Cats —or, Infrastructure spending, Council debt, and Disenfranchisement of Ratepayers

Council cat squad checking rego fees [supplied]

After the great floods, the common affliction amongst leaders, “water on the brain”.

█ The ‘thinking’ – DCC cat control remit for LGNZ AGM

****

At Twitter:

Warming: The "cat rangers" are coming – if Local Govt NZ President & Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull has his way (Video) https://t.co/VHyv1Ns2sy

— Dave Goosselink (@davedunedin) July 26, 2017

****

“There may be issues with cats but they also serve a useful purpose in controlling pests. The cat population doubled to two at my place last year, and we have more tui and bellbirds around than ever, as well as visits by kereru and eastern rosellas and fantails and waxeyes. The cats occasionally catch a bird but most often it is a sparrow or a thrush. But it looks like the Dunedin council and some others are keen on requiring the herding of cats. They kept as quiet as they could on cats during the local body elections, and now mid term they try to foist it on the public. Devious.” –Pete George at YourNZ

****

Councils will now lobby the government to finish its National Cat Management strategy.

### radionz.co.nz 6:05 pm on 25 July 2017
RNZ News
Councils seek greater powers to control cats
By Michael Cropp – Wellington Local Government Reporter
The country’s councils are calling on the government to give them extra powers to protect wildlife from cats including microchipping, de-sexing and registration. Local bodies have the power to control dogs and their behaviour, but they only have jurisdiction over cats when they become a health risk. While the remit presented by Dunedin City Council at the meeting acknowledged the companion role of animals, it noted cats are a danger to wildlife. […] The controversial remit scraped through with just 51 percent of the vote at the Local Government New Zealand annual general meeting.
….Auckland mayor Phil Goff said his council abstained from the vote because it was not sure what it would mean for the 500,000 cats in the country’s largest city. “We are in favour of practical measures to protect native birdlife …. We’re not in favour of bureaucratic measures that might involve millions of dollars of council time and energy but doesn’t achieve the objectives that we set out to achieve,” Mr Goff said.
Read more

****

More about ‘LGNZ The Blight’:

Local Government New Zealand – Media Release
Local government to debate four remits and elect new President at AGM
News type: National news | Published: 21 July 2017
The local government sector will voted on four issues when it gathers for its annual AGM in Auckland on Tuesday 25 July. There is a focus on litter legislation, local government funding, cat management and health in this year’s remits. The AGM follows this year’s LGNZ Conference, when over 600 delegates from local government and its stakeholders, industry and community will gather in Auckland for the two day event [23-25 July]. The theme of this year’s conference is Creating pathways to 2050: Liveable spaces and loveable places. Remits are voted on in a secret ballot and if passed will become official policy and be actioned by Local Government New Zealand. Local government will also be voting for a new LGNZ President to replace Lawrence Yule, who steps down after nine years in the role.
….National legislation to manage cats
The third remit was proposed by Dunedin City Council and asks that LGNZ lobby the Government to take legislative action as a matter of urgency to develop national legislation includes provision for cost recovery for cat management.
Throughout New Zealand councils are tasked with trying to promote responsible cat ownership and reduce their environmental impact on wildlife, including native birds and geckos.  Yet, territorial authority’s powers for cats are for minimising the impact on people’s health and wellbeing, and regional councils’ powers are restricted to destruction of feral cats as pests.  The remit seeks the protection of our wildlife and native species by seeking regulatory powers for cat control, including cat identification, cat de-sexing and responsible cat ownership.
….The LGNZ AGM is open to members only. Following the meeting, LGNZ will advise of the outcomes of all votes.
Read more

****

Cat rangers and collars with bells on are some of the ideas Dunedin City Council wants to lobby Government for.

### Stuff.co.nz Last updated at 14:28, July 10 2017
Cat control: many Kiwi councils ready to lobby for national rules
By Libby Wilson
Councils around the country are looking to band together to rein in roaming moggies. Dunedin City Council has suggested its colleagues help it push the Government for national rules that could include cat rangers and shutting cats in overnight. Seven other councils around the country have given the idea, and its environmental focus, their backing ahead of a July vote at the Local Government New Zealand annual meeting.
Read more

****

‘Vacuum of cat management policy and services in Dunedin’, local submission says.

### nzherald.co.nz 29 Jun, 2017 7:02am
Dunedin council proposes registration of cats in New Zealand
A Dunedin proposal that could result in the registration of cats in New Zealand will be discussed nationally. The proposal from the Dunedin City Council, in consultation with seven other councils, will next month go to a Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) vote. If it is successful, LGNZ would make it a policy, and begin lobbying the Government to have it made law. The proposal could see the Government called upon to develop legislation for cats similar to the Dog Control Act. It already has the support of the Otago Regional Council, one of 78 councils which will vote on the idea.
Read more

****

### ODT Online Wed, 17 May 2017
DCC seeks support for cat control
The Dunedin City Council will seek support from other New Zealand councils to gain greater control of cat management. If additional support from councils was gained, a remit would ask Local Government New Zealand to call upon the Government to give councils statutory power to control cats. The DCC was researching a Wellington City Council bylaw on microchipping cats. However, the current bylaw could not be enforced by non-compliance fees. Cat management would focus on the control of wild cats.
Link

****

S T O P ● P R E S S

At Facebook:

—

Related Posts and Comments:
26.7.17 RNZ Morning Report : Guyon Espiner sticks claws in Cat Cull & Curfews
25.7.17 To borrow from Stevie Smith : ‘the truth is I think he was already stuck’
22.7.17 Regional state of emergency lifted in Otago (incl Dunedin & Waitaki)
21.7.17 Rainy Day reading —The Spinoff : Ministry of Transport fraud case
21.7.17 DCC ORC : Heavy rain warnings preparations #PublicNotice
1.7.17 LGNZ, don’t wish ‘his lordship’ on New Zealand #VoteRachelReese
3.6.17 ODT updates mayoral vehicle serious injury crash information
24.4.17 LGOIMA vehicle (DCC) : Hyundai Santa Fe (2016) written off Jan 2017
10.12.16 Oh christ ! [LGNZ bureaucratic dopefest]
21.7.15 Dunedin to host LGNZ 2016 conference —FFS TIME TO TAKE IT OUT
21.5.15 DCC and LGNZ, total losers
2.2.15 LGNZ run by Mad Rooster Yule, end of story
10.10.14 Cull consorts with losers at LGNZ
26.6.14 LGNZ #blaggardliars

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

Garrick Tremain GOLD #housing

23 May 2017

In a statement provided to the Otago Daily Times Mr  Cull said it was not the council’s place to lead discussions, but it would be happy to take part in  Government-led discussions.

### ODT Online Sat, 20 May 2017
Affordable housing hitch
By Vaughan Elder
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull has declined a request from local MPs and social agencies for the Dunedin City Council to lead a crisis meeting over a lack of affordable housing. This comes as a group of social agencies, including the Salvation Army and Presbyterian Support, agreed to a statement saying the situation was reaching or had reached “crisis point”. The group said rising rents were making it hard and sometimes impossible for people on low incomes  to find affordable rental properties. “We are seeing a trend of landlords ending and not renewing leases, which forces tenants into a rental market they often cannot afford.” Waiting lists for social housing were growing and more families were living in cars and garages or being put up in motels while they waited for social housing. The group, led by Dunedin South MP Clare Curran, called on the council to co-ordinate a city meeting focused on identifying the problems and finding short-term solutions. “We believe the Dunedin City Council can play a strong role given it provides social housing and that housing quality and availability is an objective of its social wellbeing strategy.” They also believed the  Government was not doing enough to remedy the problem and that it should be involved in finding a local solution to the problem.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

*Image: An idea promoted by the mayor: relocatables for managed retreat [Shadow Man 2013 – Matakishi’s tea house (detail) via matakishi.com]

DCC not Delta #EpicFail : Wall Street falsehoods and a world class debt

Received from Christchurch Driver [CD]
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 at 9:16 a.m.

Readers 

We are at an interesting time in our local history. Your correspondent like hundreds of others was busy cleaning up yesterday, after what NIWA described as a fairly standard thunderstorm where just 13.6mm of rain fell. 

Also like hundreds of others no doubt, the question in the mind of your correspondent as he dutifully mopped, was : What is the next public asset to be exposed as poorly run, badly maintained and starved of funds ? 

Never before have the executive few lied so comprehensively about the true state of so much degraded public asset. Never before has so much public asset been destroyed by the actions of those few, as Winston might have said. 

Economists your correspondent is familiar with would call this the “tragedy of the commons”. We await the “macro-prudential” responses from Central Government. With the stupefying level of underfunding for DCC drainage and other underground services identified by the Auditor-General, coupled with Aurora Energy’s $1B deferred maintenance and capital work, plus the existing DCC debt, there is around $3B that will need to be extracted from ratepayers and power consumers over the next 30 years (see the Dunedin City Council Infrastructure Strategy). Dunedin has achieved its dream as a world leading small city – of debt per ratepayer. Dunedin will be broke beyond comprehension with the policy of 3% annual rises. The 3% limit is a mirage. Rate rises will be much, much more. Not this year, but quite possibly before the next election; if this council does not address the looming crisis there is the increasing possibility of the removal of the council and appointment of a commissioner. 

It seems that every week brings some fresh disaster or new development that the DCC attempts to cover up. 

Yesterday was a small but telling episode. David Loughrey of the Otago Daily Times kindly confirmed what your correspondent mentioned some months ago, that the DCC had terminated the services of Logic FM because the company would not look the other way while the DCC wilfully failed to fix hundreds of obvious fire rating defects at two of their major assets. 

Mr Kevin Taylor wrote that the council [fired] Logic because the company had been “interpreting code compliance…..beyond that required by the law”. Logic publicly scoffed at this saying – correctly – that the code is “relatively black and white”. 

What actually happened is that as well as the uncompleted fire penetrations, there is a case of simple DCC incompetence, which was only hinted at by infrastructure networks general manager Ruth Stokes in the ODT article. Here are the facts : The Wall Street mall required daily inspections of certain of its building safety systems. The DCC did not want to pay outside consultants to do this work. Fair enough, said Logic, we will train your staff to inspect the systems and they will then sign off a daily inspection sheet, which Logic as the IQP (Independent Qualified Person) need to sight every month. 

[teamarchitects.co.nz]

Month after month, the monthly reports could not be signed off because no one had completed the daily sign-off sheets. There were offers of more training to the apparently mule-like staff responsible but City Property could not be bothered to do it properly —and thought they could get away with not doing these daily inspections by appointing another more compliant IQP in-house and seeking cover with a further fire report by Beca. 

It is very relevant that after sacking Logic FM, and commissioning the report from Beca, DCC refused to provide a copy of the Beca report to Logic. Logic had asked repeatedly for the report to see what the alleged areas of “over compliance” were. 

It is ‘madeira cake to margarine sandwiches’ that there were no areas of over compliance, and but for Elizabeth Kerr’s LGOIMA request and latterly, the ODT, City Property may well have gotten away with inaccuracies! 

As it is, your correspondent sees only static for Mr Taylor in the DCC crystal ball. He is merely the latest in a line of unlamented DCC property managers, including Robert “Hydraulic” Clark, and Dave McKenzie.

Ruth Stokes also needs to very careful about stepping into this mess – and dissembling to protect Mr Taylor. Stating that “things could have gone a bit better, but they’ve all been addressed” does not fool anyone. Mr Taylor may have have fantasised to Ms Stokes that “all” the fire rating faults were fixed but remember your correspondent advised there were hundreds of faults, not just a few faults in one single wall as has been pretended. There is no way all the faults have been fixed. 

This is what Richard Healey would describe as the Delta dishonest reduction defence…. no, not a 1000 dangerous poles without red tags, but perhaps there are just a few…. and now we learn on that fiasco, that the ‘new’ Delta plan, unannounced to the region’s mayors, is that they can be magically restored to full strength by yet another re-classification.

Chief executive Sue Bidrose started her tenure with a promise of greater transparency and openness (read “honesty”) that was sorely needed. There was some early progress, but the transparency project appears a priority no more.

With the financial storm clouds assembling over the DCC that the chief executive cannot fail to be aware of, some honesty about the actual costs the DCC faces over the next decade is needed. It ranges from the small – just how much will it take to fix Wall Street mall to the $1B existential Aurora problem. The CEO and her staff have been invisible on this critical issue, instead producing reports of risible fantasy such as last year’s effort that valued Delta at over $50M, and Aurora at over $200M. Facing up to an austere decade is the only way that Dr Bidrose and Councillors will avoid having their careers and reputations destroyed by the appointment of a commissioner. 

[ends]

—

Council Documents:
● DCC Infrastructure Strategy
● DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
● Audit Opinion – Independent auditor’s report on Dunedin City Council’s 2015-25 Long‑Term Plan. Author: Ian Lothian, Audit New Zealand on behalf of the Auditor‑General, Dunedin NZ.

ODT Stories:
14.2.17 Councils, Aurora poles apart on ‘removing risk’ definition
13.2.17 Without warrants for years
11.2.17 Aurora affected by pole, staff shortages
8.2.17 Action by Delta decried
29.12.16 Director for $30m pole project
2.12.16 Resignation blow to pole work

Related Posts and Comments:
22.1.17 DCC LGOIMA Response : Wall Street Mall and Town Hall Complex
30.11.16 Delta #EpicPowerFail 7 : Kyle Cameron —The Money or the Bag?

█ For more, enter the terms *delta*, *aurora*, *grady*, *wall street mall*, *richard healey*, *steve thompson*, *dchl*, *epicfail*, *epicpowerfail* or *epic fraud* in the search box at right.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

*Images by Parker Warburton Team Architects

SDHB #FAILS with Healthcare Communication and Governance

[glasbergen.com]

—

“I read it in the paper — all the information I’m getting is from the ODT. Management doesn’t talk to us, really.” –Prof Jean-Claude Theis

### ODT Online Mon, 7 Nov 2016
Patients turned away
By Eileen Goodwin
Nearly a third of orthopaedic patients referred for a first specialist assessment are being turned away from Dunedin Hospital, and the situation is becoming “untenable”, orthopaedic surgeon Prof Jean-Claude Theis says. The Dunedin School of Medicine professor of orthopaedic surgery  said the relationship with Southern DHB management had become “very bad”. Orthopaedic surgeons were not consulted about a recent decision to outsource 129 surgeries. Prof Theis had not known about the outsourcing until an Otago Daily Times story a little over a week ago. […] “With management, we’re not getting anywhere. There’s no engagement. There’s no clinical governance any more, across the hospital.”
Read more

****

Locum ophthalmologist Dr Peter Haddad last week blasted the SDHB for keeping quiet, calling the decision “grossly unethical”.

### ODT Online Mon, 7 Nov 2016
ODT: SDHB wanted ‘free and frank’ debate
By Eileen Goodwin
The need for “free and frank” debate among Southern District Health Board bosses meant they kept quiet about the growing ophthalmology waiting list and cases of patient harm. The issue was not discussed in hospital directorate reports presented at public committee meetings since May, when those meetings resumed. […] The board notified patients less than two weeks before the release of the annual national adverse events report, later this week, in which patient-harm cases have to be disclosed. It will show 30 cases of harm from ophthalmology delays in 2015-16. There is likely to be more recent cases not included in the report …. [Interim chief executive Chris Fleming] admitted patients should have been told sooner. In an interview last week, Mr Fleming argued the situation was in part “good news”.
Read more

****

[inkcinct.com]

Sun, 6 Nov 2016
ODT: Petition started about hospital rebuild
Frustration with what she sees as lack of progress on the rebuilding of Dunedin Hospital’s clinical services block has prompted a Dunedin woman to circulate a petition she wants people to send direct to the Prime Minister or National MPs. Those who sign will “pledge not to support the National Party in the next general election unless we have an officially approved blueprint from the Government, acceptable to staff at the hospital and the medical school, to rebuild the clinical services block at the Dunedin Hospital by November 2017”. Cont/

Sat, 5 Nov 2016
ODT: Mental health petition delivered to Parliament
Dunedin mental health campaigners delivered a petition to Parliament this week calling for a nationwide inquiry. The Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust collected 1740 signatures. Chairwoman Corinda Taylor, with Denise Kent, presented the petition to Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox on the steps of Parliament on Wednesday. “The petition respectfully requests the House of Representatives to conduct a nationwide inquiry into mental health services to determine if current services meet the demand and if future planning is adequate to meet future demand.” Cont/

Fri, 4 Nov 2016
ODT: SDHB conduct ‘unethical’
Not telling patients sooner that they risked permanent sight loss from delayed hospital appointments was “grossly unethical”, says an eye doctor who last year warned the board about the problem. In response, the Southern District Health Board admitted yesterday it should have told patients earlier. More than 4600 patients have been notified they are overdue for their ophthalmology appointment. In the past two years, 34 patients have lost part of their sight permanently, and that number is likely to increase. Cont/

Thu, 3 Nov 2016
ODT Editorial: Eye off the ball?
OPINION The latest revelations around ophthalmology pressures at the Southern District Health Board are confronting, and the problems are only part of the iceberg nationally. Earlier this week, this newspaper reported patients were going partially blind while they waited for SDHB appointments. […] Fixing or managing problems can prevent issues compounding, and alleviate financial and physical pressures on the health system further down the line. […] Commissioner Kathy Grant has said she has confidence in SDHB medical oversight and governance, yet the problem is such that the board is prepared for more cases of harm to emerge and has notified more than 4600 patients they have been identified as being overdue for appointments. Cont/

Wed, 2 Nov 2016
ODT: Ministry of Health ‘ducking’
The Ministry of Health has been accused of “ducking responsibility” on the hospital eye appointment “disaster”. The ophthalmology pressures at the Southern District Health Board have caused some patients to go partially blind while waiting for an appointment. The senior doctors’ union and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists say problems highlighted in the SDHB are widespread throughout New Zealand. Cont/

****

“The problem has been exacerbated by the state of our information systems not being able to clearly identify this issue.” –Commissioner Kathy Grant

Wed, 2 Nov 2016
ODT: Grant stands behind Southern DHB
Commissioner Kathy Grant declined to be interviewed yesterday about the patient harm cluster in ophthalmology, but says she has confidence in Southern District Health Board medical oversight and governance. In a statement, Mrs Grant said she was told about Dunedin Hospital’s ophthalmology waiting list problem in the middle of this year. This week the board revealed 30 patients suffered partial sight loss in 2015-16 because of overdue appointments, on top of a group of four patients the year before. Six of the 30 have a “severe” degree of loss. […] The board has admitted it is not on top of the situation in Dunedin, and more cases of harm may emerge. More than 4600 affected patients have been notified. Cont/

2.11.16 ODT: Eye clinic treatment lists blow out

Sun, 30 Oct 2016
ODT: Extra orthopaedic operations sought
The Southern District Health Board is trying to find an external provider for an extra 129 orthopaedic surgery cases in a bid to meet a national health target. A request for proposal issued last week on a government website says SDHB would fund up to 129 extra orthopaedic procedures in 2016-17 in order to achieve a national health target. […] Orthopaedic surgery waiting times have been a source of tension between DHB management and orthopaedic surgeons. Surgeons have lobbied for more operations, and have suggested southern orthopaedic patients need to be more debilitated than in other parts of the country before qualifying for surgery. Cont/

Sat, 29 Oct 2016
ODT: Doctors’ strike caused hundreds of postponements
The Southern District Health Board has released new figures showing the impact of the junior doctors’ strike. Fifty-two patients had a procedure postponed and 725 outpatients had a hospital appointment postponed. Another 52 patients were not booked for an appointment or procedure once the strike notice was received, the board told the Otago Daily Times yesterday. Cont/

█ For more, enter the terms *sdhb*, *southern district health board*, *hospital*, *commissioner*, *food*, *pool*, *south link health*, *swann* or *white collar criminals* in the search box at right.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

[wolfescape.com]

SDHB ‘food’ : Our eyes glaze over . . . .

Main, Dunedin Hospital – 1 May 2016 [Gurglars Media]

Fri, 2 Sep 2016
ODT: Petition calls on SDHB to ditch Compass
A petition calling on the Southern District Health Board to ditch its contract with the company supplying hospital meals in the area has been presented to the board’s commissioner. Real Meals coalition spokesperson Anna Huffstutler said they had gathered 3000 signatures for their petition to get rid of Compass. “We want the Compass contract gone, and the job of preparing hospital meals and Meals on Wheels back where it belongs – in hospital kitchens where local ingredients are used and local people are doing the work.”

—

Deputy commissioner Richard Thomson said a survey of SDHB patients showed satisfaction with meals in July was over 90%.

Sat, 3 Sep 2016
ODT: Anti-Compass deal petition presented
A petition calling for the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) to end the contentious Compass food contract was presented to SDHB commissioner Kathy Grant yesterday. The SDHB has faced criticism over the quality of the frozen meals since previously in-house hospital kitchen meals were outsourced in January. [Dunedin South MP Clare Curran] said the Compass contract was a “flawed project” which had caused a lot of grief for people in Otago and Southland.

### dunedintv.co.nz Thu 1 Sep 2016
The South Today
Petition calls for dumping of Compass contract
A food-oriented organisation has called on the Southern District Health Board to end its contract with Compass. The Real Meals Coalition has gathered thousands of signatures supporting the dumping of the contract. The quality of Compass meals in the region’s hospitals has been called ‘rubbish’. The petition, with 3000 signatures on it, is going to be presented to Commissioner Kathy Grant tomorrow. Compass has a 15 year contract with the DHB to provide ready-made meals, which some have criticised as disgusting and inedible.
Ch39 Link

—

Related Posts and Comments:
1.5.16 Hospital food according to Gurglars
8.4.16 Worsted
23.12.15 SDHB underfunded, no bandage
3.11.15 SDHB will ‘takeaway’ more than freshly cooked meals…
30.10.15 Dunedin Hospital #despair
17.6.15 Southern District Health Board sacked !!!
9.6.15 Southern District Health Board
16.4.15 Talk of replacing SDHB with commissioner
21.8.14 Dirty pool? #SDHB #University
6.8.14 Otago Therapeutic Pool at Dunedin Hospital
1.5.14 Dunedin Hospital buildings SORRY STATE
5.12.13 Swann case: ODHB/SDHB and friends

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Election Year. This post is offered in the public interest.

SDHB Commissioners speed-bleed health system

“Mr Thomson said the board had had a “decimated finance team” because of a failed Government scheme to centralise finance teams in Auckland.” (ODT)

answer, BRING IN THE CONSULTANTS

### ODT Online Wed, 22 Jun 2016
Commissioner team faces public
By Eileen Goodwin
The commissioner team running Southern District Health Board has been publicly challenged about decisions it is taking at the embattled board. A meeting at Wakari Hospital yesterday was the public’s first opportunity to speak directly to commissioner Kathy Grant in a public forum. […] Dunedin resident Natalie Wilson said she was concerned by an “excessive” reliance on outside consultants. The “cloak” of commercial sensitivity was used to hide information. Ms Wilson criticised the emphasis on staff “culture change”, saying there was no research evidence that it worked. The board seemed to be playing “buzz-word bingo”, and its most recent attempt at culture change came after similar failed initiatives of the sacked board, she said.
Read more

● Richard Thomson is a health board deputy commissioner; and chairman of the DCC Finance Committee.

—

### ODT Online Thu, 16 Jun 2016
SDHB’s consulting bill queried
By Eileen Goodwin
A health union is questioning a bill of more than $978,000 the Southern District Health Board has run up with an Auckland consulting firm. The Public Service Association will raise the issue at a monthly meeting between unions and the health board next week. […] In a formal response to an Official Information Act request, acting chief executive Lexie O’Shea said the consultants had been working on “service alignment” in recent months. Asked what that meant, she provided another written statement: “This has involved a systematic analysis of areas across the DHB to gain robust and more detailed understanding of our expenditure and performance.”
Read more

—

### ODT Online Wed, 15 Jun 2016
$7000pw fees and expenses
By Eileen Goodwin
The commissioner regime is costing the Southern District Health Board more than $7000 in fees and expenses every week, an Official Information Act request shows. Between November 17 and May 17, the commissioner team incurred $159,600 daily fees and $25,405 for travel, accommodation and food. As commissioner, Kathy Grant receives the biggest daily fee, $1400, and over six months she charged for 55.5 days, a total of $77,700. Mrs Grant’s annual pay is capped at $180,000. Mrs Grant also incurred $8615 for expenses. Her biggest single expense was flights ($4487).
Read more

—

Related Post and Comments:
1.5.16 Hospital food according to Gurglars
8.4.16 Worsted
23.12.15 SDHB underfunded, no bandage
3.11.15 SDHB will ‘takeaway’ more than freshly cooked meals and a head chef
30.10.15 Dunedin Hospital #despair
17.6.15 Southern District Health Board sacked !!!
9.6.15 Southern District Health Board
16.4.16 Talk of replacing Southern District Health Board with commissioner
5.12.13 Swann case: ODHB/SDHB and friends

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

No SDHB election in 2016.

*Image: mrsfaella.weebly.com – hospital sick, tweaked by whatifdunedin

SDHB underfunded, no bandage

Review of the population based funding formula completed
Ministry of Health news article
22 December 2015
A five yearly review of the population based funding formula (PBFF) for district health boards (DHBs) has been completed and will be incorporated into DHB’s 2016/17 Funding Advice.
The funding formula is a technical tool used to help equitably distribute the bulk of district health board funding according to the needs of each DHB’s population. The formula takes into account the number of people who live in each DHB catchment, their age, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and sex. It also has mechanisms to compensate DHBs who service rural communities and areas of high deprivation.
The funding covers a range of health services including primary care, hospital and community care, health of older people, and mental health.
The review recommended no structural changes to the overall model but proposed several changes, including to the rural adjuster to better reflect DHB population and geography.
In 2015/16 the PBFF distributed a total of $11.4 billion to DHBs. DHBs will not receive less funding as a result of the review.
Read more

█ Population-based funding formula Link

—

The embattled board – whose members were dismissed this year over a persistent deficit – will not get any extra cash (apart from deficit support) until the changes take effect next July.

### ODT Online Wed, 23 Dec 2015
Review helps SDHB a little
By Eileen Goodwin
A review of the health funding model has revealed what many long suspected – the Southern District Health Board is not receiving its fair share of health dollars. A Cabinet paper on the Ministry of Health review was released yesterday. […] The formula is essentially a head count with adjustments for demographics, deprivation, and other factors.
Read more

****

All up, 561 employees received more than $100,000, compared with 521 last year – 413 were in medical or dental roles.

### ODT Online Tue, 22 Dec 2015
Doubling of DHB staff on $400,000+
By Eileen Goodwin
The number of Southern District Health Board staff earning over $400,000 more than doubled in the last financial year, the board’s annual report shows. The 2014-15 report shows 13 staff received more than $400,000, compared with six the previous year. Chief executive Carole Heatly has been overtaken in the pay stakes by two employees earning $520,000-$530,000.
Read more

—

The numbers: (via ODT)
561 staff earning $100,000 or more
13 staff earning more than $400,000
2 staff earning $520,000 to $530,000
10.7 executive management staff earning almost $2.8 million
$357,000 board members’ fees

Source: Southern District Health Board annual report

—

Related Posts and Comments:
3.11.15 SDHB will ‘takeaway’ more than freshly cooked meals and a head chef
30.11.15 Dunedin Hospital #despair
17.6.15 Southern District Health Board sacked !!!
9.6.15 Southern District Health Board
16.4.15 Talk of replacing Southern District Health Board with commissioner
1.5.14 Dunedin Hospital buildings SORRY STATE
25.2.15 South Link Health, hmm that name….
6.8.14 Otago Therapeutic Pool at Dunedin Hospital
14.1.14 DCC: Hospital area parking changes #cyclelanes
5.12.13 Swann case: ODHB/SDHB and friends
10.11.10 Neurosurgery STAYS @Dunedin
6.8.10 SERIOUSLY

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: clipartlord.com – hospital2

SDHB will ‘takeaway’ more than freshly cooked meals and a head chef

### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00, 3 Nov 2015
Southern District Health Board commissioner Kathy Grant to reveal “work plan”
By Evan Harding
The woman charged with turning around the fortunes of the cash-strapped Southern District Health Board will reveal her master plan on Tuesday [today]. Health commissioner Kathy Grant and her team will reveal details of their “work plan” to staff of the Southern District Health Board at meetings in Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown.
Read more

****

Document released to staff fails to state how many jobs will go, redundancy details, and the logistics of the new food system.

### ODT Online Mon, 2 Nov 2015
More hospital meal reheating tipped
By Eileen Goodwin
Dunedin Hospital’s cooks will focus on food “regeneration” – rather than cooking fresh meals for patients – after their job numbers are cut, according to a proposal Compass Group tried to keep under wraps. The multinational took over Southern District Health Board kitchens last month, and has started the process of cutting jobs to prepare for introducing its own food system. This will include trucking meals from Auckland to the South.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Stuff.co.nz – Kathy Grant, commissioner (detail)

Dunedin Law Courts | ODT editorial

The Dunedin courthouse is one of the city’s finest historic buildings, and part of a heritage cluster impossible to match anywhere in this country.

We await an “unequivocal commitment” from the Government to return court services to their Dunedin home.

### ODT Online Tue, 22 Sep 2015
Editorial: ‘Nonsense’ courthouse costs
OPINION Really? Would earthquake strengthening of Dunedin’s courthouse really cost more than $15million as officials claim? Or is this another example where supposed post-earthquake costs are used as an excuse? Or can the Government simply not design and commission building work for reasonable prices? There is probably a bit of both.
Read more

—

Dunedin structural engineer Stephen Macknight called the Government’s $15million strengthening figure “absolutely ridiculous”.

Director of Dunedin construction company Lund South, Russell Lund, said his experience suggested the $15million figure was “just not even credible”.

### ODT Online Sat, 19 Sep 2015
$15m bill for court rejected
By Craig Borley
Dunedin engineers and construction experts have rubbished the Government’s claims the city’s historic courthouse needs earthquake strengthening work worth more than $15 million. […] Lou Robinson, director of Hadley Robinson Engineering, said he knew the courthouse intimately after being involved in the 2002 work on the complex. He estimated an “upper limit on strengthening of perhaps $3 million”.
Read more

█ Website:
http://www.saveourcourthouse.nz

█ Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurCourthouse

█ Petition to Justice Minister Amy Adams:
http://bit.ly/1FlZIWy (via Avaaz platform)

—

Related Posts and Comments:
7.9.15 Public petition to save Courthouse for courts use
11.7.15 Dunedin Law Courts “an incredible historic building” –Minister
14.5.15 Russell Lund on Ministry closure of Dunedin Law Courts
14.5.15 Justice at Dunedin
2.5.15 Ministry serves INJUSTICE for Dunedin Courthouse #HistoricHeritage

—

Post and image (2015) by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin to host LGNZ 2016 conference —FFS TIME TO TAKE IT OUT

Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Dunedin to Host 2016 LGNZ Conference

This item was published on 21 Jul 2015

Dunedin is all set to host the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) Conference for 2016 as this year’s conference wraps up in Rotorua today. LGNZ announced Dunedin as the host city for next year’s conference this week. The conference will bring up to 600 delegates to the city from 24-26 July 2016. Delegates will include mayors, chairs, chief executives, councillors and senior management from New Zealand’s councils as well as senior government ministers and stakeholders from the private sector, businesses, central government and non-government agencies.

[PROFLIGATE SPENDER ALERT] Mayor of Dunedin, Dave Cull says, “This is great opportunity for us to showcase Dunedin as a conference destination to the rest of the local government family. We don’t often get the chance to welcome people to Dunedin from every part of New Zealand at once. Delegates will get to experience New Zealand’s only UNESCO City of Literature, Gigatown winner and the country’s wildlife capital firsthand. It will also be an opportunity for all kind of councils to look at the challenges they have in common and discuss solutions.”

[DEBT-SPENDING PROPONENT ALERT] LGNZ President, Lawrence Yule says he is delighted the conference is returning to the deep south. “We have had a number of conferences in Dunedin over the past 20 years and the southern hospitality is always great,” he says. “The city has completed a significant upgrade of the hosting facilities at the Dunedin Centre and Town Hall and you put forward a very strong bid.”

The conference bid was made by Dunedin Venues and Enterprise Dunedin at the start of the year. They presented the Dunedin Centre and Town Hall facilities for the event and used Dunedin’s reputation for innovation, creativity and wildlife as a drawcard.

Contact Dave Cull, Mayor of Dunedin on 477 4000. DCC Link

—

Related Posts and Comments:
21.5.15 DCC and LGNZ, total losers
2.2.15 LGNZ run by Mad Rooster Yule, end of story
14.1.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan: more inanity from Cull’s crew pending
13.1.15 Government’s council tax freeze
27.11.14 Auditor-general Lyn Provost #Resign
3.11.14 DCC: What happened to $20 million cash on hand? #LGOIMA
10.10.14 Cull consorts with losers at LGNZ
8.10.14 Stadium: Liability Cull warns ratepayers could pay more to DVML
18.9.14 DCC considers sale of “149 properties”
5.8.14 DCC staff-led CBD projects that impact ratepayers….
30.7.14 Dunedin City Council | Consolidated council debt
5.7.14 DCC’s debt level — who do you believe?
26.6.14 LGNZ #blaggardliars
23.6.14 DCC Annual Plan 2014/15 + Rugby and Rates
12.6.14 Fairfax Media [not ODT] initiative on Local Bodies
11.4.14 Councils: Unaccountable, ready to tax? #DCC #ORC
31.3.14 Audit services to (paying) local bodies #FAIL ● AuditNZ….
29.1.14 Mangawhai, Kaipara —we hear ya!
3.12.13 LGNZ: OAG report on Kaipara
7.10.13 DCC councillors, no idea annual cost of owning, operating FB Stadium
29.9.13 Alert: Dunedin voters —Mayors gain more powers
29.6.13 Audit NZ and OAG clean bill of health —Suspicious!
26.9.13 DCC: Council consolidated debt $623 million
21.4.13 Councils “in schtook” —finance & policy analyst Larry Mitchell
29.10.12 DCC consolidated debt substantially more than $616m to June 30, 2012
30.5.12 Larry Mitchell: 2012 Local Govt League Table Summary
4.7.11 Local government finances

█ For more, enter the terms *dcc*, *dchl*, *annual plan*, *long term plan*, *stadium* or *dvml* in the search box at right.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Southern District Health Board sacked !!!

█ Kathy Grant, a legal consultant at Gallaway Cook Allan in Dunedin, will take up the role of Commissioner tomorrow.

“Southern is forecasting a final deficit of $27 million for the current financial year. That figure has effectively doubled in the last six months.”
–Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Health

### ODT Online Wed, 17 Jun 2015
Southern health board sacked
Dunedin legal consultant Kathy Grant has been appointed the Commissioner of the troubled Southern District Health Board which has been sacked today.
Her deputies will be board member Richard Thomson, who was sacked as Otago District Health Board chairman in 2009, and Dunedin City Holdings chairman Graham Crombie.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman announced this morning he had written to the SDHB sacking all members of the board and replacing it with a commissioner. Read more

● Perhaps unfortunate that Mr Thomson is in the equation – but some form of lowlife continuous knowledge possible. As for Mr Crombie – additional doubts there.

—

Related Posts and Comments:
9.6.15 Southern District Health Board
1.5.14 Dunedin Hospital buildings SORRY STATE
16.4.15 Talk of replacing Southern District Health Board with commissioner

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: stuff.co.nz – Kathy Grant

Southern District Health Board

A major development in the wings for the SDHB. Not before time! And while individual board members may feel aggrieved at their potential dumping, after what they may think has been all solid work and duty, the evidence is the health board has been operating with a screaming history of multimillion-dollar losses; obvious limitations for effect of timely interventions for many commonly experienced medical conditions; and within an array of building and facility conditions that, frankly, are a severe indictment on central government spending priorities and funding methods for Health.

Replacing the health board with a commissioner is both necessary and welcome, if not callously overdue. The make-do and rationed aspects of the health board regime, including recent losses of funding or subsidy to local health support services, are telling not only for urban areas and hospitals, but significantly debilitating for rural health, mental health, rest homes and dementia units, and other providers of crucial health services across the large territory that is Southern Health.

—

### ODT Online Tue, 9 June 2015
Board may be sacked
The Southern District Health Board may be given its marching orders and a commissioner installed to sort out its problems. The board has until Thursday to respond to Health Minister Dr Jonathan Coleman’s proposal to consider appointing a commissioner under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act, it was revealed yesterday.
Read more

—

Related Post and Comments:
17.6.15 Southern District Health Board sacked !!!
1.5.14 Dunedin Hospital buildings SORRY STATE
16.4.15 Talk of replacing Southern District Health Board with commissioner

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Please Mayor Daaave, to pasture NOW

Better that than the knackers yard —we have some notion of human rights! But let’s get rid to back paddock. Some natural justice.

Daaave’s opinion piece in today’s ODT is crippling, rustling with financial ineptitudes, and no clothes.

Sadly, his gratuitous fiction is simply No Match for the lavish, colourfully illustrated ODT love fest with Councillor Lee Vandervis, shown up in the Mix magazine spread on Saturday.

The small town of Dunedin was last murderously accosted by Malcolm Farry and Thugby. Here is yet another short man taking the Citizenry OUT: Mr Death Cull.

No-one seriously believes Daaave’s askew bleats given the state of DCC finances. The debt graph following the council’s recent Long Term Plan decisions should be quickly redrawn by independent honest people, and widely publicised.

Oh dear. Oh dear. Soon there will be no-one left capable of paying the rates, or shrinking council debt. Autumn has passed, along with the last fig leaf.

OPINION
Investing in our city necessary to attract the people we require
Dunedin must invest or wither, writes Mayor Daaave Cull. Dunedin’s aspiration is to be one of the world’s great small cities.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/344498/investing-our-city-necessary-attract-people-we-require

photonz at ODT gives a very fair summation. The tight echo from all round.

—

Before final LTP decisions in May 2015

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC: Natural Hazards

Mass movement (landslide) hazard, Abbotsford 1979 (GNS Science, Dunedin)

—

Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Natural Hazards Approach Being Revised

This item was published on 10 Apr 2015

The Dunedin City Council is responding to community concerns and revising its planned approach to managing natural hazards such as landslides, flooding and sea level rise.

Following public feedback from consultation carried out from June to September last year, the planned approach now has greater provision for flexible case-by-case assessment. This would apply where the level of risk is more uncertain or variable. In areas where risk is lower, there would also be opportunities to manage risk through measures such as minimum floor levels.

A technical assessment of the risks posed by natural hazards was prepared by the Otago Regional Council. DCC staff used this to develop a proposed approach for managing land use and development in at-risk areas. This approach, or preferred option, sees natural hazards managed through a set of hazard overlay zones.

Rules attached to the hazard overlays set out what activities and development would be permitted, the standards for some types of development and what may be assessed on a case-by-case basis through resource consent. Under the original proposal, approximately 8600 of Dunedin’s about 46,600 houses in residential zones were affected in one way or another by the proposed overlay zones.

DCC City Development Policy Planner Sally Dicey says the preferred option is still to manage natural hazards through hazard overlay zones. However, following submissions from 184 individuals and organisations, a peer review of a flood risk assessment and discussions with experts in the natural hazards and risk management fields, a revised approach is being developed.

Feedback highlighted the difficulties in limiting development where there was uncertainty around assessments of natural hazard risk, due to limited data, variations in and changes to topography, and site specific factors.

“Allowing for more case-by-case assessment provides greater opportunities to take site specific factors into account. Where the risk from a natural hazard is lower, mitigation measures will be required. These are likely to include higher floor levels for houses or requiring homes to be relocatable.”
–Sally Dicey, City Development Policy Planner

Developed areas within dune systems have been removed from what was originally proposed to be the extreme hazard overlay. This is because there is a lack of information about how erosion might occur over the next 100 years along our coastline. These areas are likely to be the subject of future studies and may be included in mapped hazard areas in the future. A strict management approach has been limited to areas where there is a high degree of certainty about the risk from natural hazards. Prohibited areas are no longer proposed.

“This is a sensible and practical response to balancing the known risks we all face and the concerns of the community. Staff should be congratulated both for the thorough way they have researched and prepared these documents and for responding in this way to the matters raised at public meetings and in submissions.”
–Cr David Benson-Pope, Planning and Regulatory Committee

Ms Dicey says it’s important to remember the proposed changes mainly affect new development. In general, existing activities will carry on as usual.

Hazard overlay zones are proposed for floodplains, low-lying coastal communities and hills prone to landslides. This includes areas such as Brighton, Karitane, Macandrew Bay, Waikouaiti, Waitati and parts of the Taieri Plain.

The Dunedin City Council is preparing a new District Plan, the second generation District Plan (2GP). The ultimate goal of the Plan is the sustainable management of Dunedin’s natural and physical resources. Under the Resource Management Act, the DCC is responsible for managing land use to avoid or mitigate the effects of natural hazards. The DCC is also required to consider the effects of climate change and keep a record of natural hazards. The District Plan is scheduled to be publicly notified in September. The revised approach to natural hazards will be released as part of that consultation process. That will give people an opportunity to raise any remaining issues or concerns on the revised approach.

█ A report summarising the feedback received last year on the preferred approach to natural hazards is available at http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp

Contact Sally Dicey, Policy Planner on 03 477 4000. DCC Link

—

Related Post and Comments:
10.12.13 ORC restructures directorates
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
24.8.09 1. STS response – appeal. 2. Coastal protection – comments

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Warning! NZ disposable income down

Link received Mon, 6 Apr 2015 at 1:00 p.m.

█ Message: Wouldn’t read this in local media !!!

—

### marketoracle.co.uk Apr 05, 2015 – 01:28 PM GMT
Economics / Asian Economies
New Zealand Economy – There’s Trouble Brewing In Middle Earth
By Raul I Meijer
For the second time in three years, I’m fortunate enough to spend some time in New Zealand (or Aotearoa). In 2012, it was all mostly a pretty crazy touring schedule, but this time is a bit quieter. Still get to meet tons of people though, in between the relentless Automatic Earth publishing schedule. And of course people want to ask, once they know what I do, how I think their country is doing.
My answer is I think New Zealand is much better off than most other countries, but not because they’re presently richer (disappointing for many). They’re better off because of the potential here. Which isn’t being used much at all right now. In fact, New Zealand does about everything wrong on a political and macro-economic scale. […] I’ve been going through some numbers today, and lots of articles, and I think I have an idea what’s going on. Thank you to my new best friend Grant here in Northland (is it Kerikeri or Kaikohe?) for providing much of the reading material and the initial spark.
To begin with, official government data. We love those, don’t we, wherever we turn our inquisitive heads. Because no government would ever not be fully open and truthful.

This is from Stuff.co.nz, March 19 2015:
New Zealand GDP grew 3.3% last year

New Zealand’s economy grew 3.3% last year, the fastest since 2007 before the global financial crisis, Statistics NZ said. Most forecasts expect the economy to keep growing this year and next, although slightly more slowly than in the past year. For the three months ended December 31, GDP grew 0.8%, in line with Reserve Bank and other forecasts. That was led by shop sales and accommodation. That sounds great compared to most other nations. But then we find out where the alleged growth has come from (I say alleged because other data cast a serious doubt on the ‘official’ numbers) […] while the economy ostensibly grew by 3.3%, disposable income was down. That’s what you call a warning sign.

….Meijer’s commentary continues in reference to recent New Zealand news stories:

Stuff: Dairy Slump Hits New Zealand Exports To China
Radio NZ: Export Drop Rattles Companies
NZ Herald: World Dairy Prices Slide 10.8% On Supply Concerns
Radio NZ: World ‘Awash With Milk’
NZ Herald: Stress Too Much For Farmers
NZ Herald: Hot Properties: Auckland Valuations Out Of Date Within Months

He ends by citing NZ Herald: New Zealand’s Economic Winds Of Change:

Chaos theory calls it the butterfly effect. It’s the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon could cause a tornado in Texas. The New Zealand economy has plenty of its own butterflies changing the weather for GDP growth, jobs, interest rates, inflation and house prices. [..] One of the flappiest at the moment is the global iron ore price. It’s barely noticed here but it’s an indicator of growing trouble inside our largest trading partner, China, and it is knocking our second-largest partner, Australia, for six. It fell to a 10-year low of almost US$50 a tonne this week and is down from a peak of more than US$170 a tonne in early 2011.
[…] President Xi has reinforced the contrasting effects of the changes in China on Australia and New Zealand by encouraging consumers and investors to spend more of China’s big trade surpluses overseas. Tourism from China was up 40% in the first two months of this year from a year ago, and there remains plenty of demand from investors in China for New Zealand assets.
The dark side of this tornado in New Zealand after the flapping of the butterfly’s wings in China was felt in Nelson this week. The region’s biggest logging trucking firm, Waimea Contract Carriers, was put into voluntary administration owing $14m, partly because of a slump in log exports to China in the past six months.
That’s because New Zealand’s logs are now mostly shipped to China to be timber boxing for the concrete being poured in its new “ghost” cities. The Chinese iron ore butterfly has flapped and now we’re seeing Gold Coast winter breaks become cheaper and logging contracts rarer.

█ Read full article

Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hamilton is here, DUD

Link received from Hype O’Thermia
Sat, 4 Apr 2015 at 10:20 a.m.

█ Message: Local shop owners blame lack of free parking and rising costs for “demise” of Hamilton’s CBD.

—

The Central Business District of Hamilton is looking a little gloomy, with for lease signs up in many shop windows.

### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00, April 4 2015
Hamilton central-city retail space sits empty
By Rachel Thomas and Nancy El-Gamel
Twenty per cent of ground level central Hamilton retail space is empty. Local shop owners are blaming lack of free parking and rising costs, while business leaders are pointing fingers at absentee landlords, sub-standard buildings and an inability to compete with lower rents at The Base.

The Base is New Zealand’s largest shopping Centre based in Te Rapa, 7 km North of Hamilton CBD.

To quantify what the average shopper sees [in the CBD], the Waikato Times counted all ground floor premises in the block within Hood St, Victoria St, Angelsea St and Liverpool St, finding that of 524 premises, the 104 empty ones outnumbered the 67 locally owned and operated stores in the area. […] Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker acknowledged the CBD needed desperate attention, and said council was taking a “holistic approach” to the problem. […] “For the city centre to be successful it must be commercially and economically successful and over the last few decades most reports have focused on physical changes, so we have started with an economic analysis and looked at the trend since 2001 in terms of the economy.”
Read more + Video

—

Read comments to the article.
How many other places – like Dunedin – mirror Hamilton ?

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: Waikato Times/Stuff – Hamilton CBD [screenshots from video]

RNZ Sunday Morning —The Decline of Reason #mediapoliticsculture

Updated post Sunday, 25 Jan 2015 at 3:16 p.m.

Radio New Zealand National – Sunday Morning with Wallace Chapman
11:40 Helen Razer – The Decline of Reason

Helen Razer and Bernard Keane were going mad over the deteriorating quality of public debate and the dwindling of common sense in media, politics and culture.
So they wrote a book about it: A Short History of Stupid – The decline of reason and why public debate makes us want to scream.
Helen joins Wallace to talk about why so much has gotten so dumb.

Audio | Download: Ogg MP3 (13′ 47″) Link

—

BOOK REVIEWS

A Short History of Stupid – The decline of reason and why public debate makes us want to scream
By Bernard Keane & Helen Razer
Published by Allen & Unwin
ISBN 9781760110543

I
Reviewer: Gordon Findlay
Posted on December 15, 2014

It would be great to make this compulsory reading for every journalist, blogger and aspiring politician, but I can’t imagine them persevering with it. It would ruin their life’s work.

I think that the deterioration of public debate, and the absence of common sense and moderation in both media and politics, are pretty much givens now. But why? And where did this come from? These are the questions that this apparently light-hearted, yet fundamentally serious, book seeks to answer.
For these authors, stupid comes in many forms, and damages us in many ways. And yes, ‘stupid’ is a noun for these 329 pages. Many different types of stupid are identified, and an attempt is made to find their origins. Far too many ‘species’ of stupidly are identified to list them all here. But the rise of individualism over social responsibility, vaccination denialism, excessive partisanship in politics, the conflict between sentimentalism and reason, postmodernism, fallacious opinion polling and reality TV might be a representative sample. For me the most important forms of stupidity identified were three: the inability to understand numbers, the preference for emotion over facts, and the ignorance of historical contexts.
A real attempt is made to pin down the development of stupidity in its many forms. This takes us into an elementary, and often light-hearted, discussion of the development of some core ideas in western thought. The authors also make a determined effort to be seen to be in touch with popular culture, invoking as many memes from popular culture as can be squeezed in, from Dallas to the Bond movies. The authors are Australian commentators, and quite a lot of the stupidity is taken from Australian sources.
[…] A broad-gauge rant, which is based on gently concealed erudition. But a rant nonetheless. And that becomes the book’s weakness. The writing is always turned up to eleven. In places the F-bomb becomes a carpet bomb. This continuous bombast makes reading more than a little tiring. But it’s a great source of one-liners.
Cont./ Booksellers NZ blog

II
Reviewer: Frank O’Shea
Posted on December 12, 2014

The problem with a book like this is that it encourages the reader to become more alert to Stupid.

This book sets out to show how much of public discourse is guided, not by reason, but by Stupidity. It is the work of two writers for the online magazine Crikey, and even those not sympathetic towards that journal’s independent take on the news, will find much in the book to stimulate and delight.
[…] There are phrases that pull you up with glee: “… the cheap meth of personal development seminars”, “the Oprahfication of wisdom”, “the well of homeopathic opinion”, “a prostatariat of old white male journalists”, “holistic healing … rip-off bollocks with a whale-call soundtrack”. And you feel like cheering aloud when you read psychiatry described as an “iffy branch of medicine … a pseudo-science … an impotent practice”.
The level of Stupidity in public debate in Australia is probably no higher than in other Western countries. It is unlikely that politicians, for whom the luminous vest photo op is more important than any discussion of complex issues, will be changed by what they read here. But then again, their success is based on the well-founded belief that the rest of us are Stupid.
Cont./ Sydney Morning Herald

III
Reviewer: Martin Hirst
Posted [2014], undated

The writers have very different tones and registers in their prose; but the bigger issue is that the book doesn’t seem to really know whom its enemy is.

I am a big fan of both Crikey political editor Bernard Keane and freelance writer Helen Razer. They are intellectually sharp, write with good humour and come across as eminently rational in their thinking. […] Keane and Razer are friends and obviously share a dislike for stupidity in all its forms (and they are many); but they are not cut from the same cloth. Keane comes across as a socially-concerned individualist, verging on the libertarian, while Razer is more than willing to own up to her own proto-Marxist and critical feminist intellectual development. Razer is also a bit of a potty mouth, so if you are offended by the occasional use of c—t, f—k and s—t in your reading material, perhaps you should only read the chapters by the more (ahem) refined Mr Keane.
But I’m not fazed by Ms Razer’s crudities because I love her razor wit and sharp insights. Her chapter on reason and unreason is one of the best in the book and one paragraph in particular sums up her (and my) take on the psychological pressures of modern working life: “When we fail at life as it is so broadly and meticulously prescribed, we call it mental illness. We have failed life. We are not permitted to think it is the conventions of life that have failed us.” (p. 164)
[…] both authors, but particularly Bernard Keane, have a blind spot to the ultimate form of Stupid: the problem of the system itself. Razer calls it “liberal democracy” and Keane calls it “liberal capitalism” and they ultimately concede it is all we’ve got. However, this is an ahistorical approach that denies the evidence of the past that it is the economic system that breeds inequality and that ultimately needs a certain level of ideological Stupid among the general population in order to prevent mass (and organised) public opposition that would be capable of overthrowing it. Previously Stupid systems of political economy such as slavery and feudal aristocracy have been defeated and replaced, so why not stupid Capitalism? If Stupid is in the way, then it is serving some purpose of the ruling class. After all, as Marx once wrote in his critique of Hegel: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Insert “Stupid” into that sentence instead of “Religion” and read it again—it makes perfect sense!
Cont./ Academia.edu

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium #TotalFail

### ODT Online Fri, 14 Nov 2014
Opinion: Your say
Learning from stadium-related mistakes
By Rob Hamlin
One of the few good things about making mistakes is that you can learn from them, and avoid making the same kind of mistake again.
It is pretty clear that the FB Stadium has been a mistake on the part of the Councillors that voted for it. It has not come close to delivering the economic or social benefits that were predicted by its backers at the time. The figure arrived at in an earlier response to the above article [ODT Online] of $22 million loss per year, appears to be about right for this facility’s current annual cost to the community once all the cross-subsidies and clever fiscal two steps have been eliminated. On the social front, unlike the Moana Pool and Edgar Centre facilities that it is often compared with, the Stadium lies empty 95%+ of the time. Both these failures might just be forgiven if it was an attractive structure – but the Taj Mahal it ain’t.
Read more

****

Another oft-cited council asset…….

Moana Pool | Swimming New Zealand

### ODT Online Sat, 15 Nov 2014
Party to mark long success of sporting and social hub
By Chris Morris
Moana Pool’s golden jubilee is to be marked with a splash, and Mayor Dave Cull is confident the facility has plenty of life still left in it. The 50th anniversary of the pool’s opening on November 14, 1964, was celebrated yesterday with the unveiling of a photographic exhibition of the pool’s early days.
Read more

—

The ‘convenient’ shonky comparison lives on…….

### ODT Online Sat, 15 Nov 2014
Moana Pool paid off, despite price
By Chris Morris
Forsyth Barr Stadium is not the first controversial building to capture headlines in Dunedin. Fifty years ago, a decade of debate, disagreement and concerns about the cost preceded the opening of Moana Pool.
Read more

█ For more, enter *stadium*, *dvml*, *review*, *terry davies*, *directors* or *rugby* in the search box at right.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin: Housing upgrade and “rearrangement”

Continuing suburban sprawl at Mosgiel and Abbotsford, and new subdivisions in St Clair, Corstorphine and Highcliff, are keeping the builders busy-ish. Is it a boom? Hardly, population increases aren’t driving this, it’s more of a rearrangement and foil to the council’s broader district planning aims. As always, it’s the developers that set the rules while the council languishes. Worst of all, nailing the City Development Team to policy planning and a flimsy ‘doctorate’ (as the council takes pride in playing its isolationist academic cards) isn’t the answer —just another point of remove from the industry boys.
Is it surprising.

—

“Land in the more desirable suburbs usually has a house on it and usually the house is just a bit too good to knock down.” –Neil McLeod, DCC building services manager

### ODT Online Sun, 9 Nov 2014
Building boom in city
By Dan Hutchinson – The Star
Dunedin is experiencing the biggest new-house building boom since the beginning of the global financial crisis.
Building activity has boosted the number of people employed in the construction industry to an all-time high of 3590, based on figures provided by Statistics New Zealand.
Read more

—

“The Mosgiel East and Taieri East areas are peri-urban areas that until recently were considered rural. Changes to the zoning by the council has seen these areas changed to residential zones for the development of subdivisions.” Ref: University of Otago (Geography) – TLA Approaches: Managing Effects of Rural Subdivision and Development of Peri-urban Lands (2011)

Silver Springs Subdivision, Wingatui Rd, Mosgiel UoO Link (2011)

Gladstone Oaks – Prudence Place Subdivision, Mosgiel RE Listing (2013)

“The expansion of the Mosgiel area has resulted in conflict between those wishing for short term capital gains and those looking towards a longer term gain through the productive use of the land. It has at times been a heated debate with both sides using the ‘Sustainability’ argument to support their views …. One clear fact can be surmised, The loss of high class soil areas to development is highly unlikely to be reversed. The decisions that have made on the Taieri Plains, although made in an attempt to bolster the economic prosperity of the area, have uncertain environmental impacts for the future.” UoO Link

Soil Map of Mosgiel [Source: DCC]

From an earlier comment:

Mosgiel’s future? Tawdry cul-de-sacs, cheek-by-jowl McMansions, high-cost retirement villages and horsy-jodhpur lifestyle blocks. DCC hasn’t got a plan, and it’s too late anyway – the developers with all the control only offer the bad-taste ad hoc.

—

Related Posts and Comments:
24.10.14 DCC 2GP (district plan): Residential parking + Medium density housing
24.9.14 Dunedin old boys, councillors & staff collude on 5-star accommodation
16.5.14 Dunedin housing
19.3.14 State Housing matters
2.3.14 Dunedin’s social housing need —they built a bastard stadium
● 12.2.14 DCC: Growth v development contributions
25.10.13 Dunedin: “no-growth city”
20.10.13 Doh, low growth for Dunedin
10.10.13 Whistleblowers’ message heard ??! #OtagoRacingClub… [comments]
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
12.6.13 Dunedin housing: building up or Brown-like sprawl #intensification…
2.4.13 Dunedin: Developers stoop to resource consents instead of private plan…
29.3.13 Reykjavik, Iceland: The strongest mirror [speculative apartments]
21.3.13 Growth fetish ? Urban sprawl v Higher density living ?
3.3.13 RNZ Sunday Morning | Ideas: Re-imagining the Urban House
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
14.4.12 How perverse is the New Zealand housing market?
8.12.11 interest.co heats NZ housing debate – listen up
25.11.11 South Dunedin and other flood zones
8.11.11 Development contributions
24.9.11 Kevin McCloud interview
27.4.11 What to do, what to do! [CHC #eqnz aside]
24.4.11 Oram on Auckland Spatial Plan, and more
23.3.11 Dunedin City Council’s rock and its hard place
2.2.11 Dunedin building and construction (+DCC fees)
9.1.11 Detroit: “Make no little plans”
29.12 10 Geospatial analysis, relieving burdens on existing infrastructure
28.12.10 ‘Light urbanism’ – planners influencing residential design
26.12.10 New Zealand housing, a sorry tale
24.10.10 Otara Simple House
27.9.10 Cities: Wellington, or Dunedin?
13.9.10 Same again, Dunedin City District Plan about to be ignored
15.8.10 WILD about Wanaka

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

LGNZ #blaggardliars

Received from Anonymous
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 at 3:17 p.m.

Horowhenua Chronicle 25.6.14

[Anonymous] “Another report by another highly paid expert, strategically placed on the front page to calm the masses only weeks after Horowhenua District Council (HDC) announced rate hikes of 10%.”

[Evidence] No-one believes his crap. Slippery Lawrence Yule treated like yesterday’s scrumpled chip paper.

—

Our reading preference:

█ The Ratepayers’ Report is based on data collated by the Taxpayers’ Union, a lobby group, from councils’ annual reports. It also includes information collected independently from the Department of Internal Affairs and Statistics New Zealand. All of this has been checked and sent to the 67 councils involved for them to review. See local government league tables published by analyst Larry Mitchell since 2010.

Related Post and Comments:
12.6.14 Fairfax Media [not ODT] initiative on Local Bodies
21.4.13 Councils “in stchook” —finance & policy analyst Larry.N.Mitchell
30.5.12 Larry.N.Mitchell: 2012 Local Govt League Table Executive Summary

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

NZRU ‘hustles’ towns and cities to build stadiums

What happens to our cathedrals, the large stadiums found in every major centre, if we lose faith?

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 14/06/2014
Sport
What about the state of New Zealand stadiums?
By Matt Nippert
[Excerpts from a longer article…] The covered 31,000-seat Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin, constructed in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, may be the newest major sporting facility in the country but has already proved the most controversial. The bulk of its $224 million construction cost came from Dunedin City Council, but ongoing costs to ratepayers have caused considerable angst. Ratepayers were forced into a $2.3m bailout in May, and are mulling whether a permanent annual subsidy will be required to keep it running.

Getting to grips with exactly how much stadiums cost is a tricky exercise. Construction has often been piecemeal, with grandstands redeveloped or rebuilt over time, blurring total capital expenditure. And determining operational costs – whether stadiums require ongoing contributions by ratepayers – is further complicated by many facilities being run from within city councils or by council-controlled organisations. This makes the extraction of a discrete set of accounts, most notably in Dunedin and Waikato, an impossibility.

Analysis of accounts for Wellington and Auckland, run by dedicated trusts and two of the most transparent stadiums, shows that break-even is realistically the best case.

At New Zealand Rugby headquarters, chief executive Steve Tew broadly agrees that the glory days [of attendance at games] are over. Viewers watching broadcasts of a game have supplanted punters going through stadium turnstiles.

But there is one niche where the faith of the rugby faithful remains strong: All Blacks tests. Hosting the national team is often the only time stadiums up and down the country reach capacity.

While great for New Zealand Rugby coffers, Massey University’s Sam Richardson says the All Blacks have warped stadium construction priorities. “It’s an absolutely huge detriment. If you’re building a stadium where the financial viability year to year relies on an All Blacks test, there’s no question New Zealand Rugby plays a massive part in whether these facilities are going to be used to their potential,” he says.

Canterbury University economist Eric Crampton says building capacity for a solitary annual All Black test is akin to “buying a six-bedroom house just in case both sets of grandparents come to visit at the same time”. Crampton says the proliferation of large loss-making stadiums, both in New Zealand and worldwide, has been mainly because of the economic equivalent of hustling. “Sporting teams have been able to convince councils all over the place – and have been able to play them off against each other by threatening to move – to build excessive stadiums.
Read more

****

“Fifa, like the International Olympic Committee, is widely regarded as corrupt. In that, it reflects our flawed species; while capable of fabulous feats, a dark side lurks.”

### ODT Online Sat, 14 Jun 2014
Editorial: Revelling in sport
OPINION As Dunedin and the South gear up for the excitement of tonight’s rugby test in the city, a sporting event in another league entirely kicked off yesterday.
Read more

█ Garrick Tremain – 14 June 2015

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Fairfax Media [not ODT] initiative on Local Bodies

The Taxpayers’ Union in collaboration with Fairfax Media has launched the “Ratepayers’ Report”. (Link)

—

Comment received from Russell Garbutt
Submitted on 2014/06/11 at 10:04 am

The Fairfax initiative on Local Bodies is an excellent one.

It can be found at http://www.ratepayersreport.co.nz/

It seems that this whole thing has stemmed from the excellent work of Larry Mitchell, in trying to educate Local Bodies as to some financial nous, and also to alert ratepayers to what circumstances their local body has put them in.

I know from experience over many years of trying, that my recommendations to local Councillors to contact Larry Mitchell and learn from his experience as an independent consultant on Local Government fell on totally deaf ears. They seemed to know better. Yeah, right.

Now it is out there in a form that is very readable and comparisons can be easily seen.

What is totally amazing is the views of the DCC in this. Yes, the second highest debt per ratepayer, but the DCC says that it has the second highest value of assets. Crap. This is just rubbish and it can’t sell those assets. Every Council has water, roading etc which it must provide and can’t sell, but in the case of the DCC it has the stadium. Not an asset as we all know but a fearful liability, but it appears in the books as an asset. Well, sell the bloody thing. It isn’t needed.

I know that this story won’t be picked up by the ODT as it is a Fairfax story, but the other point in here of course is that the ability of Aucklanders (who have the highest debt levels) to pay. Dunedin doesn’t. Its population is well below that of Auckland when it comes to average income per household.

The other thing that the ODT won’t cover is the local comparisons. While the DCC has a debt level of $15,093 per ratepayer, the Central Otago District Council has only $327 per ratepayer, with virtually the same equity value per ratepayer. What’s the difference? As the CODC says of the area “A World of Difference”. I know which Council I admire the most.

[ends]

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ngai Tahu featured in Wall Street Journal (12.3.14)

### ODT Online Mon, 17 Mar 2014
Ngai Tahu’s financial acumen praised
By Hamish McNeilly
The economic foresight of Ngai Tahu has won the praise of the influential Wall St Journal. The article, published last week, noted the iwi had gone from being ”impoverished, virtually landless” to one of New Zealand’s wealthiest tribes with group assets totalling $1.03 billion. Following the $170 million treaty settlement the iwi took part in a series of ”astute investments”, enabling it to restore marae and support health and education programmes for its 50,000 members.
Read more

—

Source:
New Zealand Tribe’s Bet Transforms Its Fortunes: The Ngāi Tahu See Their Investments Pay Off
Original article published by The Wall Street Journal; March 12, 2014
online.wsj.com – this is a paysite. You can read the whole article by Lucy Cramer of WSJ for free at USNZcouncil.org

—

“If you look at 15 years since settlement, this entity has done really well,” said Trevor Burt, a former executive board member of German chemicals giant Linde Group who the tribe tapped four years ago to run its investment arm. Over the past four years, the fund’s average total annual return, based on comprehensive income, was 14 per cent, beating the average 12.9 per cent annual return by the benchmark share index. –Lucy Craymer, WSJ
New Zealand tribe’s bet transforms its fortunes – posted by david at the United States New Zealand Council blogsite
March 12, 2014 Link

While you squabble, Ngai Tahu is worth more than a billion dollars, is making hundreds of millions of dollars in well placed investments, and is even outperforming well known philanthropic funds like the ones owned by Yale and Harvard. –Cameron Slater, Whale Oil Beef Hooked
Wall Street Journal praises tribe: Are you watching up north?
March 13, 2014 at 5:30pm Link

Twitter accounts:
Ngai Tahu @NgaiTahu
Wall Street Journal @WSJ

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Christchurch stadium

“No stadium can make money unless it has millions of moneyed sports fans living within its catchment area.” –Lee Vandervis

Christchurch Mail 30-1-14 page 1 | Christchurch Mail 30-1-14 page 3

—

Related Post and Comments:
24.1.14 [DCC announces review] Stadium: It came to pass . . .
10.5.13 Debate over new stadium
7.10.12 New stadium worries, NZ wide + a waterfront, ours
30.9.12 Wake-up call for Christchurch #eqnz #SeriousFraud
30.7.12 National Govt puts champagne and stadium before shelter housing
3.6.12 Sunday Star Times: Stadium story: any sliced bread in the murk?
8.11.11 Christchurch: new temporary stadium
9.8.11 Christchurch’s AMI stadium
16.1.10 Deans Stand at AMI Stadium: DONE

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin cycleways: Calvin Oaten greeted by DCC silence

Received.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013 4:38 PM

Subject: Fwd: Transport Strategy

Calvin Oaten notes:
As you can see I copied [the below] to most. So far, the only response has been Cr Lee Vandervis. He agrees. [Chief executive] Sue Bidrose hasn’t come back with so much as a “rubbish” or “interesting”.
The rest, well I am wondering if this new crop are going to be any better than the last. You would think I would get shot out of the water by at least Cr Richard Thomson, but nothing. All I want is to open up the debate.
Looks like it is just too hard for them to think about the issue. Get elected, get the remuneration sorted and then back to sleep. “El Duce”, of course, wishes I was on another planet.

—

—— Forwarded Message
From: Calvin Oaten
Date: 1 December 2013 11:33:36 AM NZDT
To: Dave Cull
Cc: Hilary Calvert, Jinty McTavish, Lee Vandervis, John Bezett, Kate Wilson, Chris Staynes, Mike Lord, Aaron Hawkins, Neville Peat, Doug Hall, Andrew Noone, David Benson-Pope, Sue Bidrose, Richard Thomson
Subject: Fwd: Transport Strategy

Hello Dave,
I have been reading the article Sharing the Road by Shane Gilchrist in Saturday’s ODT, and was particularly interested in your comments. You point out the reason why council began this process in the first place: “It’s about safety on Dunedin’s one-way system.” “Council, in collaboration with the NZTA, is both resolved and obligated to make our one-way street system safer. That’s what we asked NZTA to do after the last death. Let’s be clear: It is the NZTA’s responsibility to make state highways safer.” A very laudable position, but is the seeming solution necessarily the right one?

To me it is a philosophical question: If it is purely about safety and preservation of life then surely cyclists on the one-way would be wrong. History has proven that. If it is about ‘freedom of choice’ then it would be a matter for responsible persons or parents to weigh up the situation then opt for a choice, it being on their own heads. Either way, nothing would need to be done to alter the status quo. I would have no problem with that.

Then there is the matter of alternatives.