://digital.otago.ac.nz
Search 33,000 photographs and purchase prints online at
http://hockensnapshop.ac.nz

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More about the exhibition at ODT Online
http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/arts/205957/call-running-tide

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

NZMG another drain, another dollar

Yesterday’s D Scene reports (page 4):

Dunedin City Council is being called upon to honour its commitment to underwrite the lossmaking Masters Games. The biennial veterans sports event was a huge success on the field: more than 6000 people took part in a total of 7203 events, and almost half were out-of-town visitors. However, the Masters Games was unable to secure a naming rights sponsor. It also lost one silver level sponsor and was unable to use the University Union as its Games Village. That caused the games to lose revenue of $153,364, a report to the DCC said. #bookmark

The council has an agreement to underwrite the games, and Thursday’s finance, strategy and development committee meeting will consider a minimum $25,000 ratepayer contribution.

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Report – FSD – 26/04/2012 (PDF, 400.9 KB)
2012 New Zealand Masters Games – Manager’s Final Report

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DIA, OAG, TTCF and Otago Rugby swim below the line

While the Star-Times has, over the past eight years, unveiled a string of questionable arrangements around pokie machines involving a number of gaming trusts, the department [Internal Affairs] has brought only a few major prosecutions.

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 22/04/2012
The inside man
By Steve Kilgallon – Sunday Star Times
Martin Legge spent two decades as a cop in Levin, catching the crims and then, as police prosecutor, taking them to court. Now, he says, he wonders why. “I’m embarrassed that we used to run around chasing guys for $1000 they ripped off Social Welfare,” he says. “The big money is heading out the back door through softly regulated industries full of people in suits who should know better.” After leaving the police, Legge worked for a gaming machine trust which gave out poker machine grants. What he saw over the next decade shocked, disgusted and disillusioned him. He tried to brief his local MP, the gaming minister Nathan Guy, on the state of the industry. And then Internal Affairs, the industry watchdog, rang him up. Would he, it asked, become a whistleblower? Legge and his wife Liz hand-delivered two bulging ringbinders of documents to the department, packed with incriminating emails (some marked “delete this email forever”) to and from his colleagues at the Trusts Charitable Foundation. He also gave Internal Affairs a 9200-word statement. He was interviewed by an investigator who said he was confident of a result. Then he was told it was a “slamdunk”. In January 2011, the head of investigations told the Legges the case was “90 per cent complete” and he was contemplating seven serious charges against individuals and the trust. Legge waited, and waited. He wrote again to Guy, who rebuffed him, he contacted the auditor-general’s office, and pursued Internal Affairs until March [2012], when the department finally told him it was, pretty much, case closed. By then, Legge says wryly, relations were “strained”.

So why, when he supplied Internal Affairs with material on a string of questionable incidents that could have resulted in multiple prosecutions, has nothing happened?

In March, Dave Sayers [at Internal Affairs] finally wrote, essentially dismissing most of Legge’s key concerns and, in two cases, around Acklin’s behaviour and $5m of grants given to the Otago Rugby Union, said investigations continued, although allegations around those two incidents were now as much as six years old.

Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Green Island recycling plant

### ODT Online Sat, 21 Apr 2012
Recycling facility formally opened
By Chris Morris
Dunedin’s recycling culture has come a long way in a short time, helped by the city’s multimillion-dollar Green Island recycling plant, Mayor Dave Cull says. His comments came as Mr Cull formally opened the plant yesterday, nine months and thousands of tonnes of mixed recycling after the Materials Recovery Facility was first commissioned in June last year.

The recycling plant was part of a partnership between the council and several companies. The plant was built on Hall Bros land by another of owner Doug Hall’s companies, Anzide Properties. It was equipped by Carter Holt Harvey and operated by the company’s subsidiary, Fullcircle Recycling, which shared office space on site with EnviroWaste, which provided collection services for the council.

Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Auckland convention centre and 500 new gaming machines, or Hillside?

State-owned Asset Sale

“A Berl report showed that having the new KiwiRail rolling stock for Auckland built at Hillside would have added $250m to the economy, reduced the current account deficit by $122m and created 1270 jobs. Unfortunately, National insisted that KiwiRail only consider its narrow commercial interests and ignore the wider impacts of its decision.” -Metiria Turei

### ODT Online Thu, 19 Apr 2012
KiwiRail putting Hillside up for sale
By John Lewis
KiwiRail is seeking expressions of interest for the sale of Dunedin’s Hillside Workshops. The business will be advertised for sale as a going concern from early May, 2012 with a final decision due by the end of August, 2012. KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn said the decision was made after analysing the financial impact of the reduction in construction and refurbishment forward work orders for Hillside Workshops.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC comments ahead of court action, why?

DCC admits mistake as case back to court
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/206000/dcc-admits-mistake-case-back-court

Local businessman Doug Hall obtained a High Court injunction in August last year, upset at the impact the highway realignment was having on access to his property on Anzac Ave. Mr Hall shall have his day in court which is the only proper place to settle matters of this import against the council’s historic actions.

DCC have been playing silly beggars to date; the council’s comments in the Otago Daily Times today are further proof. The council has accepted it erred by failing to notify Mr Hall, as an affected party, during the land designation process undertaken prior to the highway realignment’s construction.

“We said, when looking at it after a bit of a discussion, we should have involved him. We’ve said we’ll re-do the designation process.” -Tony Avery

The second designation will mean extra legal, planning and staff costs for the council, “although Messrs Hamilton and Avery could not say how much the council had spent to date on the dispute”.

‘Could not say’ or ‘would not say’?
What else isn’t Dunedin City Council saying.

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Related Post and Comments:
23.8.11 Stadium project tangles

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Edgar at VEP Seminar

This Friday, 20 April the School of Business, University of Otago, will host its third Visiting Executive Programme (VEP) Seminar for 2012. All staff and students are welcome to attend.

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The Visiting Executive Programme was established in 2009 to bring leading national and international executives to the School of Business during weeks three to ten of each semester. Executives will present lunch time presentations to students based on subjects that are currently topical, or the presenter has expert knowledge of that would benefit Otago business students. Seminars are open to all interested students and staff from throughout the Business School and wider University.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Carisbrook carpark – scarce, valuable industrial land… (put to dead use)

Dunedin City Council
Non-notified consent decisions

24 Burns Street Dunedin (LUC-2012-76)
This consent was an application to/for establish and operate car sales yard without landscaping strip at 24 Burns Street Dunedin.
This was considered by the Council’s Senior Planner (Consents) on 3 April 2012.
http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/services/planning/browse-non-notified-decisions

[Ratepayer, 24 Burns St: DCC City Property ID 354275]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

ORFU still owes small creditors ($687,000), DCC ($480,000+), NZRU ($500,000) and BNZ ($1,200,000)

How will ORFU continue to trade? $400,000 in donations received doesn’t absolve the union of its obligations.

### ODT Online Tue, 17 Apr 2012
Rugby: New Otago board by end of May
By Steve Hepburn
A new board to run the Otago Rugby Football Union should be in place by the end of next month, with clubs to be consulted over a reworked constitution in the next couple of weeks. The union is also hoping to have raised about $400,000 to pay off its small creditors.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

How perverse is the New Zealand housing market?

As we sink deeper into debt with the rest of the world, more of our productive assets such as dairy farms will be sold. Ironically, in seeking to own the expensive roofs over our heads we increase the risk of becoming tenants in our own country. –Peter Lyons

Peter Lyons does another ripper opinion piece, this time on the inanities of the domestic housing market: Housing inflation distorts economy (ODT 12.4.12)

● Peter Lyons teaches economics at Saint Peters College in Epsom and has written several economic texts.

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The housing market is mostly driven by short-sighted sharks who clip the ticket without wider conscience for community or sustainable land use. Sprawl is written on their foreheads in ‘capital’ letters.

We have our own pack version based in Dunedin. Their efforts severely blot the Central Otago landscape. Now they’re ripping into Mosgiel.

The latest subdivisions (for sale) on the Taieri resemble every substandard example seeded at Wanaka district … a lowbrow microcosm of the scourge of dormitory suburbs that sweep the world, starting close by at Auckland. Luckily, we don’t have the population at Dunedin to extend too far, and we have too much local debt (a different sort of extension, why thanks DCC) ??

Who develops the sites? One is our buddy Cr Sydney Brown —tasteless, desperate or dim people buy them (the ‘flat sectioners’), even on a flood plain. Don’t they.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Public meeting: DCC Draft Annual Plan 2012/13

The annual plan sets out the city’s budget for the next financial year.

ODT Online Mon, 9 Apr 2012
Meeting to debate city plan
By David Loughrey
An unquenchable interest in public spending on stadiums and rugby is one of the reasons behind a public meeting in Dunedin on Thursday. While the Dunedin Ratepayers and Householders Association has been quiet of late, chairman Lyndon Weggery said the organisation had booked the Burns Hall for a public meeting on the Dunedin City Council’s draft annual plan.
Read more

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When: Thursday 12 April
Starts: 7.30pm
Where: Burns Hall, in the grounds of First Church
Invited speakers: Mayor Dave Cull and council chief executive Paul Orders

All welcome

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UPDATED 21.4.12

Related Posts:
17.3.12 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2012/13 -2021/22 and Annual Plan 2012/13
14.3.12 Wednesday: Meetings of Council and FSD Committee, read DEBT
12.3.12 DCC debt
6.2.12 DCC: LTP 2012/22 Draft Financial Strategy

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ugly mug raised from Lakes retreat

Who is liable for this situation?

A letter to the editor by Russell Garbutt appears in the Otago Daily Times today, he asks [excerpts]:

• Who takes responsibility and accountability within council for ignoring the very specific warnings from a large number of ratepayers that the whole “private funding” model now described by Mayor Cull as “stupid” was exactly that?

• Finally, who takes responsibility and accountability within the DCC and the CST for not knowing that their close business partner, the ORFU, was insolvent and had been living on pokie funds and hope for many years?

Read the full letter here.

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Stadium trust’s negotiations and contracts soundly based

Malcolm Farry, chairman of Carisbrook Stadium Charitable Trust endeavours to “clarify the issues” [excerpts]:

• At 4.54pm on Thursday, February 5, 2009, the CST signed a venue hire agreement with ORFU and the Highlanders.

• The negotiations had been a drawn out affair and the CST was forced to take a very tough, uncompromising position. The ORFU and Highlanders naturally resisted this position, so eventually, we engaged an accounting consultant to consider the position of all parties. He provided recommendations, a model for the future and a compromise as to the costs of the required seats.

• These proposals were accepted by all parties.

• Jim Harland, then chief executive of the Dunedin City Council, took over all future discussions and negotiations with the ORFU and Highlanders.

• The private sector fundraising was clearly stated to be based on the sale of membership seats and corporate suites, sponsorship and the sale of naming rights. This programme was first outlined at the first public presentation held at the Southern Cross Hotel on August 11, 2006. The CST has never moved from this position.

• The CST lost the role of operator, so it was never to apply its passion, expertise, local knowledge and commitment to the operation and management of the completed stadium. That role fell instead to the new company DVML.

• The CST has now completed what it was asked to do by the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Regional Council. Many people love the results, some continue to oppose. There is no doubt, however, that, after the passage of time, all will eventually unite as one in support for this remarkable addition to our city and region.

Read the full reply here.

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What can we make of this, the full opinion piece? Mainly, we see an effort by Mr Farry to rewrite history, shift blame, and spice up the reader’s day with new information for further discovery, thrown in for worse effect. How interesting.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: Events so far

### ODT Online Sun, 8 Apr 2012
Team effort – stadium show requires really big cast
By Mark Price
Staging an event at Dunedin’s new stadium is a team effort.

“We’ve learned a huge amount about being flexible in terms of trying to deliver a product for all the different user groups. And I would like to think with each event we get slightly better.” -Coryn Huddy, DVML operations manager

Forsyth Barr Stadium was opened eight months ago, on August 5, 2011. Since then it has hosted the following events:
• 4 Rugby World Cup matches
• North Otago v West Coast rugby
• Selwyn v Knox rugby
• Otago v Canterbury [ITM Cup rugby]
• Otago v Manawatu [ITM Cup rugby]
• Highlanders v Crusaders [Super 15 rugby]
• Highlanders v Waratahs [Super 15 rugby]
• 2 Wellington Phoenix v Brisbane Roar football games
• Elton John concert [crowd 35,500]
• Otago Daily Times Big Night In concert [crowd 18,000]
• Orientadium [crowd 16,500]
• Masters Games
• National Leisure Marching
• 9 conferences
• 80 meetings
• 51 social functions.

Events in the pipeline, in addition to rugby:
• VW Club – April 8, 2012
• Menopause: The Musical – May 10, 2012
• 16 conferences [average 150 delegates]
• 20 meetings [average 40 people].
Number expected to rise significantly.
• 25 social functions [average 200 people].

Read more

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Stuff: North versus South game could become fiasco
The fundraising match for the embattled Otago union is likely to be scheduled for the first weekend in June. Although details are still being discussed, the Sunday Star-Times understands some Super rugby coaches feel reviving the historical game is problematic and it doesn’t have universal appeal.
Read more

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Posted by Elizaeth Kerr

Guarantee and Indemnity of ORFU

Lee Vandervis has obtained three documents from Dunedin City Council via an official information request (LGOIMA). These documents are now in public domain.

[Email]
—— Forwarded Message
From: Sandy Graham
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 14:39:40 +1200
To: Lee Vandervis
Cc: Paul Orders
Subject: FW: Guarantee and Indemnity

Lee

Anderson Lloyd have located the signed versions which are attached. I have also attached a copy of the coverslip for sealing documents. The Mayor and Cr Brown are the signatories to the documents.

Sandy [Graham]
[DCC Governance Manager]

—— End of Forwarded Message

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[via email attachment(s) to the above message]

Sealing Documents Coversheet (11/8/09)
1440_022 (PDF, 595 KB)

Guarantee and Indemnity : BNZ (11/8/09) 
SBZ751 B75112040214180 (PDF, 439 KB)

Schedule – Terms and Conditions of Guarantee and Indemnity
(not dated)
SBZ751 B75112040214170 (PDF, 601 KB)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Making CST proud: Stadium in it for ‘world’s best venue’ (larks)

Reflecting on the busy events programme at Dunedin’s stadium, it’s all on! Did the nomination come from Queenstown Lakes, home of the two ‘sirs’. Or the project manager. The mystery continues.

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### ODT Online Wed, 4 Apr 2012
Stadium finalist in ‘venue of the year’ awards
By Chris Morris
The rave reviews and acrimony that comes with Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium could soon be capped by a new accolade – the title of world’s best venue. The roofed stadium has been named as one of five finalists vying for the “venue of the year” award at this year’s stadium industry awards, TheStadiumBusiness Awards 2012, to be announced in Italy next month.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr