Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Yesterday morning, I thought I’d start my programme with another call to rationalise or even nationalise our water and wastewater operations. 
This is prompted by situations facing Waikouaiti, Karitane and Turnberry who have now been joined by Akaroa.  Towns whose basic necessity, water, has been poisoned by lead and opossums.  They join a long line of shameful water management including our capital. 
If the government wants a shovel ready infrastructure project to get their teeth into then fixing the nation’s water supply should be at the top of the list. 
But that was yesterday. 
Today we’re back in lockdowns.  Called faster than ever before, which caused a strange pandemonium. 
I have a great sympathy for all the Cafes and hospitality businesses, who suddenly had just minutes to hours to sort their stock out.  Frantically trying to save food before being forced to throw it all out and the money it represents. 
But I understand the need for health services to crack on.  I’ve always found it strange that having decided a lockdown was necessary we delayed the lockdown for days.  It’s not like the virus takes any time off.  It’s always working 24/7. 
What I don’t understand is the panicked exodus to baches that occurred. I understand that lockdown is better at the beach but what part of Stay Safe Stay Local do the beachgoers not understand?
Are they aware that the locals hate the invasion because of the pressure already basic medical services and supply chains for smaller supermarkets?  Do they not understand that they could be just like the woman at the centre of this current cluster who felt she didn’t have the virus.  That meant she felt free to ravel.  That meant she could have introduced the cluster to New Plymouth. 
Anyone of the bach refugees could be introducing the virus to retired populations in Pauanui, Whitianga, Keri Keri or Mangawhai. 
Are the bach refugees also aware of the disdain they’re held in by the people whose businesses are forced to shut down in lcokdowns? Their sacrifices are being ignored.  The exodus completely negates the purpose of lockdowns to halt spread, when Aucklanders are spreading themselves all over the island. 
Finally, we have a vivid example of why you should scan the codes.  The woman at the centre of this cluster thought she was sweet and took a roadie to Taranaki and neglected to scan.  Leaving the good people in New Plymouth in a state of suspended existence waiting for the worst. Will she be able to remember the places she went in a town she is unfamiliar with? Was it so hard to spend five seconds to hold a phone up to a QR code?

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I want to talk about governance.
Governance is defined in the dictionary is the way rules, norms and actions are structured, sustained , regulated and held accountable. 
It’s the job of governments in public life and board in corporate life. 
But I view governance differently.
To me, governance is the trick of actually doing something, actually achieving something and actually running something for the greater good.  You know, governing.
I’ve been moved to talk about governance because of continuing failures in this nation and overseas by the people who are charged with it. 
In reality, Governance is not what governments do.  Politicians can’t run a thing.  Sure, they make decisions and plot directions but they then hand the job over to a workforce who are supposed to be professionals at getting stuff done. The professionals at governance. 
When Phil Twyford said the last government would build 100,000 houses he made an enormous blunder.  But part of that blunder was the inability of the public servants in his charge at making any of it happen. 
The Simpson Roche report that was sneaked out just before the holidays has ample examples of that failure. 
The politicians determined the amount of PPE to be purchased and handed the job over to supposed professionals to get the stuff ordered and distributed.  They failed and then fudged that failure to the governing body. 
I was reminded of all this again with the tragic story of the New Zealander in Japan with terminal brain cancer, who just wanted to come home, but was refused permission. 
This was decision of a civil servant who brutally applied the criteria without engaging a brain or a heart.  As soon as the politicians heard of the case and how obvious the need was they reversed to bureaucrat’s bad governance. 
With public servants like these, politicians don’t need enemies. 
It was the same last week when testing was ramped up for Covid in Northland resulting in fearsome capacity restraints and queues. I don’t blame the politicians for this but the Ministry of Health and DHBs for not predicting the flaming obvious. Where was the flying squad of testers ready to swoop into hotspots at a moment’s notice?  We’ve had nearly a year to figure that out. 
The failures in MIQ are failures at the ground level.  The people through the government ordered the public servants to design a quarantine system.  It’s full of holes.  Different sites, different systems and no one on the ground using common sense. 
If they need politicians armed with law or philosophy degrees or just a desire to do good, to tell them how to do it, you have to ask why we have the so called experts in public policy and governance at all. 
Many people talk about holding our politicians to account. What we really need is the government and the media holding the frontline and our public servants to account. Because they’re the ones who keep letting the so called team of 5 million down.

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For as many foes as the superhero fends off, Batman has a formidable team of supporters starting with his sidekick Robin, Gotham City Commissioner James Gordon and his ever-loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
But one of the Caped Crusader's most fervent supporters lies not in a comic book, but in the US Senate, and he's known the Bat for more than 80 years.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and the longest-serving member of the current Senate, is a Batman aficionado who's turned his fandom into philanthropy. He's even used the comics to forward his legislative agenda.
Now President pro tempore of the Senate, Leahy is third in the presidential line of succession. Though it's unlikely he'll ever have to serve as President, his high-profile position shines a brighter light on his colorful resume -- which includes multiple appearances in the "Batman" films.
When he's not working in the Senate chambers in Washington, Leahy retreats to Gotham, where Batman fights cartoonish villains and mans the Batmobile. It's a comfort he took up when he was 4 years old.
"If you live in the real world all the time, it can be kind of boring," the senator told Vermont alt-weekly newspaper Seven Days in 2008.
When Leahy met Batman
Leahy declined an interview for this story through his spokesman, but his affinity for all things Batman is well-documented. As he wrote in the foreword of "Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman," he was born just one year after Batman's first comic published in 1939.
He first discovered Batman at age 4, when he received his first library card. He frequented the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, where he spent many an afternoon poring over comics. While his school friends raved over Superman, Leahy found a "kindred bond" with the Bat.
"Entering Batman's world through my imagination opened an early door into a lifelong love of reading," he wrote in his foreword.
He'd continue spending hours at the library each day until adulthood, and even after he moved to Washington, he'd make time to pop in. He's a vocal advocate for literacy and the preservation of libraries so children can have similarly formative experiences with books.
"Some of my fondest memories as a child were at the library, where everyone fit in and possibilities were limitless," he writes on his Senate website.
Leahy's appearances from page to screen
Leahy was elected to the Senate in 1974 and until the mid-1990s, his affinity for Batman didn't have much to do with his duties on Capitol Hill.
That changed in 1996, when Leahy collaborated with DC Comics to create "Batman: Death of Innocents: The Horror of Landmines," a graphic novel warning of the dangers of landmines. Leahy has long advocated to end the use of landmines, and he told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he placed copies of the comic on every senator's desk that year.
Leahy's first foray into screen acting -- something he does strictly when Batman is involved -- came in 1995, when he appeared in the critically reviled "Batman Forever." The same year, he voiced a character billed as "Territorial Governor" in "Batman: The Animated Series."
Since then, Leahy has appeared in nearly as many "Batman" films as the Caped Crusader himself. He usually appears as a scowling politician (though in "Batman & Robin," which his son Mark also had a cameo in, he was allowed to enjoy a raucous party). He even met an explosive end as the curiously named Senator Purrington in "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice."
"I explain to everybody that getting blown up was OK 'cause my wife's a registered nurse," he joked to Roll Call in 2016. "She put me back together and I never missed a vote."
His most notable cameo, though, came in 2008's "The Dark Knight," when he confronts Heath Ledger's Joker and famously tells the villain that he's "not intimidated by thugs." The Joker, true to form, responds by grabbing Leahy's...

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So Covid is in the Community. No great surprise, we all knew it was just a matter of when. 
Last week I hosted ZB's Drive Show and started with an editorial as you always do. 
In it, I railed at New Zealanders pathetic usage of the Covid App. I criticised opinion writers like Peter Dunne and Richard Prebble who spent the summer dissing the app.  I shamed the vast majority of customers at my supermarket who breezed past the QR code without scanning it when the process takes seconds.  I know that because I got my son to time me. 
I got a lot of support but also a lot of criticism. One comment stuck in my mind from a bloke called Michael.  Michael told me to “Jump in the River, Mate. You’re so self righteous.  I’ll scan when there’s community transmission and not before”. 
So, how are you feeling about that now Michael? 
The infected woman left MIQ on Wednesday January 13.  She started feeling iffy on Friday 15.  She finally got tested on the Friday 22, it was confirmed on Saturday and announced yesterday. 
So the virus was in the community for a week, Michael.  But because you didn’t know, I presume you weren't swiping.  I wonder if you went shopping at Helensville Countdown last week.  I wonder how many people who went shopping at Helensville Countdown swiped in.  Based on what I’ve seen all over the country, I would venture five eights of FA. 
Not using the app until there is a case in the community is like refusing to wear a seatbelt until you've had a car crash.
The app works on most phones.  It works on cheap smartphones which you could buy if it doesn't work on your old clunker. It works even better now that it has Bluetooth and yet so many of us refuse to use it. It’s not the government’s fault.  Its yours. It’s either massive laziness or childish petulance.  Ask yourself what your motivation has been.
After the announcement at 4pm yesterday, there was disappointment and some anger at the delay in the release of the public places the woman had visited in the week, which we know number 30. 
They were posted on the Ministry of Health and media websites at 9pm.  Five hours later. But if app usage was widespread the people who needed to know would have been pinged and would know even if they hadn’t heard the news. 
The app is fast, efficient and the only defence we have other than social distancing.  And it stands between us and lockdowns. It may not work on older phones but, my god, it's a lot better FA.

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Speaker Trevor Mallard has been accused of destroying an innocent man’s life, after falsely accusing a parliamentary member of being a rapist.
Mallard's in the firing line amid revelations taxpayers footed a $330,000 bill for his settlement and legal costs of a defamation action - after he wrongly called a staff member a rapist.
Newstalk ZB Political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens the Prime Minister and Labour Party are not living up to their own words and values.
“If Jacinda Ardern pleads well-being and kindness as she does, there has been none of that applied to the man at the centre of this.
“He’s now very ill as a result of the accusation made against him, his life has been destroyed. That is not well-being or kindness.”
LISTEN ABOVE

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Mallard, Bubbles and how good are those Black Caps. 
They seem to be our current pre-occupations. 
Let me deal with the dead duck walking, Speaker Trevor Mallard. The calls for him to resign or be sacked have been almost universal. They will be universally ignored because Labour controls the House. Not just controls. Dominates. 
There is no need for them to spill their own blood on the floor and in the scheme of things a third of a million is chicken feed compared to the welfarism they continue to fund.  For instance yesterday over $170 million was pledged to keep air freight moving. 
But here’s why I think Labour should give a damn about the Speaker and give him the boot. 
In all the debate thus far we’ve heard about 2 men. One who accused the other of being a rapist who in turn claimed he was defamed. But what about the woman who raised concerns in the first place. The woman whose case was described so glibly by the Speaker that resulted in the stalemate we’ve reached. Her concerns appear to have been buried
The reason any of this came to pass was because of the independent review into Bullying and Harassment in the New Zealand Parliamentary Workplace conducted by Debbie Francis that was released in May of 2019. 
It concluded that Parliament was a toxic workplace with a systematic bullying and a sexual  harassment problem. Case studies were included in the reports and it was while commenting on one of them that the Speaker stuck his foot in his mouth. 
The concerns of the woman involved have now been completely superseded by the actions of 2 men. It’s a former of abuse in itself.
Furthermore, the Speaker is in charge of the House.  It is his responsibility to implement reforms to make Parliament a safe workplace.  Trevor Mallard has shown a complete  inability to comprehend the complexities of abuse.  His casual use of the word rape and claims he doesn’t understand the exact meaning of the word rules him out of being able to  be the steward of reform. He's just not smart enough or he just doesn't care.
The Prime Minister would do well to force the Speaker to leave and replace the old dinosaur with someone with more empathy, tact and intelligence. 
She owes that to all the women who work at Parliament. 
She also owes that to all the men who could be wrongfully accused of harassment.

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So we’re talking Whakaari White Island again. 
That’s not surprising as the one year anniversary arrives on December 9.  But it is surprising we’re also talking about Worksafe prosecutions  
Last week, Worksafe announced that it would be taking 13 parties to court, including 10 organisations and three individuals. Those charges and what they were charged with remains confidential allowing the parties to apply for suppression when  the charges are presented to the Court. 
However a number of organisations including GNS have been prepared to admit they’ve been charged. 
The release of the intention to prosecute so close to the anniversary I thought was not very worksafe by Worksafe.  Employees already wearing the emotional baggage of shock and guilt were suddenly named and by inference shamed. 
I know I was already reflecting on the day.  I was on air at the time and I clearly remember discovering a timelapse CCTV shot of the crater featuring a party walking towards the crater.  A moment later the time lapse showed a smoking hell. That affected me profoundly. 
A little bit of sensitivity might have been in order with the prosecutions announced at a more sympathetic time. 
After all, those charged already know what they did or didn’t do and what they could or should do better.  These prosecutions are to find a criminal negligence as opposed to an accidental negligence. We need to know all that went wrong.  Including Worksafe's involvement in the island's management.
We would be better served by a proper commission of inquiry that would provide a more objective basis for learnings. 
I was thinking of those learnings today reading about a couple who survived.  The husband wearing shorts and T shirt burnt on 50% of his body.  His wife with long sleeves and leggings burnt on 25% of her body.  A simple warning to wear long coverings may have saved lives.  Issuing flameproof overalls would have increased the survival rate dramatically. 
The anniversary has also seen stories of extraordinary bravery in our media but also graphic accounts of the viciousness of the volcano. 
This weekend’s article on the doctors at the Burns Unit in Middlemore and what they dealt with and how, was particularly gruesome. The unit was already suffering with overwork and when over 20 victims with horrific injuries both from steam and hydrochloric acid arrive the workload became immense. 
It reminds us how reliant we are on specialised medical professionals. A recent conference of the salaried medical professionsals pointed out that we are heading towards a crisis in slow motion. 
Specialists are special people.  Their training takes dozens of years.  Surgeons need an extraordinary physiology.  A recent report found that the average age of specialists in this country is 57 and rising. We need a new wave of these amazing individuals and we can’t leave it to luck that they’ll suddenly appear.  

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Everything is relative, said Einstein. Nothing can be measured and assessed if we don’t have a focal point where everything can be measured and assessed on. 
Apples can only be measured against apples and oranges against oranges. 
It something that you should bear in mind when assessing our response to Covid. 
If you look at New Zealand in isolation then it is fair to say the actions of the Government have been a dreadful burden for the country to bear. And in doing a series of lockdowns, we have caused unprecedented economic damage. 
But to put to assess it correctly you need to look at it relatively. 
First thing to do is look at it with a time scale.  This is an evolving situation stemming from a single time point in late March.  Every day that goes past alters the relative effect of the actions.  Every day that we have Covid free is a day that improves the outcomes and its relative effectiveness. 
In the early days of the Covid battle, much was made of the countries with more lenient lockdowns and measures and their ability to trade more fully than us. And that was true. For a limited time, they did better. 
But with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the advantages of full domestic trading versus partial domestic trading.  Every day we trade at 80 per cent capacity is exponentially better than a day at 60 per cent. 
When the government said that the health response would be the best economic response that was only able to be confirmed after time passed. 
In the past week Bloomberg did a thorough analysis of the economic and social outcomes of the various responses and found that New Zealand is the world’s leader.  Beating other countries regularly touted as better traders than us such as Taiwan and Australia. 
Leakage of the virus at the border is also only assessable in relative terms. On Saturday is was revealed that isolation and quarantine rules have been breached every 36 hours in MIQ.  76 incidents in 27 of the 32 facilities since the start of August.  Nearly four months ago. 
Again, that has to be put into relative perspective. MIQ deal with 7000 people every fortnight. Or nearly 60,000people in the same time period. The incidents make up 0.1 pr cent of all cases.  I know we’re aiming for perfection but that’s pretty damn close. 
I guess what I’m saying is that is often easy to only see the glaring faults but in relative terms we are still a success with upside to get better.

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Nicole Grey first dreamed of becoming a cop as a teenager, and, at age 24, she thought it would finally become a reality.
However, after waiting for about two years to get a place, she says she was told just days before she was due to start training in Wellington that she couldn't attend.
She'd had a busy couple of years - in the space between applying and getting accepted she went through a marriage breakdown, did a tester course on what police life would be like and worked part-time to support her two young children.
"The same 24 hours that I signed my contact into police college, which in itself is an achievement, I stumbled across an article on the internet which mentioned adult ADHD."
Listen above as Grey shares her story with Andrew Dickens

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The Auckland Council is warning that they’re going to be in financial doo-doo because of Covid for at least four years.   
There are rumours of dramatically increased water charges and rates amidst a reduction of services. 
Auckland is not alone.  Wellington is talking about rate rises of 23 per cent. 
It’s not good. There’s a billion dollar hole in Auckland’s finances.   
One of the reasons is that 60 per cent of the council’s revenue comes from Auckland Airport and City Events.  That’s gone. 
Blame has also gone onto declining dividends from the Ports of Auckland.  But can we blame Covid for that?  I don’t think so. 
There are now supply chain warning all over the place in the New Zealand economy.  My chemist has run out of my aftershave and says there is no sign of new supplies.  There’s a 16 week wait for wallpaper to arrive. There are warnings that Christmas orders will never appear. 
Covid is being blamed for the situation at our number one import port in Auckland.  But how come imports are being transferred to the Bay of Plenty  and Ports of Tauranga are now putting on four extra trains to ship goods to Auckland?   How come Tauranga is working and Auckland isn't?
The plain truth of the matter is that Ports of Auckland is operating well below capacity and they can’t blame Covid. 
The Port has been undertaking a five year automation project.  Three new mega cranes appeared one day a few years ago, raising the number of cranes to eight. 
Yet they’re not working.  Three work during the day and two at night. That’s a third of their operating capacity. 
The Port is also short 50 stevedores.  Specialised positions that take extensive training.  You can't find these skills overnight.  There obviously hasn't been a long term employment plan.
We have a shipping company in our building and this morning I talked to some of their staff.  The forthcoming supply chain shortages they put down to industrial action in Sydney and the Ports of Auckland failing at it’s core business. 
None of this can be blamed on Covid. This is a five year plan that has not been implemented proficiently. 
The chickens have come home to roost and it’s a tragedy that this coincides with a global pandemic. 
For years Ports of Auckland have done whatever they wanted, meanwhile demanding Aucklanders cede even more of their harbour. 
What we’ve got now is a Port company that is helping to ruin Christmas, hobble our economy and raise our rates. And I’ve got no aftershave. 
It’s just not good enough. 

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