Updated post
Thu, 29 Dec 2016 at 1:47 p.m.
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ODT 28.12.16 (page 12)
*smartphone tweak by whatifdunedin
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THANK YOU LEAKS
Another demonstration, published via ODT today (see link below), of Lame Brains and Arrogance —Grady Cameron BULLSHIT and BLUSTER
Grady says !! “one of the largest construction projects in Otago during 2017” because…. since he was first appointed, Grady has COMPLETELY FAILED as chief executive of Delta and Aurora. Increasingly weak and witless. He is criminally negligent under New Zealand’s health and safety legislation. If WorkSafe tries to diminish that truth by applying the soft touch – there will be an Otago Riot.
As for Steve Thompson, given his latest offerings (and his past with Otago Rugby Football Union et al), he appears f’g clueless, a seller of hype, awesomely unfit to be (interim!) chairman of Aurora:
“Mr Thompson also told staff it was an “exciting” time to work for Delta…. “As a new chair and board we’re clear that the network needs modernising, that enough hasn’t been done in the past, that we’ll do more and faster in future.””
Modernising. Modernising.
One man dead.
Very little money at bank.
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Whistleblower Richard Healey questioned Mr Brosnan’s appointment, saying his background was in management, not engineering. Delta did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
### ODT Online Thu, 29 Dec 2016
Director for $30m pole project
By Vaughan Elder
Lines company Aurora Energy has appointed a director to oversee its $30.25million pole replacement programme. Two memos sent to staff at Aurora’s sister company, Delta, before Christmas have been leaked to the Otago Daily Times. One is from chief executive Grady Cameron and the other from newly appointed chairman Steve Thompson. Mr Cameron outlined progress on the company’s accelerated plan to replace nearly 3000 poles in Aurora’s electricity network which is spread across Dunedin, Central Otago and the Queenstown Lakes area. […] Godfrey Brosnan had been appointed programme director and would report directly to Mr Cameron.
Read more
Not an auspicious start.
[More poles! Let’s pull in slave labour from overseas….. hmm maybe we don’t even have money for that…..]
Lots of legal clouds beginning to hover over Delta/Aurora HQ at 10 Halsey St – how long can Grady Cameron, Gary Johnson, Godfrey Brosnan and Steve Thompson keep their pay ?
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Images: newshub.co.nz – Grady Cameron | 10 Halsey St (web image) tweaked by whatifdunedin
What if? Dunedin... 
Worthy of C.P. Snow, or Henry Lawson, succinct, exact and summed up in a few sentences.
Details
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/grady-cameron-60556119
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/garyjohnsonnz
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/steve-thompson-64988754
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/godfrey-brosnan-a1177665
[Further to today’s ODT story]
An excerpt………
Mr Cameron accepted investment in the network had been lacking.
“We accept the findings of the recent independent review that there has been under-investment in network maintenance in the past and that needs to be fixed.”
The ODT understands the memos were leaked after staff were warned of serious consequences should they speak to media.
Mr Thompson said in his memo there were “channels to escalate any problem or concern you have”.
“Talk to your manager or if you prefer contact the chief executive, Grady Cameron, or me direct.
“My commitment to you is that we do want to hear from you and we will respond.”
Mr Thompson also told staff it was an “exciting” time to work for Delta, given the scale and importance of work on the network that needed doing.
This guy has got to be a comedian. Has he been studying Captain Mainwaring to be an understudy? Maybe he has missed his vocation.
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{Moderated, with link added -Eds}
“The ODT understands the memos were leaked after staff were warned of serious consequences should they speak to media.”
What does this suggest?
To me, that they’ve heard the Listen With Papa fairy story about “we do want to hear from you and we will respond” and they know it belongs with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Alligator smile is no reassurance. “If you make it necessary for us to ‘respond’ you’ll wish you hadn’t. Capiche?”
Chutzpah!
Faith that one’s job is secure because NOBODY’s too incompetent to keep on troughing up large in Dunedin:
“…..had been appointed programme director and would report directly to Mr Cameron.”
“Whistleblower Richard Healey questioned Mr Brosnan’s appointment, saying his background was in management, not engineering”
The thing is, one can never have too many well-paid managers. Engineers are a pain in the bum, they keep on pointing out facts that fit poorly with management’s agenda. And then you get the really annoying ones who don’t even stop when they resign. Will they disappear quietly off to Albert Town or Patearoa like normal people from the sub-Queenstown/Wanaka bracket? No they bloody won’t. Now your average MBA type with effall expertise in anything except management, there’s a predictable sense of priorities. Butt covering, baksheesh and nest feathering. Team players who don’t forget which team they’re playing for, that’s what you want.
Dreary. ODT appear to have only one photo of Grader. We need an array to suit his upbeat ‘persuasive’ mood or his down-in-the-dumps look, with a look for his BALLISTIC office chair hurl-through-the-glass tendency. Who knew Grader was a screamer at work. Haaaaa! Such that you might want to confide in him, or take your learnings to him.
If you get it wrong he will instruct senior staff to drive you (full escort) from Central to Dunedin. Who’s the Bad Employer, then.
Trust ?
Elizabeth
I can do you an array of ‘Grader’ pics – for a small fee of course….even add an appropriate ‘scream’ sound chucked in for good measure.
If instead, douglas, you could make a EXTRA LARGE donation to keeping firefighters safe from live 33,000 V cables – oh, and to keeping people safe from (braced) dangerous poles at Dunedin, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes district camping grounds – then we have a deal.
“Mr Thompson said in his memo there were “channels to escalate any problem or concern you have”. “Talk to your manager or if you prefer contact the chief executive, Grady Cameron, or me direct. My commitment to you is that we do want to hear from you and we will respond.””
I am quite confident that they do want to hear from people who wish to ‘escalate concerns’, and that they will respond both vigorously and quickly. It is the nature of the as yet unspecified management ‘response’ towards those that might express these concerns to them, that is the meat of the matter.
One suspects that such management response might in some way be related to the ‘serious consequences’ that are also referred to by the management for those same people who might be unwise enough to engage in the related activity of expressing their asset related concerns directly to the wider public in a manner that identifies them. That public who actually own and rely on these assets, and who are exposed to their currently inexcusably degraded condition.
The effects of said response on the concerned party might not be immediate – as they were with Mr Healey – but perhaps one’s career might start to wilt gently, a bit like a Northern Cemetery rose bush.
One of the great immutable truths of my life, I have codified as ‘Newton’s Fourth Law of Motion. It is outlined below, along with the other three:
1) An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a net force.
2) The vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration a of the object: F = ma.
3) When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.
4) You cannot shit on people from below….but they can most certainly shit on you, and they will.
However, as the malcontents seem to have resorted to secret leaks from quite early on, they already seem to be well aware of this particular law of human nature.
Another good letter to the ed in today’s oddity from Hilary Calvert.
I was among the many disappointed that she didn’t stand again for Council. She was right, we were wrong.
Freed from procedural “camel shackles” she is able to speak up and speak honestly to us, the voting rates- and fees-paying public.
It beats the browns out of trying to instil sense into Council decision-making and being voted down, hit with Dave’s hissy handbag (though he was always more cautious toward her than to Lee Vandervis – chivalry or timidity? NB Lee’s not a lawyer) and failing to stop the relentless march of Dumb Decisions carrying Dunedin viability out the door.
On an effectiveness : time basis, no contest.