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And then it got worse

About a million years ago I was in the navy. Towards the end of my service time in the 1970s the Domestic Purposes Benefit was introduced. One result of that ill-advised legislation - Defence had to build a high-rise accommodation block for Auckland’s Devonport Naval Base. Just another cost to add to this millstone around the neck of society.

Why?

Before the legislation was enacted, there were usually about a dozen senior ratings living in the naval accommodation at HMNZS Philomel. Most Petty Officers and Chief Petty Officers were married and when serving ashore lived at home with their wives and families.

Those whose marriages were no longer in the first flush of burning passion didn’t have the option of shooting through because they couldn’t have afforded to pay maintenance to their abandoned wives and still live the high life.

Here’s a free ticket to the good life boys

Within a very short time - I think it was months rather than years – there was a flood of people needing accommodation – the long suffering taxpayer offered to subsidize the bludgers and they abandoned their wives and children in droves. The shore accommodation overflowed and a multi-story accommodation block was built.

Stupid legislation, and over 30 years later we’re paying for it bigtime. Anecdotally, we’ve all heard about young women getting pregnant just to get the DPB. You need to be wearing rose-tinted glasses to believe that it’s otherwise.

I have nothing against the DPB in principle

But like all other welfare payments it should be a safety net for those who have no alternative. Not an open slather giveaway.

What I object to is:

• that we haven’t done enough to force many thousands of fathers to pay their proper share of the cost of it.
  I know that some fathers are being taken to the cleaners. The system is far from fair. But many others pay little or absolutely nothing.
• that we haven’t done anything to discourage thousands of women from using it as a lifestyle choice.
• that, as a society, we aren’t encouraging wider families to look after their own.

And don’t give that politically correct nonsense about “better the kids are brought up with a single mother than in an unhappy two parent environment”.

• It isn’t so.
• Even if it were so, that doesn’t make it right.

Before this poisonous benefit was brought in I don’t recall abandoned mothers sleeping under bridges. I didn’t see neglected kids starving in the streets. People took responsibility for their actions and the actions of their families. People stuck to their commitments.

Society was better for it.

First published in @ My Wits’ End March 12th 2008.

Roman Hasil isn’t the chief guilty party in yet another DHB fiasco

Watching the news media hounding Dr Roman Hasil has been disturbing to me.

Anyone who has experienced depression or lived with a victim would have immediately recognised the outward symptoms.

Watching the way TVNZ’s trusty news team pounced on an obviously distraught Hasil and his female friend in Australia was very disturbing. It wasn’t news reporting, it was akin to ambulance chasing. It was cruel.

The 8 unfortunate women whose lives have been affected by this flawed man’s botched sterilisation operations and problems with the bottle would have gained little comfort from the exercise in persecution. Hasil is as much a victim as they are.

Who is really to blame here?

OK, Dr Hasil is not blameless, but what about:

• the decision makers at Wanganui District Health Board and Wanganui Hospital who failed to carry out the most basic background checks when hiring Dr Hasil. They didn’t even contact his last employer.
• the recruitment company who held back a damning reference from one of two referees (yes, just two) listed in Dr Hasil’s CV.
• the string of employers who failed to address Hasil’s obvious health problems.
• the Medical Council, who could have done more to obtain information from their Australian counterparts.
• the whole unwieldy New Zealand health edifice which has left the Wanganui Hospital so short of medical staff that they find it necessary to cut corners. Too many administrators – not enough doctors and nurses. Overworked staff. A vicious circle of destruction echoed around the country.
• the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons who should have a one stop shop database of information about their members.

Who will pay when the lawyers start on the compensation hunt?

We all know who will pay. It’ll be the long-suffering taxpayers and ratepayers when the District Health Board is sued. It’ll be the patients whose care will suffer because of funds diverted to the battle and staff diverted by the process.

Who should pay?

• The recruitment agency.
• The individuals at the DHB who failed in their duty. Not the organisations to which they belong.

Every time an MP, a Minister, a council, a cop, or a raft of other perpetrators does something stupid which results in litigation the taxpayer pays the costs and the damages.

It’s time the individuals shouldered the responsibility for their actions. Maybe we could then look forward to a little more care being exercised before decisions are made or libellous statements uttered.

Responsibility

And after all this and various other fiascoes, the DHB Chief Executive, Memo Musa, still has his job.

Curious.

Originally posted this morning in new zealand matters.

You never had it so good – well, not quite

During the current government’s regime the average earner may be earning a couple of hundred dollars a week more, but take home pay adjusted for inflation has only risen by $10 a week.

The dreaded “bracket creep” is to blame.

Labour says it just shows how important it is to keep inflation under control.

Yeah, right. If the inflation hadn’t had occurred you wouldn’t have got the pay rise and anyway as I stated above the figure is adjusted for inflation.

Welfare state to the rescue

There’s an exception. If the earner has children, the income redistributing Working for Families package will compensate – at the expense of those who don’t have kids and by turning most of the population into welfare beneficiaries.

If you didn’t know before where Michael Cullen’s whopping great surpluses come from, you do now.

Those of you who didn’t read Len Goldsack’s letter published in yesterday’s Chronicle about Norm Kirk’s super scheme may wish to read my post (click here) on my blog New Zealand Matters.

I don’t find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Len very often – in my opinion his left bias is a little extreme. On this occasion he’s spot on.

Because, collectively, we were sucked in by electioneering subterfuge, dissembling and outright lies we threw out the family silver.

Nothing beats being an informed voter.

Wanganui Gas have generously decided to fund the gas flares that will stop you from falling off the boardwalk after too many pinot noirs at your favourite downtown watering hole.

Who are they kidding? That gas isn’t free. Somebody’s paying.

If you’re a Wanganui Gas consumer would you care to guess who?

Then again, maybe they’ve been reading about this on my other blog:

Forget climate change. The Arabs can keep their oil. We can run everything on salt water.

Don’t believe me? You can see it for yourself right here .

Salt water burning. Not just burning, but powering an engine. There’s the picture »

All our troubles are over, right?

The inventor, John Kanzius, splits the molecules of water into oxygen and hydrogen and burns the hydrogen. Seems like a nice man too.

Hang on a minute, isn’t there a catch?

Well, now that you ask, yes.

It’s all been done before, albeit in a different way. In the breathless news reports nobody thinks to ask, “How much energy goes into the RF generator which initiates this miraculous process?”

There’s the small matter of the Laws of Thermodynamics which our fearless journos don’t seem to know about. Wouldn’t it be nice if journalists and TV presenters were educated and knowledgeable people.

Don’t get your hopes up.

Then again, I may be wrong. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Jonathon Schell, is a man of many accomplishments. With spare elegance he has encapsulated my generation’s legacy:

“Nature, once a harsh and feared master, now lies in subjection and needs protection against man’s powers.”

“Yet because man, no matter what intellectual and technical heights he may scale, remains embedded in nature, the balance has shifted against him too, and the threat that he poses to the Earth is a threat to him as well.”

Think about those cupfuls of oil. They add up.

Whether you’re a climate change evangelist or a skeptic, you can’t escape the fact that we’re fouling our grandchildren’s nest.

Seriously.

One world, one people, one chance.

What does this have to do with Wanganui?

Quote Mayor Michael Laws regarding a questionable addition to the splendid riverfront walkway:

“I also want to acknowledge the generous support for this project from Wanganui Gas who have offered to provide gas flares which will light up the area at night. They will work in with architectural designers Praxis to ensure the flares are used to best effect – it will be stunning.”

So, we’re all encouraged to install compact fluorescent lamps and leave the car in the garage but it’s OK for Wanganui Gas, with the endorsement of Council, to burn our rapidly vanishing supplies of gas for such a frivolous purpose.

It’s environmental vandalism.

More next post.

The Heart of Wanganui

One way or another we’re going to spend a lot of money on this project - even if we stick with the status quo.

We’ve already spent a bundle on architectural reports.

So where has it gone?

Have a look at the council’s very own Heart of Wanganui website created, but not obviously maintained, at your expense. There you will find, among other redundant news:

• A last council report dated August 2006,
• That the “choice will be made by referendum in mid-2007.”
• You’ll see “what happens next?” Err, umm … the timetable for November 2006!

Did I miss something? Has my “No junk mail” sign worked too well?

What’s happening Michael? Is there a Vision?

This is not just a Wanganui problem. It happens all over the country, particularly on our state highways. In come the contractors, they tear up the roads, and at vast expense they lay new surfaces.

A few weeks later the tarmac is pristine not longer. The lovely smooth and expensive surface is full of potholes and ridges.

Travelled along London Street lately? Or Carlton Avenue? It’s a disgrace.

Why does it happen?

Is it because the contract goes to the lowest tender and that there’s no properly agreed performance standards or penalty clauses for substandard performance?

The engineers in charge are highly paid, highly educated, and certified. Why can’t they repair a road?

Is this rocket science or what?

How much of the responsibility lies with Council employees who let the contracts and should be overseeing results?

It’s more than a disgrace. It’s money down a hole, sorry, lots of holes in the ground.

Your money.