Notes for Tuesday 18 June 2019
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What is in this Newsletter?
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1. Garry writes
This week I attended the funeral of a wonderful man, Yuejin Feng, who has lived in Christchurch for the last couple of decades. Yuejin was an extraordinarily talented linguist who in a very quiet and modest way, built bridges between his beloved Wuhan, where he was born, and Christchurch, where he chose to live.
Through Yuejin’ s assistance Christchurch and Wuhan developed sister city links. Sister Cities are often misunderstood by people. They are viewed, constantly by the media, as junkets for politicians and bureaucrats to travel at enormous cost to the ratepayers. Most Sister Cities of Christchurch make sense, bar maybe two. I never understood the link to the City of Christchurch in the UK. Our City was named after Christ Church College Oxford, in the UK. I always felt that a Sister City link to there would make enormous sense, for our Tertiary and business institutions. I felt the same sense of “why are we here” with the Sister City link to Songpa Gu in Korea.
Yuejin worked tirelessly, mostly behind the scenes, to establish, while he worked at Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC), a network of people who understood the need to have a wide-reaching relationship with one of the emerging Cities of China. We already had a relationship with the Province of Gansu, across the other side of China, where Rewi Alley, a son of Christchurch, did his great work.
Over the years the relationship evolved and many personal, business, academic and research relationships have developed. This is a rich and rewarding link between the two Cities. As the world gets smaller, because of technology, the importance of Cities, people to people, reaching out to each other and crossing national boundaries is of fundamental importance. While Central Governments debate the big issues, City to City around the world relationships flourish and we get on with important things, like getting on with each other! Peace in the world happens because people keep talking to each other.
Peace is only possible because we have interpreters and tireless servants to the peace process, like Yuejin Feng. His passing is a huge blow to both Christchurch and Wuhan. However, his legacy is a City to City relationship which will flourish well into the future.
Yuejin Feng was a special person. I will miss him a lot.
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2. Last Weeks Speaker - Bill Reed at Turanga
Last week we travelled all the way to Turanga. There we joined Te Putahi as they hosted Bill Webb, a planner and Urban Designer from USA.
I found it fascinating to observe the large number of young people who attended the talk. It demonstrated a hunger for this sort of sideways thinking. Local Body politicians need to feel empowered when they push for this sort of thinking to become mainstreamed. All it takes is leadership and commitment to supporting those whose voices may not necessarily be talking conventional talk. It’s time to listen to those who represent the desire by people to embrace this City, which is made up of many villages, becoming a world leader in community nurturing.
Thanks to the team at Te Putahi for another excellent choice of speaker. A link to the video of the talk will be published in the next Tuesday Club notes.
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3. This week’s meeting - Ann Brower on the Pastoral Lease Process
This week we have Ann Brower, an environmental geographer, who is currently a senior lecturer at the Geography Department at University of Canterbury. Ann has studied the vexed issue of High-Country leases and has been a fearless advocate for the process to be considered in a transparent manner. Her specialist area is environmental policy, particularly in relation to state-owned lands and natural resources in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. I have always enjoyed Ann’s openness and courage in stating her considered opinions in a fearless manner. I have always hoped that that was the responsibility of those who hold positions at our University. Here is somebody who practices it.
This week Ann will take us through the Pastoral Lease process and give us her well researched opinion on just what is happening and what we should be paying attention to.
On 22 February 2011, Ann was on a bus travelling along Colombo Street in the central city area of Christchurch when an earthquake struck. The parapet of unreinforced masonry on the building at 603 and 605 Colombo Street collapsed onto the street, crushing the bus and killing eight passengers and four passers-by. Ann survived and was rescued by members of the public and taken to hospital.[4]
Later in 2011, Ann Brower testified at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into building performance in the Canterbury earthquakes.
In September 2015, Nick Smith, the Minister for Building and Housing, invited Ann to join him when he announced changes to the Building Act which were a result of her advocacy: unreinforced buildings with façades and verandas that are in public spaces frequented by pedestrians and vehicles would be required to be assessed and repaired in half the normal time. Smith called Ann Brower a "true New Zealand hero";
In 2018, it was announced that Ann had won the 2017 Critic & Conscience of Society Award from the Gama Foundation.
I look forward to hearing Ann speak.
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4. Hate Speech
One of the areas where Duncan Webb identified as being an area of hate speech was some of the opponents of 1080, and how they behave. It was interesting to watch this podcast in Newsroom this week interviewing Jan Wright who as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment bravely supported the use of 1080.
Jan said that without 1080 our forests would go silent. Here’s the link to the podcast:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@podcast-card/2019/06/13/632779/1080-were-lucky-to-have-it
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5. Global Warming - the Pacific
One of the first places which will be severely affected by Global Warming will be in the Pacific. An interesting battle for 21st Century financial colonialism is in this region. This was covered this week in this article https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/06/04/619389/where-the-pacific-fits-in-the-security-debate.
The part of the article which caused me to really think was the part which identified that one of the largest issues in the Pacific, after China and USA, was Global Warming. The part of the article which really hit home was this:
But there seems to be a disconnect between what some nations see as the priority for the Pacific, and what those in the Pacific itself believe. That was perhaps best illustrated by Rear Admiral Viliame Naupoto, the acting commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, who said there were in fact three elephants fighting for influence at the moment: China, the US, and climate change.
“Of the three, climate change is winning - climate change exerts the most influence, if you like, on the countries in our part of the world,” Naupoto said.
Taylor agreed, describing climate change as the “single greatest threat to the security of the Pacific” and calling for the securitisation of the issue to bring the rest of the world into the fold.
“When others want to come into the region, we want to know what are they going to do to align themselves to our agenda - not we align ourselves to their agenda.
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6. The culture of Government being “joined-up” is demonstrated
I always smirk as I read the efforts by journalists, wedded to the next 5 minutes news, questioning whether or not this Government is making changes quickly enough to Government delivery. They ask, with a sense of breathlessness, is the Government achieving the changes they promised when they were elected into office? My advice to (mostly) young journalists would be, next time you are out in a canoe tie a rope onto the end of your vessel. Then tie the other end to one of the cruise liners in the harbour. Then try and turn that ship around into your desired direction. Then sit back and get somebody, who knows nothing about shipping, to write up their observation of what you have achieved. That’s what any reforming politician faces. It requires fortitude and consistent messaging, and the cooperation of many parties. It is slow, and for a long time nothing much seems to be happening. Then, slowly, things change.
I was delighted to hear Ron Mark on Morning Report this last week being interviewed about the Government’s proposed military spend. He talked about Global Warming. He talked about peace in the World, and the small part we could play. He spoke about the Pacific and our responsibility to our brothers and sisters of that region. All great stuff. This article, in the Press last week, was a beauty https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113389596/why-does-nz-need-a-military-for-more-reasons-than-you-might-think.
This Military decision was an excellent example of joined-up thinking. It demonstrated that the cruise liner is being moved around. We have, as a nation, undertaken all these things for years, but Ron Mark enunciating this, and putting it within the framework which the Government has established, was great news.
When I was in Antarctica, we sat on the edge of the Ross Sea and Emperor penguins came out of the sea and stood right in front of us. This experience was a salutary one for me. We were not predators to the penguins. Therefore, they trusted us. When I thought about it, that’s the same with Kiwi’s as peace keepers and trusted people in peace activities. Consider this. We have no large country surrounding us. We have no predators, other than idiots like Trump. We’re surrounded by water. We aren’t a predator to those in the Countries we are participating in as peace keepers, or assistants in rescue exercises. We trust people and they trust us.
That’s why this policy is brilliant; and affirming of us as a people. That’s why the article above is an affirmation of changing our thinking. That’s why we must encourage every Government department to adapt to collaborative thinking and joined-up delivery. That’s why every young journalist should have to read this article and think about its content.
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7. Should we have a re-think about the size of our stadium
I read the column by Mark Reason in the Sunday Times last weekend with great interest. One part of the article, about Steve Tew resigning as CEO of Rugby NZ, stood out for me. It reminded me of the days when Steve was the CEO of Canterbury Rugby and I was in the hot seat at the Council. Every debate for Steve was a ruck and maul. He put the ball in; and then stood on it. His view was to be fought over, regardless of any other consideration which the Council had to balance amongst the many demands from a wide range of ratepayers, many of whom never went near the facilities which rugby saw as theirs, as of right.
The only way I could ever get any balance in the debates was to have the Chair of Rugby with us as Steve told us what he considered Rugby had to have, as of right. Steve’s voice reflected the emerging era of the professional game, with all of their demands for the public to meet the costs of their sport.
We are further up the path of professionalism now than we ever were when I was at the Council. Money is everything. I once travelled to an Urupa with Bill Bush, a wonderful All Black in his day. We were talking about the amount which professional players are being paid now, and who controls it. Bill mentioned casually that when they played a Test match when he was an All Black, they were paid $2.50. He had recently talked to an All Black who had been paid $22K for the previous week. Somebody has to pay for this, and it will only come from huge corporate coffers.
What worries me is that the people who surround Steve Tew all think the same way. Every debate is a ruck and maul. In our case the people who have been appointed to review what sort of stadium we need might have the same mentality which Mark Reason is so critical of in this article https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/113303677/mark-reason-new-zealand-rugby-must-put-people-before-greed.
The bit in the article which leapt off the page for me was this, with special emphasis on the part I have underlined below:
When chairman Brent Impey spoke of the search for Tew's successor I got the shivers. Impey said, "We're going to go to the open market. International, local, internal, external, male, female. We're going to make sure we get the best candidate. That process will start shortly.
"You'd say preferably [it would be a New Zealander], but we're not putting any restrictions on it at this point. If you look at it from a revenue point of view, the opportunities for New Zealand Rugby are international, they're not domestic, but that's not the only criteria that you take into account."
Maybe "the revenue point of view" is not the only criteria but tellingly it was the only one that Impey mentioned. He said nothing of ethics, of grassroots investment, of free-to-air television, of Pacific inclusion or of looking for someone at the top of New Zealand Rugby who does not belong to the Pakeha old boys’ network.
Too many boardrooms around New Zealand are populated by the same old people who lap up the gravy and then hide under the table when it is time to pay the bill. New Zealand Rugby is far, far more than a business. It belongs to the people. It should be a union that looks after all.
The people who really matter in this game are not Kieran Read or Beauden Barrett, although of course they do matter, if not in quite such a grotesque financial sense. The people who should come first are the boys and girls, the young men and women, who come off a pitch joyful in the feeling of having achieved something together.
The question I will repeat, do we have the right people reviewing this project. Are they just members of the “Pakeha old boys’ network” referred to above? What place is there on the advisory panel for other views, or other sports? Maybe we need to have a close look at who exactly is on the panel advising the Council.
There is no denying that we need a new stadium. However, I suspect that those who are the close advisors of the Council are pushing for too much. We will analyse this matter a bit over the next little while. Maybe it should become an item for debate in the Local Body elections this year.
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8. What we can do toward Global Warming, a continuing series:
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9. The Catholic Church restructuring and land sales
There was considerable debate during the week as another Church institution engaged in internal debate. Once again, my observation was that the saying “you can tell the Christians by their love” seemed missing from the room! Essentially here is an institution which is in desperate need of change; and yet it still appears to be performing under a very old Code of Practice.
I found it really interesting to receive a phone call from one of my old Parish Priests. I am very fond of this man and he played a significant role in my life. He is a wonderful servant priest. His call was to express concern that I had spoken publicly about the Bishop’s pastoral letter which was distributed last Sunday at Mass.
What worries me is by critics remaining silent, the power of the existing hierarchy (which is seriously out of synch with a much-changed world) is reinforced. Some of the great Church reforms over millennia happened through debate. Just think about Martin Luther correctly challenging the corruption of the Catholic Church.
The current Pope is, in my opinion, one of the World’s great leaders. At the same time, he sits as head of the institution which urgently needs massive reform. We need to support him. Support manifests itself in open discussion and strongly challenging the current status quo.
We will continue questioning the actions of the local Catholic Church hierarchy, and their close advisors.
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10. The Case for Corporate Entities in the Public Sector Questions
There have been too few debates about whether the corporate model, imposed on our country by Labour and National Governments over the past few decades, being made mandatory for much public decision making, was a good idea. I found this article by Rob Campbell sobering reading and something for us to think about. Rob is the chair of SkyCity, Tourism Holdings, WEL Networks and Summerset. He trained as an economist and originally worked as a unionist before eventually becoming a professional director.
This article was printed in Newsroom, an on-line news report organisation which is a truly great media outlet in this country. I soak up Newsroom each morning. They carry excellent reports like the one below each and every day.
Comment: ‘We took corporatisation of the state too far’
Rob Campbell, who was deeply involved in the corporatisation of state assets and local bodies in the late 80s and early 90s, argues some are now too dividend-focused and unaccountable to their communities.
I was around in the 1980s when economic reforms introduced corporatisation to wide areas of the public sector. What happened in central government was followed in many aspects of local government. I was involved as a director in many of the processes such as NZPost becoming an SOE, the corporatisation and subsequent privatisation of Government Print, and Wellington City Transport to name a few.
In subsequent decades I’ve acted in various capacities within or in relationship with the many public but corporate entities. In nearly every instance the process has generated efficiencies and improvements in their operation. We have moved on from running our economy as David Lange memorably put it “like a Polish shipyard”.
There have also been costs, primarily felt by the individuals and communities who lost jobs in the process. Only the most fervid advocate of corporatisation would deny that we failed to match zeal for efficiency with equivalent energy and focus on the social costs of change and transition.
I have had cause recently to give thought to some of the agencies running today under the corporate model at local and central government level. It seems to me that there are a number that need a re-think.
First, some of the agencies which are corporate or even fully or partially privatised exercise market power to the detriment of the community. The owners have become addicted to the dividend stream. I’m not going to name them. They, their owners and you know who they are. This outcome is a lapse from the logic which originally drove corporatisation which was that both ownership/control forms and market structure were vital to efficiency. Competition rules and processes should be strengthened or the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Second, some things have been corporatized which should never have been. I’m struck by the many agencies which have expensive boards and executives duplicating activities and mis-allocating resources while claiming independence from political control which serve nothing but the interests of those same boards and managers.
Corporate form is not a good in itself. It is a means to an end which works well in competitive markets with traded goods and services. It has no particular logic in monopoly social services.
Third, in the process of corporatizing many activities we have missed the bigger opportunity to decentralise control and delivery to communities and to activate those communities around the activity. Some wise people have shown me recently how vital it is that solutions are found and recreated within communities not delivered from above in standard, 'take it or leave it', form.
Even some of the better efforts to recognise this struggle under corporatized governance forms which were devised for a different purpose and culture.
.. what passes for sound corporate governance of public sector activities is simply the equivalent of basket weaving occupational therapy for those involved.
Fourth, we have found ourselves removed from effective control of agencies which remain important to us.
There is a great number of activities which communities do not need to control, and provided sound market structures are in place (not by any means always the case as noted earlier), private ownership will do what it does best including keeping users happy. The market has a strong form of accountability in this situation.
But when a community or government has decided democratically that some activity is not of that kind then accountability does not have to be abandoned to experts or corporate structures. With our corporate structures we have excessively weak forms of accountability which are bureaucratic and formulaic.
Elaborate reporting structures and form filling which signify not much at all and let appointed boards and managers pretty much do as they see fit. No capitalist would put up with it, so why should we?
I am not suggesting that we return to old public service or local government process. But we do need to recognise that corporate structure is just one of many forms and is not well suited for all activities.
To my mind much of what passes for sound corporate governance of public sector activities is simply the equivalent of basket weaving occupational therapy for those involved.
When I read this sentence, I thought about the plethora of agencies we have in this City right now:
I’m struck by the many agencies which have expensive boards and executives duplicating activities and mis-allocating resources while claiming independence from political control which serve nothing but the interests of those same boards and managers.
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11. Greening the Red Zone AGM
The group which is working so hard to promote greening of the Red Zone has it’s AGM coming up this week.
The meeting is on Monday, 17 June, 7.30pm, at Avebury House (9 Evelyn Cousins Ave, Richmond)
The AGM will be followed by a talk given by Sarah Wyse about forest ecology and also the impact of fires, which are more likely to occur in a warming world.
There will be a discussion panel afterwards, with questions taken from the floor. Refreshments will be available after that.
It is only $10 to subscribe (subs can be paid to bank account 12-3148-0251336-00). It is important to maintain some momentum during a relatively quiet period before decisions will be made that will transform the Red Zone into a major Christchurch attraction.
All welcome.
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12. Housing Challenges in NZ, its time to Think Differently
There has been a lot of discussion about Kiwibuild and the Government’s housing policy. I suspect that people are tiring of people bashing at the policy. People are starting to look at the whole policy framework.
I wondered if I was just living amongst people who don’t like Judith Collins beating up Phil Twyford day after day in Parliament. I guess people remember how little National did about housing. Then I read this in Hugh Pavletich’ s daily missive on housing. Eric Crampton could hardly be called a limp wristed liberal. Here’s what he had to say:
From Kiwibuild to Kiwis Building ... Dr Eric Crampton ... The New Zealand Initiative
https://nzinitiative.outreach.co.nz/?Ns=&Na=view-msg-public&SMESG-oid=22150&Scontact=2149250d
At its heart, Kiwibuild was a promise to end the housing crisis. The set of reforms Minister Twyford is overseeing can fulfil that promise, if he has the chance to see them through.
The housing crisis has nothing to do with government failing to build enough homes. It stems instead from a nasty mess of perverse incentives facing growing councils, debt limits, infrastructure financing problems, and difficulty in revising district plans under RMA processes – as a starting point.
If the prior National government understood any of it, there was scant evidence of that understanding in policy. While Kiwibuild also missed the point, the policy is only a minor part of the government’s housing supply agenda – despite the disproportionate attention it draws. Focusing on the notable failure of one part of the package makes for great political sport but does nothing to advance housing reform more generally.
Last February, I warned in this newsletter that Kiwibuild could never solve the housing crisis. The targets set were utterly unrealistic and the fundamental blockages lay elsewhere. In response, the Initiative produced a report sharply critical of the programme.
But my Insights column also said that the government should be given a pass on its likely-to-be inevitable failure to hit its building targets, but only if it made sufficient progress on the rest of the supply agenda.
That more fundamental reform is coming. It has been slower coming than we would like, in part because Kiwibuild has proved to be a distracting millstone. But, done properly, the coming changes to infrastructure finance will be transformational.
Infrastructure supporting new development will be financed by bonds backed by levies on the properties benefitting from the infrastructure rather than depending on overstretched Council balance sheets. It will enable leapfrogging of existing landbanks and help unlock housing affordability.
No Member of Parliament understands New Zealand’s housing policy problems as well as Minister Twyford. Shuffling him from the Housing portfolio might bestow a political win on National, but it will come at substantial cost to everyone harmed by broken housing policies.
New Zealand has to build its way out of the housing crisis. Enabling that building is the most important task. And Minister Twyford’s broader agenda is our best hope of getting there. Focus less on how many houses the government builds, and more on the development enabled by the coming reforms.
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13. Getting People to own their own homes. Here is a petition for you to sign if you believe in home ownership
Having read the article above I was delighted to sign the petition which has been established by a coalition of Community Housing providers, called KiwiBuy. It’s promoting the right of every New Zealander to own their own home. Have a look at this site https://kiwibuy.kiwi/ and then sign the petition. We need thousands of New Zealanders to sign it.
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14. In Conclusion
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A note about the Tuesday Club...
The focus of the Tuesday Club is to ensure that this City has transparency at all levels in our society. From time to time we will identify people, and issues, and analyse what they are doing and comment on what we think the issues really are.
These comments are not personal but will focus on key positions and those who hold them and analyse the matters which may or may not be being addressed in a transparent manner. Shining a torch on an issue will assist us to understand matters better and also hopefully assist people in key positions to do their job better.
If people are upset about what we say, or how we go about it, then we expect them to respond. Our forum is open and local issues are important. We need to get steamed up as local residents and vigorously debate issues. That’s what the Tuesday Club welcomes and promotes.
We all must have a commitment to Christchurch being a successful, open and vibrant place to live. |
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So, if you have a free hour come along this week....
This is another in a series of talks where we are trying to encourage democratic involvement by the people of Christchurch. We are analysing what is happening in our city and supporting each other’s engagements in our various communities.
We are keen to support many different forms of leadership and play our collective role to ensure that Christchurch becomes an international beacon of hope after a disaster.
The Tuesday Club – It’s time to Talk
Where? This week: Notes for Tuesday 18 June 2019 6-7.30 at Smash Palace
If you know of somebody who would like to attend then bring them along and we will add them to our email list. Forward this to friends using this link and they will be added to the list - able to unsubscribe at any time of course.
“Everything is alright in the end. If it isn’t, then we’re not at the end.” John Lennon.
“Democracy dies in darkness” the by-line of the Washington Post.
Please note my e-mail address has changed to garry@garrymoore.nz
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