Posts by Sacha
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I can't believe no one's organised that yet
has been discussed before - economics of small runs not compelling, or something like that
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Hard not to be impressed by someone riding a burning alligator
wholeheartedly agree
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xkcd has the last word
flaming alligators! - fixed link
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in a lot of cases, a member of the public assumes the final category when it's really the first. But if you are in the latter categories, it takes persistence and articulation to get past your junior bureaucrat or helpdesk or call centre worker's assumption that your issue is different from the other 80% they deal with.
Nailed it for all but the few ignorant power-hungry public servants (who are less common than most think) - and who probably need the help of a meditation guru or psychotherapist..
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a limb report
yes, those do seem to be prosthetic legs stacked under the house
You can drop being articulate as easily as putting down a gun
Not necessarily true if you're an aspie. And if it were that simple, there wouldn't be such a market for meditation gurus and suchlike.
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Watching that trailer makes you realise how damn good Robyn Malcolm is, eh
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You know you're dealing with a poncy fucker when they use footnotes, eh
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isn't botox a wonderful thing
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We need better information, not more data
Agreed - and anyone who finds that leak to be compelling repeat viewing has bigger problems
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Here's the first Morning Report story this morning (streaming, 8 mins).
Rodney Hide claims the exercise wasn't done to save money (to which Sean Plunkett chokes on his cornflakes). Hide says they are not yet in a position to know how much - which is probably true to some extent, given that this govt decided to perform a transition estimated as taking 4 years in less than half that time. However, Hide is fudging the known costs and insisting that the ones that have been put off after 1 November somehow don't count and none of it is his doing. Yesterday's defensive media statement doesn't survive scrutiny.
Act pollie and Rodney mayor, Penny Webster, mentions the un-costed loss of institutional knowledge. Phil Twyford is claiming that redundancies will cost over $40m (based it seems on leaks from inside the transition process) while Hide says no one knows.
Hearing Plunkett take him on, you can see why Key is staying well clear of Morning Report - faith-based talking points don't stand up to informed scrutiny all that well.
Here's the 2nd story an hour later (streaming, 3 mins), which adds some reaction from others. Len Brown notes the contradiction with Hide's blatherings about transparency and accountability and expects no one will be told before October's elections. John Banks is understanding about not being able to quantify costs at this stage, and manages to slip in the phrase "affordable progress" as you'd expect.
The Our Auckland spokeperson (and the Sensible Sentencing comparison is apt, though at least the "grassroots" claim isn't repeated in the second story) says it's because there won't *be* any savings, but we do know that Aucklanders will pay all the costs. Most similar international transitions agree with that, despite the Royal Commission's optimism about ongoing annual savings. If there are benefits, they won't be financial. But they will cost a lot of money to implement.