Posts by Isaac Freeman
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
They knew they would have a big job, they just don't seem to have taken on board a lot of the recommendations - so I don't think the "They weren't designed for this" explanation really holds any water...
Fair enough, and thanks. I'm happy to change it to "weren't ready for this" and "probably should have been".
So that I feel I'm also contributing some data to this discussion instead of abstract opinions, the number of claims is recorded at http://canterbury.eqc.govt.nz/news/progress/statistics
Currently it's over 400,000. That's more than sixty times the size of the biggest event they'd ever dealt with before, and I'd suspect that the Gisbourne claims tended to be smaller and easier than the Christchurch ones. It's one thing for the Review to say EQC should be prepared for "tens or hundreds of thousands of claims", but quite another for that to be put into practice.Ultimately, what I'm concerned about is whether our primary motivation is to deal with the institutional problems, or just to assign blame. They're not mutually exclusive, and both are necessary, but when the mess is this big the temptation is strong to just find a scapegoat and call that a resolution. I don't think that's enough, and perhaps I have a knee-jerk response when I feel that's starting to happen. That doesn't mean I have a Pollyannaish belief that everything is fine, quite the opposite.
-
I would really hope for better outcomes than these, and hope there is legislation in place to expedite them.
I'd hope so too, but I doubt it. It's much easier to slap together an ad-hocracy than it is to take it apart or transform it into a solid institution. And governance in Canterbury is practically all ad-hoc now. We don't know when we're going to be permitted to elect eCan again, what the timetable is for dismantling CERA, what the City Council will be in charge of, nor what Gerry Brownlee might choose to change tomorrow. Information about how EQC works is passed around by word of mouth, but no two cases seem to have the same rules.
It's hard to even know what would be the normal degree of clusterfuckery in a situation like this, and what's exceptional.
I'm pretty sure we should be electing our regional council, though. I seem to recall that being taken away before the earthquakes.
-
Remember The Diagram.
-
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Perhaps there’s something of a rabble-rousing tone about Van Beynen’s article, an attempt to excite the envy of the proletariat before moving on to the next distraction.
I didn't read it as having any particular agenda, just as a piece about an unfolding situation where all the evidence isn't in. The smoke is news, even if it's not yet clear where or how big the fire is. Nor, to strain the metaphor, whether the cause was arson, lightning strike, or children playing with matches.
The ‘first person to have a finger pointed at them’ in Van Beynen’s piece is the teenage son of an EQC official. I don’t find the article to be an attempt to deflect blame onto him or any of the others named.
I'd have said the finger was pointed at the mother. You're right, though, that I was vague about who was doing the pointing. I didn't mean to imply that Van Beynen is deliberately targeting anybody, just that it's too soon to jump to the conclusion that there's been deliberate corruption. Cock-ups are more common, and there's a lot of middle ground that's part cock-up and part corruption.
Instead they’re presented as evidence of a possible culture of cronyism and corporate entitlement in the organisation.
...
In the present climate of legislated unaccountability and poor communication, the media’s watchdog role is more vital than ever.
I agree completely. I hope that this is the message everyone's getting.
You’ve suggested that the EQC is “an organisation that suddenly had to do a job it was never designed for”.
And I meant just that. It's the kind of mess you get in situations like this. That doesn't mean nobody's responsible, just that it's more likely the responsibility lies in a million small acts of confusion and convenience than in a few acts of calculate villainy.
-
Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
It is admittedly possible that I over-think things sometimes
That depends on how many other people are behind you in the check-out queue.
-
And, the above example aside, by the time you’re trying to get me to go out with you, you should have talked to me enough to have some kind of idea of what I’m like. Because what you want is to go out with me, right? Not “a woman”, me.
This.
Although... a little bit more than this. Without wishing to use the word "qua" in polite conversation, nobody actually knows the true essence of the person they're interested in. What they fancy is an unfinished mental model of the person you seem to be, based on what they know of you so far. If they're doing it right, they'll adjust that model as they get to know you.
Someone who hardly knows you but already likes you isn't necessarily creepy. The Creepy happens when people would rather have their unfinished mental model, and can't or won't adjust it to be more like you.
-
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Such as?
Well, it could be that they're paying salaries like that to other people too. It could be that they hired a bunch of people in a rush without checking qualifications properly. It could be that the position was designed for someone highly qualified who'd be travelling all over the country for years investigating small earthquakes, and the people who signed the contracts didn't realise they needed to create a new position.
I would imagine that EQC currently has a very small number of people who know how things were done up until September 2010, and a much larger number of people who were thrown in at the deep end and had to learn on the job, in a disaster zone, with nobody free to show them the ropes. It's a recipe for bureaucratic foul-ups. And bureaucratic foul-ups lead to finger-pointing. That doesn't mean nobody's to blame, just that the first person to have a finger pointed at them isn't necessarily the sole cause of all problems.
-
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Perhaps you’ll be putting in a word for this overstressed bumbler when he comes up for sentence.
I fail to see the connection. This one is a con artist who's already pled guilty. The other one is either a case of nepotism, if evidence can be found for special treatment of the employee, or serious systemic problems that have resulted in unreasonably high salaries being paid.
Consider Abu Ghraib. The guards committed abusive acts against prisoners, for which they were rightly found responsible. But there was also an incredibly stressful situation that put impossible demands on the guards, making it almost inevitable that they'd make bad decisions. The people responsible for creating that situation evaded responsibility, and the systemic issues weren't addressed. As Zimbardo put it, it wasn't just one bad apple: the whole crate was rotten.
Obviously we're talking about misuse of public funds here rather than torture, but the as-yet-unproven accusation of nepotism against one person feels to me like a distraction that could allow deeper problems to go unnoticed.
-
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Islander,
What the actual fuck do you actually need to alter the definition of nepotism than relation paid heaps without real qualifications- because they are a relation of the employing person? Hmmm?
You need the because part. That is, you need evidence that the employee is getting a deal that's different from what other people got. Either because they're paid more or because more qualified people were passed over.
I completely agree that $180,000 per annum is a ridiculously high salary, and it was quite right to call me on the term "entry-level". I'd scanned the article a bit too fast the first time, and thought $75 per hour sounded reasonable for a job with some responsibility, assuming that we were talking about contact hours rather than total time on the job. So mea culpa there – I skipped past the number with all the zeroes.
-
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Islander,
Given the age of at least 2 recipients, it is most emphatically nepotism. I'm sorry, a *19yearold* HAS SUFFICIENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS SO GETS A CUSHY JOB?? Paying *5 times the average wage?* With (as far we know) absolutely no other relevant skills whatsoever?
I'm not saying I like it. It sounds like there's plenty to investigate. But nepotism is a specific claim: it's not enough that there's a family relationship and the job is paid well. You'd need some evidence that they're paid better than other people with similar qualifications doing the same job. Perhaps that evidence exists, but I don't see it in the article.
What the hell else do you call it?
Culture of waste? Inflated salaries? Rushed hiring process? An organisation that suddenly had to do a job it was never designed for? Stressed people throwing money at problems because there's no time to organise a better process?
Perhaps any sufficiently advanced cock-up is indistinguishable from corruption.
