Posts by Sacha
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It suits the rhetoric of the right to focus on one person as a 'leader'. I'm never sure why people from the left - and especially the organised political opposition - want to buy into that and perpetuate the myth of Key by focusing attention on him.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
I'd encourage not personalising this. There were experienced people in key roles here who had successfully delivered the Commonwealth and Olympic tournaments in Australia.
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I agree with Herald columnist Brian Rudman about the core planning failure, which he points out was peer reviewed and had the input of government agencies.
Over two or more years of planning, no one asked the obvious: if we invite everyone in Auckland and the wider world to join us on the Auckland waterfront for the party of the century, how many are likely to turn up?
Ateed says it was starting to get a bit worried a few days before the cup opening, but that didn't stop it continuing with an advertising campaign encouraging people to the waterfront festivities.
The various delivery failures on the day are undeniable and we are so lucky that a tolerant crowd avoided major harm amidst all the joyful celebration.
Highlighting these shortcomings in no way supports Mr McCully's hairy-chested accusation that Auckland Council had "dropped the ball" and he had to assume control.
He and his officials have been involved in every step of the planning. He and the Prime Minister kept encouraging the world to come to Party Central. Indeed the Prime Minister coined the term.
The truth is, everyone dropped the ball.
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Speaker: Party Central, structures and silos, in reply to 3410,
what chance do we have of coordination success when each CCO has their own agenda, and apparently only "big picture" direction from the actual council?
That and other thorny questions were considered by the Auckland Royal Commission and while the Auckland Transition Agency was implementing the current government's response.
The Rugby World Cup having its own separate legislation added another coordination mechanism for the tournament delivery.
Can o worms..
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Minister McCully's official statement about the new expanded arrangements also mentions working with the Waterfront CCO.
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I'm honoured that Russell has turned my post last night into a new thread.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Rich Lock,
the real local stories that matter
You missed this one.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
You mean they will have put together a - gasp - Final Solution!
You'd need the trains to run on time for that. Maybe IBM could help..
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Thank you all. It's still only part of the answer but I wanted to give some sense of the bigger picture from my understanding of it. Pleasing to be able to pull enough details together amidst a fast-evolving discussion.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
Hide-bound fools.
I should elaborate on that pun. Auckland's 'supercity' changes weakened geographic silos but strengthened functional ones in local government. The region's restructuring brought together staff of similar functions like transport or events into the new CCOs and into the huge new Council's various departments.
During today's parliamentary 'debate' Phil Twyford reminded that several government agencies explicitly argued against Auckland's transport functions being split from the council into a CCO. It just adds another layer into a situation already messed up by 1980s/90s corporatisation that splits service providers from policymakers and funders for largely ideological reasons.
These layers reduce responsiveness and accountability. And we've seen that play out this week.
In parallel to the supercity changes and their precursors like the 'One Plan', Auckland's former Councils and CCO agencies started working together years ago to plan the event for the Auckland region, collaborating closely with central govt agencies and the Rugby World Cup 2011 company. That's just like other regions have done, but with added complexity from being the only place large enough to accommodate sufficient visitors to satisfy the IRB for the opening or finals events, and to leverage associated economic opportunities as our only world-scale city. There aren't enough beds or businesses in Christchurch, Wellington or Hamilton.
For the tournament, the buck is ultimately meant to stop in two places: the RWC Minister and Mayor of Auckland Council. However the current government set up the supercity so Council has an arms-length relationship where it is only meant to set and monitor CCO strategic priorities, and their own Boards (appointed mainly by the government) decide how their staff will deliver. In turn, they often have to negotiate with contracted suppliers (such as Veolia or event companies) over what the end customer - us - is provided. It can be an awfully long chain from any citizen's experience to where the buck stops.
In effect, a lot of effort and goodwill has gone into making relationships work more sensibly than that. However, it seems natural that some of the professional silos remain and if anything are strengthened by the new structure.
To me, that helps explain some of the issues like ATEED only paying attention to the 'footprint' they had decided on (without proper demand forecasting , which seems inexcusably unprofessional for an event of this scale). Like the sheer lack of thought about how to simultaneously deliver people to the stadium, to the hyped waterfront and to normal working day destinations (and even scheduling the event on a regular workday at all). Like not ensuring everyone was working to the same overall numbers.
There are coordination failures there for sure. And some pretty basic delivery ones. However, putting it right gives a chance to work closer together and to forge a more united purpose.
That's why the pissy trust-destroying antics of McCully and his colleagues this week are so deeply disappointing - and for what gain?
Government has every right to step up to make sure this event that reflects so much on them is delivered properly - and there are clearly some howling failures that deserve deeper accountability after the event is safely wrapped up (and perhaps we'll see some govt-appointed CCO Board members symbolically replaced).
As I've said, there are also some great lessons for the city in a couple of decades, especially for its form and connectedness; its transport links and the way people enjoy its spaces and each other.
Without losing sight of those opportunities, I'd welcome us focusing for now on the spirit of celebration that has been so obvious throughout the country, and being great hosts for our treasured visitors. That's something all the cultures and people that make up this wonderful place have in common. We deserve leaders who reflect that to the world.