Hard News: The Unitec project: Something new, with a rolling start
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BenWilson, in reply to
What is going on?
It used to work, and they haven't yet adjusted.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
if this money could have been better off being spent on health and education - to the benefit of many more.
I've heard people from both health and education sectors say that if it was possible they'd probably get better outcomes in health and education by building quality homes for people rather than building schools or hospitals.
There was some hyperbole in those comments but it does seem true that really good housing plays a huge role in successful education and health outcomes.
One of the problems we have is that we tend to run these sectors in isolation when we know they all have impacts across all sectors. I don't think there is a perfect answer but I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of building good homes having pretty positive impacts for health and education.
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Neil, in reply to
One of the problems we have is that we tend to run these sectors in isolation when we know they all have impacts across all sectors. I don’t think there is a perfect answer but I’m pretty comfortable with the idea of building good homes having pretty positive impacts for health and education.
It’s a difficult juggling act. We should at least have the complete picture of what money is being spent.
It’s probably not quite what you were referring to but the issues of building quality are going to have a major impact on the government’s plans.
We’re only just beginning to seeing the tip of the problem building iceberg in the public and private sector. And it’s not just a legacy of poor building practices and incompetant council oversight from 20 years ago, it’s still going on but everyone is in denial.
Middlemore Hospital – everyone was in denial of the true extent of the problem. And there’s plenty more buildings like that that aren’t being talked about.
It’s a steamroller of financial destruction. National largely ignored the problem but Labour also chose not to listen to people who knew the true extent of the disaster.
Not only are we faced with trying to build at a greater rate we still have to deal with building problems from the past and don’t have any guarantees that present construction will be any better.
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nzlemming, in reply to
It used to work, and they haven't yet adjusted.
Score!
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nzlemming, in reply to
It’s a steamroller of financial destruction. National largely ignored the problem but Labour also chose not to listen to people who knew the true extent of the disaster.
Say what? National spent nine years ignoring this. Labour has had 6 months to find out about it. Your prejudice is showing like a glowstick at Splore.
Edit: Let's put that a little clearer. National CREATED the problem by demanding surpluses from DHBs.
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Neil, in reply to
Say what? National spent nine years ignoring this. Labour has had 6 months to find out about it
The denial was (is) deap and wide. Nikki Kaye had little success bringing it to the attention of her cabinet colleagues and Twyford didn’t listen to those who knew.
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Neil,
The Auckland Council looking for a new HQ bought a leaky building. Worth pondering for a moment. If they can’t ascertain the quality of a building then who can. They signed off on that building.
No one did an inventory of buildings that could be problematic. Everyone just wanted the problem to go away. So buildings of that era were never checked. Never checked – even though those in the know knew there were going to problems.
So, if I were a member of an incoming govt and had been given information about the real extent of the problem I would have gone looking for those problems building. And they’re not hard to spot.
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Sacha, in reply to
Twyford didn’t listen to those who knew
Any links about that?
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Neil, in reply to
I would suggest contacting John Gray at HOBANZ.
His group has been trying for a number of years to put this issue on the radar of both National and Labour but with minimal success.
The current Minister for Building and Construction recently denied there were any leaky buildings at a meeting of govt and industry representatives. She has no background in this area which is a slight impediment.
There were people trying to get the message through but both National and Labour did not want to hear.
Leaky buildings (a misnomer - it’s not necessarily the leaky which is problematic) are still being built and councils are still singing off on them. Unless Labour does something about how the building industry works there’s just going to more pain for more people.
Twyford was talking about going into partnership with Fletchers. That should ring alarm bells.
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Neil,
Questions remain over just who knew what and when about the hospital's litany of building woes, and what was done about it.
The board said it became aware it had four badly leaking buildings between 2012 and 2013.
However, a hospital maintenance worker, who RNZ has agreed not to name, said that warnings went to the board three years before that.
Mr Simpson said he was confronted at the start, in early 2008, with a mental health unit leaking so badly it had had to be demolished.
From 2013 until he left, he said he found his position was "severely" curtailed and building decisions were made without him because he had disagreed over some matters.
"Where you bypass your experts ... I think it's atrocious," he said.
Lots of people in authority turned a blind eye to this over a few decades. Problems were known - but no one thought to check - properly check - all the buildings built during the period when known problem buildings were built. (Even more tragically it’s a myth that this was confined to one short period of time).
This could also undermine efforts to intensify in Auckland:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12021047
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hmmm, a lot of posts from the resident National Party apologist on this. Putin's troll factories ain't got nothing on the frantic desperation of the National Party and it's loons to dissemble, deflect, delay and deny on the deliberate housing catastrophe they presided over.
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Neil,
The Middlemore Hospital maintanence person who tried to alert the DHB to problems early on mentions being overruled by “experts”. That would have been consultant engineers. One wonders how many other buildings they were called on to assess and said – nothing to see here.
Another big problem was the confidential settlement process. It meant the true extent of the problem was kept from the public and those who owned similar buildings weren’t given any warning of this. Certainly the construction companies like Hawkins weren’t going to go out of their way to inform anyone that they built similar building all over the place.
Similarly with councils and the property management companies who often effectively ran Body Corps. They knew and kept silent. One consequence being finding out after the cut off period for legal action. Not a coincidence.
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Sacha, in reply to
The Middlemore Hospital maintanence person who tried to alert the DHB to problems early on mentions being overruled by “experts”.
He is referring to *himself* as an expert, over-ruled by non-experts. Read again.
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Sacha, in reply to
So you have no evidence to back your statement about Twyford other than feeling it in your waters?
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Neil, in reply to
Yes I did misread that but that doesn’t change the point that the DHB from very early on actively ignored their building problems and that would have involved their consultant engineers. Or worse - they didn’t consult.
It’s a pattern repeated in the private sector as the other article I linked to suggests.
It’s been no secret for quite sometime that many govt buildings have problems. People like that maitanence person have been trying to point out the magnitude of the problem but have been ignored.
I know the problem building issue was raised with both Twyford and Kaye. Kaye could not convince the then National govt to take this seriously - although she did get some important changes to laws governing how body corporates operate, Twyford paid little attention.
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Sacha, in reply to
I know the problem building issue was raised with both Twyford and Kaye.
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Twyford paid little attentionAgain, please provide evidence to back up this assertion. It's not one I've seen anywhere else. How should we believe it to be true?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I'm intrigued by the apparent attempt to spread blame to an MP who wasn't in government at the time.
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Neil, in reply to
I’ll email you.
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Neil, in reply to
I’m not blaming Twyford for the situation at Middlemore, I’m arguing that there was information available that should have raised alarm bells on the broader problem building issue.
As I’ve said, that was also largely ignored by the National govt.
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Neil,
The delay in remediation of the Middlemore buildings may turn out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise.
What south Auckland needs is a completely new hospital to meet demand and remediation carries large risk.
Remediation always winds up costing far more than planned and it doesn’t always achieve the desired result. Anticipated costs are often kept artificially low and usually once a building is opened up new problems come to light. Some apartment buildings have gone through a number of remediation cycles because of the failure of previous attempts.
It may turn out to be better to spend the minimum necessary to keep the buildings safely limping along and put the remediation budget into a new fascility.
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Neil,
With Labour all too willing to plough billions into the construction industry without getting on top of the problems there, and not pay teachers and nurses adequately, it’s a bit disheartening.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
What south Auckland needs is a completely new hospital to meet demand and remediation carries large risk.
If you listen to the doctors working there their highest priority is not a new hospital.
They pretty much all say the problems are out in the community
Poor housing
Poor quality food choices available
Low incomes
Too few GPs in the communityThese all combine to make the pressure on the hospital too great.
The hospital fixes the symptom but does not address the cause and doctors nowadays are taught to try and treat the symptom only if there is no way to treat the cause.
But yeah we still need some new buildings there - pity the last government had a policy and management strategy of deliberately underfunding and running down public health.
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Investing in community-based primary care and stronger IT to genuinely join up all parts of the health system greatly reduces the need for any more hospitals. Central govt and DHBs know this already. Let's see what actually gets done.
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Neil,
Lots of people had various reasons to
not want to know:A health board boss says problems at Middlemore Hospital were "spelt out succinctly" in papers handed to the Health Minister [David Clark] before he claimed not to know about them.
I think a general denial of the full extent of the problem. Leaky buildings were just a thing of the past.
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Neil,
The tragic case of Vivienne Wright highlights amongst other issues the problem with Body Corp management.
Nikki Kaye has been one of the few MPs to recognise the significance and scale of this issue and try and push through legislative changes.
Perhaps now Twyford might pay some attention.
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