NBR is playing hard to get, giving their pay-wall concept a tough test. They've just done some upgrade that requires us all to log-in afresh before we can get behind the pay wall.

I like what I buy. That’s why we pay for several subscriptions.

But having to log in at all is a hurdle. Having to do it again almost justifies letting the subscription lapse.

Lucky for IT people that web-crawling is so solitary. Otherwise road rage casualties would  be trivial beside the pile of IT victims of “log-in rage”, for demanding long-forgotten passwords.

Radio NZ reports that numbers are down at Waitangi by more than a third. But Radio NZ should never have risked being the first with such news. It gives the game away. They're gloating.

They've spent the entire day working hard to make sure there'll be even fewer there next year. Sure they also reported John Key's urging of people not to stay away from Waitangi celebrations. Radio NZ think they've put us off the scent.  But it's not enough.   Key's plea is just too pathetic. If he sounds that way he must have meant to.  Perhaps the PM is now playing his part, just as Radio NZ is.

With its cover blown we can reveal just how clever has been Radio NZ's psyops. Those with eyes wide open might have realised that something was up when Richard Griffin was secreted onto its Board.  But few of us thought he'd be cunning enough to maintain exactly the existing pattern of weekend programming.  Brilliant!  Nothing could better strengthen the determination of the people to steer clear of anything to do with the so-called "celebrations".  After listening to RNZ today, no healthy New Zealander will want anything to do with the kind of people who would waste a sunny day generating or listening to the kind of intellectual piffle to which the Treaty worshippers treat each other on Waitangi Day.

Even without  the mistake of RNZ's report (of numbers down) perspicacious listeners will have joined the dots if they'd managed to listen for most of the day. Hours of whiny interviews this morning with indigenous persons from around the world. 

Admittedly there was a refreshing interview with a descendant of Henry Williams. She is drawing on family letter troves to write about what actually happened 160 years ago. That must have been inserted at the last minute to fend off a leap in the national suicide rate. Because I can't find her name or a reference to the interview on the RNZ website. I guess promoting her might have given the game away.

After more hours of driving New Zealanders to demand that Waitangi day become just a summer holiday, as welcome and as innocent and joyous and empty of significance as the provincial anniversary days, RNZ finally got to humour at 4 pm.  Radio NZ  hilariously called this late afternoon prayer session the  2011 Treaty Debate Series.  The people chosen to "debate"  today could not, surprise surprise,  find anything at all on which to disagree. So they did not try. Just like last week.

Forcing myself to listen to Joris de Bres today I realised the true genius of this covert scheme. They've used 100% people with no sense of irony, and no committment to historical integrity. So they will never realise that they are being used as 'dog whistles'. Marvellous. The brain dead  regular listeners hear it all  as one  stimulating call to self worship after another. The rest of us, accidentally stumbling onto weekend National Radio hear the 'dog whistles' for what they are – urgent commands to  to the great majority of our citizens to "go way out". The whistle tells us to get as far away as we can get from the State's dreary Ceausescu inspired annual promotion of the "new New Aotearoa". In this world of virtual history, political privilege and power are  unashamedly allocated according to race.  As in Romania, our State has enlisted the arts and culture elite, nearly all on the State payroll,  to make it look as if the people are celebrating their masters' wisdom.

Only a few short years ago we called  that kind of state and that kind of constitution by its simple name – racist.  New Zealand signed up to a United Nations declaration calling for us to end all discrimination on the grounds of race. We appointed a Race Relations Commissar to ensure we were a colour-blind state. Thousands of people marched to demand an end to racially defined voting and privilege and political entitlements in South Africa.

Today's inheritor of that role, Joris de Bres was one of the comedians in the so-called "Treaty Debate".

1840's He iwi tahi tatou did not get a look in. Instead our Race Relations Commissar  prayed for constitutional changes to ensure the "just and equitable  status of Maori as the indigenous people of this country…. with a special constitutional status under our constitution".   

Still, I am reassured by the depth of the cunning now being unveiled. The National government is leaving all the academic pseuds in their favoured positions on bodies such as the so-called Human Rights Commission. It is promoting a nakedly racist Marine and Coastal Areas Bill, completely inconsistent with the Treaty's promise of equality before the law, and respect for genuine property rights. That must be to create long-lasting hatred amongst neighbours around our coasts. A dreadful cost, but perhaps the architects of this scheme feel they must try  to discredit the whole Treaty. The grubby piece of work has already blown up the Maori Party, leaving its more decent and practical MPs hostage to the bullying racists in Maoridom.

In my opinion discrediting the Treaty is an unnecessary over-reaction, verging on the disgraceful. The Treaty itself, without the fraudulent principles, is a rather thin but still relevant and  sound set of honourable promises, which should be kept. But let's be charitable. Given how well the psyops scheme is succeeding at Radio NZ,  Chris Finlayson may have volunteered to sacrifice himself to this dirty work. If history mistakenly reviles him I hope some insider will some day reveal his true motivation. Then, if it works, it might all be worthwhile.

 Newstalk ZB has an unscrupulously selective and misleading account of my blog comments and discussion with their journalist. Perhaps that's why they've not linked to this blog, despite having got the story from it.

I'm not surprised. It leaves them more free to make up the story.  But it is a good illustration of why our elected politicians must be so mealy-mouthed.

My job does not depend on whether media will  quote selectively to create claims and controversy where there was none, and to ignore the real points.  No MP would dare go into the territory I went into for that reason.

Here is a reaction typical of what our leaders now have to fear. The reaction is not unreasonable, given the misleading broadcast she would have heard.

"There was not much of your interview played on Newstalk ZB. 

Not surprising.

"Your comments were highly offensive.  But not only this, they were ignorant and ill-informed.

Sufficient to say that many, many people are living in (literally) frightening houses and face a void of information, support and help". 

Are you up for a house swap?"

 And my response:

I have no doubt that many people are living in frightening houses. I'm sure that more of the EQC effort should be for such people. But I strongly suspect that my informants are right, that one of the best ways to deliver that would be to cut out having to deal with the relatively trivial losses. That is the normal principle that makes insurance affordable. The higher the deductible the lower the premium, in a win/win trade-off, because the administrative cost of dealing with small claims can be the same as for dealing with big ones.

I can't be a persuasive judge on whether I'm ignorant and ill-informed since I was reporting comments I heard from a range of Christchurch people. As they were commenting on their own direct experience they seemed to me to be valid. Of course they might not be representative, but the thing that interested me most was the journalist comment that no one was willing to explore such issues publicly.

 There is a problem for our democracy when everyone in authority is too scared of being accused of lack of compassion. There is no robust and useful debate if one side can be silenced with "how about a house swap" (and other variants of the claim- "you can't speak unless you have shared our suffering").

That kind of reasoning results in one handed clapping on a whole range of issues for New Zealand. We have an entire Parliament of people bidding for votes with money they will then borrow from countries poorer than us. Almost no one dares argue for sensible things – like cutting the cost of ACC by allowing people lower premiums in return for carrying minor claims or the first week of wages themselves, or higher national super in return for a later start date, or better benefits in return for more rigorous work search conditions etc etc. 

Update:  Friday, 4 February:  CTV in Canterbury have done a pretty balanced item on this: 

http://www.ctv.co.nz/videopop.php?vid=1206506455&url=http://www.ctv.co.nz

Newstalk ZB Canterbury contacted me yesterday over Monday's post, asking if I was saying "harden up Canterbury".  The journalist said that no public figure had been willing to express publicly the kinds of thoughts I'd recorded, but it had made her think because she was still waiting for someone to deal with their cracked chimney.

That was exactly the kind of  situation I'm worried about. Chimneys are simple to pull down. I took down 2 of them from our current house years ago when I found the mortar crumbling. One gave us extra space. The other was replaced with a flue by a plumber. Cheap, easy and as I recall no consents needed.

She recorded  a balanced discussion.  I explained that I was not blaming Christchurch people. Instead I was speculating that the EQC scheme was destructive. The vast load of compensating for minor damage that almost everyone could bear as just one of life's reverses, seemed to be delaying help for those who'd suffered serious losses for which insurance was really needed. But worse, its availability and the deadening need for local authority consents was bogging thousands of otherwise resilient people in a passive mindset of waiting when they would have otherwise sorted themselves out quickly. I mentioned the Thais who were renowned for gettting back to business as usual largely themselves after their genuinely tragic losses to the tsunami a few years ago. 

She recorded  a balanced discussion. I'd be glad to hear from any  Christchurch person who hears it, how much of the interview is broadcast. I fear that it might be played selectively, to whip up resentment at daring not to ooze undiscriminating compassion for all, the needy and the undeserving alike.

[Thursday afternoon – to avoid doubt – I did not say "harden up Canterbury". I told Newstalk ZB that clearly. I told them that the issue was whether  the EQC terms should be revised, with the regulation that delays building work.accompanies  ]

  I discussed the following this afternoon on Jim Mora's Panel after reflecting on a matter raised at two great parties in Canterbury this month.   

Cantabrians now have insurance assessor stories to add to their “sick of the aftershocks” stories. They are not boring, at least to a Wellingtonian waiting for the big one. But I was particularly interested in worries expressed about the culture  engendered by the claims hoopla, and the morality it rewards.

Though some have lost significantly, many have lost very little. But I'm told there is a climate of claiming for everything, and being encouraged to claim. The media and official assurances are legitimising overclaiming, and a sense of grievance among people if they are not promised prompt help to have even trivial cracks and cosmetic damage repaired.

One guy told me he’s had between $10k and $20k of work approved for what he says are cosmetics though he would have been quite happy if they’d said , "Sorry mate, too trivial, we’ve got important things to spend money on". As he said, "I’d be a mug to object, indeed I’d be a mug not to claim when we’re all being urged to claim. I could have filled the cracks in the Gib and repainted myself". He went on “I’m benefitting, but I worry about where the money is coming  from, what it will do to insurance premiums for everyone, and the useless helplessness people are encouraged to think is normal”.

An engineer who is 100% on claims investigation told me that quite a few of the houses owners had been told were “written off” could easily be fixed and made perfectly liveable. There may be a loss in value, for which compensation could be paid. But people have been encouraged to think their lives are on hold for what could be years till Father Christmas decides their future.

According to him the Earthquake and War Damage Commission is too scared of critical headlines over sob stories, to tell people who should be told – "harden up". Meanwhile people who really can not help themselves are in a queue twice as long as it need be. 

I thought of this when John Key was asked by Katherine Ryan last week what was the most important issue facing New Zealand. John said “the economy”. Perhaps – But I think at a level below that – the issue could be loss of the soul and spirit of New Zealand, our traditions of stoicism and self reliance. Canterbury reports of people whining about their lives till the authorities have made them whole are not a great foundation for us getting back to paying our way in the world, earning as much as we spend, which we last did nearly 50 years ago. Ever since we’ve been living high by borrowing the savings of others overseas.

How amusing to see repeated references to having not lost the money spent on recapitalising Air NZ as a reason why SOE's need not be partially privatised to be successful. First, Air NZ is listed. Its legal obligations to its minority private investors have been a defence against being forced by political masters to do stupid things, like maintain uneconomic services, or to give in to union bullying.

But more importantly:

a) private ownership saved us taxpayers from the inevitable after the Aussie government reneged on the open skies agreements, and sank Air NZ's Ansett strategy (which may well have been a dog even without Federal Minister Laurie Brereton's perfidy). Instead, those losses were borne by the private investors who held the "silver" at the time, including the Singaporeans who controlled Brierley Investments. These were not the only silver we saved. For example, Sir William Birch's hated sale of central North Island Forests gave taxpayers around $2bn. Most of  that was then lost by buyers Fletchers',  Brierley and a Chinese Government investment vehicle.

b)   claiming that government ownership is responsible for Air NZ's success characteristically ignores the real reason why some businesses soar and others crash, even in hard industries where more fail (or suck in capital for little return) than succeed. The real difference is leadership. We taxpayers may owe most of our Air NZ thanks to two outstanding Chief Execs, Ralph Norris and Rob Fyfe, and the Chairman John Palmer.

Leadership can of course emerge and flower in many kinds of organisation. SOEs, co-ops, armies, departments and partnerships can be brilliantly led. As in most things in life, the differences among the different structures are in likelihoods. The conflicting motives that bedevil political appointment processes and the frustrations of having political masters does not drive away all talent. Nor does private ownership guarantee prompt replacement of incompetents, or eliminate misuse of corporate assets.

The difference is just in the comparative likelihood of incentives being aligned with high performance, and with managerial scope to be bold, and with pathology being rooted out promptly.  Even a small difference in the likelihood can make a huge difference in the culture, and in outcomes, over time and over many cases. 

The following came to me prompted by Wednesday's post on the PWC report on the Police. I'd describe the source in journalistic terms as "authoritative". 

It is long, too  long for the attention span of most of us. I started to edit it down, but to understand the cynicism that is corroding the performance and integrity of our Police, you should see this anguish as it comes.

        "A 'complaint' is made.   Often this consists of little or no evidence and simply some innuendo.   

The new EPM (an HR personage called an "Employment Manager") now assumes that the Code of Conduct (foist upon all because of the move to an employment relations regime) requires 'an investigation’.  Of course it doesn't, it simply requires him to determine whether there is any evidence of performance shortcoming or misconduct.    If there is, he can start some sort of investigation if it truly merits some sort of action.   However, commonly there is no regard to whether there is sufficient 'evidence' or a threshold of material justifying the instigation of an inquiry.   Instead, the EPM has been conditioned to believe that because the complaint has been made 'the Department' has determined that this person is to be 'dealt to'.   An inquiry is launched.

From where I sit even if the minority of these instances had some 'very minor issue' we would be hard pushed to construe a performance issue at all.   Instead, the majority, far from having strong and compelling issues were, quite to the contrary, COMPLETELY DEVOID OF EVIDENCE!!   But (now 3 years into the new regime whereby ostensibly managers all understand the 'case for change' and the urgency for implementing the principles of the employment relations regime) we see a system more than happy to advance very serious punitive steps on the basis of absolutely nothing!!!  

Think about it.   You receive a formal notice that accuses you of things you know never happened.  You are also given a notice of stand down.   Effectively you are suspended.   Some are required to stay at home, deliver up their identity cards, phones, are told they may not enter any Police premises and that they are forbidden to socialise or communicate with any Police member.   If you have well over 30 years of high quality and unblemished service – why the hell should you be faced with this??

Without going any    further into it, I know that the present hierarchy are on notice of their shortcomings, are committed to maintaining their present course, are happy to maintain a long (and fine) history of witch hunts and if anything, are grateful for the new verbiage and 'tools' that enable them to manufacture and present 'evidence' that will assist them deftly to their goals.

There is no 'bell curve' of behaviour in this.   If any such bell curve is found to exist on these matters, it would beggar belief.   However, I suspect the bell curve is non-existent and that we have a wholly perverse graph (whatever shape it might prove to be).

On one level the PWC report, touches on key issues that need to be addressed.   It relies on John Kotter's theory of change management but it’s heavy on jargon and platitudes.    In the absence of hard data, it has had to create possible solutions and in one breath it castigates the present hierarchy for not performing and showing enough urgency and in the next, it points out that not everything can be done at once and the steps should be measured.   Most Police will not have a clue how to 'translate' the jargon into meaningful KPIs.    Certainly there is no guide as to how to develop the coherent and simply worded 'story' that is plainly required to communicate an effective strategy  to the masses.

What is missed in all this, is that the present (and new) HR regime can report that it has dealt with various 'non-performers' and 'reactionaries' (apply whatever label you like).   Certainly those people exist in the Department with some abundance however, the uniform pattern in those I know who have suffered its attention, has been of genuine, caring, hardworking and dedicated people.   However, once the Dept applies this 'label' to them, they become 'the enemy.'  

The present ‘change’ imperative requires urgent and definitive steps by District and Area Commanders.    They are happy to 'deal' to these people on the basis of 'the evidence' put before them.    In turn, that 'evidence' comprises lies, innuendo, hearsay which has simply been groomed by the EPM (or similar) to make it look half credible.    Such 'new leaders' aren't to sully themselves with the minutiae of the actual facts and issues and instead, can rely upon the newly hired specialists from outside the Department!    

Indeed, soon after Dame Margaret's report hit the desk, the Police hierarchy went into a form of shock.    It is to be remembered that there were some pretty old school types round the table and none of them wanted to get into the 'warm fuzzies' surrounding 'this PC bullshit'.   Notions of 'good faith' were quite foreign to them and no one would have put their hands up to suddenly train and learn about what precisely had to be done.   Better to be seen to move quickly and to hire experts from outside.  

In comes a former unionist.    That sounds like a good CV and better, he proves to be bombastic, 'in your face' and a 'real non-nonsense' sort of fellow.   That suited the hierarchy, hell he was 'almost one of us.'    Newcomer hires various 'specialists' from outside the department and soon has a whole fiefdom stretching throughout the districts.    Anything remotely smacking of HR work, has to be thrust into this new unit.    Indeed, they are insistent . They can now interfere in operational decision making to an alarming degree.  With operational Police not understanding where the lines are to be drawn between ‘policing’ and ‘HR’, they acquiesce.  

The new unit embarks on various inquiries but soon shows itself to be inept.   First they have little regard to so called employment principles.  Second, they have no understanding whatsoever as to the existing Police culture with the effect that many older, very wise and effective Police officers are labelled 'reactionaries', of the 'old school' and are sidelined and undermined.   Their real world experience is lost to the Dept.  Third, they know little about investigation or even the very law they are charged with implementing.    Lots of paper and systems are thrust around and much training is done but as the PWC report shows (see the table towards the end of the paper) the general performance of this area amounts to a clusterfuck.  

What both PWC and the Dept have missed is that with every witch hunt, there will be 30 people who directly and slightly removed, can see the injustice for what it is.    The culture was so entrenched when I arrived in the early 70s that people took the monthly witch hunt in their stride.    Everyone would talk about 'who was under the knife' with gay abandon.   It was the hot topic at morning tea, lunch dinner, drinks whatever.   It was happening so often, there was always something to talk about!!   The problem was that with every proven and clear injustice (and even where perhaps there was an inquiry with justification) the folklore became more and more rigidly entrenched to the effect that 'the hierarchy couldn't give a shit about you and will burn you down, any time it suits them.'    This was not simply perception, it was cold hard fact.     Therefore, because it was actually based on solid fact, the bedrock of folklore gavie rise to very solid and clear perceptions as to the leadership’s real objectives and to all the related issues.  

There remains rock-solid perceptions that there is an ‘us and them' regime.    Worse, many perceive little chance of a 'fair deal', that they (bosses) will lie and cheat and connive, to cover up their own shortcomings, to lay blame elsewhere or just to 'get' someone they don't happen to like.

The problem:  very little has changed.    Right at the moment, there needs to be a full survey done of all disgruntled officers for the period since the Bazley report began to be implemented.   There will be hundreds.    Only then will the complete absurdity of expecting cultural change within the present framework, be seen for what it is.   Under the old witch hunt regime, everyone knew what it was – 'a witch hunt'.   Under the new 'change management' regime, everyone sees it for what it is, 'a witch hunt with a nice new facade.'

Today, as with yesterday, when those close to the action see an injustice, they tell their neighbour.    40 people know by lunch and by tomorrow, about 2-300.  In a big Police District 1000 could know by the weekend. Only by then, the stereotypical veneers have been added to further underscore the validity of the existing folklore.    Every injustice involves a demonstrated lack of integrity.  Every lack of integrity adds to the layers of bedrock constituting the present culture. 

 PWC reports will be 'nice'. They may generate them a lot of fees over 10 years. They will result in a huge amount of 'running around' by leaders who really don't see the problem for what it is, but mostly, it will be pissing into the wind!"     

If I could find the PWC report for the State Services Commission on the Police I'd be searching to see whether PWC had the insight and the courage to put the blame for slowness in improving the police culture and organisation where it belongs – squarely on the shoulders of the well meaning fools responsible for employment law's creation in the last 20 years of a right to stay in your job until someone can prove you are incompetent.  The SSC seem not to have bothered to make the report available on its website, so we are left to rely so far on media selection for what is important in the report.

It was good to hear Howard Broad on Morning Report defending himself from the unfairness of the attack, and in his bumbling way pointing to the true culprit. What he said rang true to me. I've posted on his predicament before (in 2007 and 2008 (also here) and 2009 )

There is limitless frustration for any employer determined to get the best staff where they are needed. Employment lawyers and unionists might splutter, but for practical purposes it is rational to assume that the law will not let you dismiss or downgrade or discipline without catching the unsuitable person with their hand inthe till.  The law assumes that it is not a sufficient or valid reason that someone availablecould do a better job, or that the chemistry in a team is not right, though no one is "at fault" or that there is not sufficient confidence in someone, rightly or wrongly, or that suspicion is corroding energy or trust or focus, but it is not feasible or worthwhile to try to establish why. Employment law has been allowed to trump company law (directors are liable for leaving duties to be performed by people they have reason not to trust, but they are not allowed to dismiss or demote them unless they've got it proved, and been through the procedural lunacies crafted by stupid lawyers).

More importantly it has been allowed to trump the interests of fellow employees and customers and the community generally in organisations being free to elevate values like trust and merit promotion and speed of response to complaints and the consistency and decisiveness that is essential to build and sustain high performing organisations. Instead they must pretend to place higher value on avoiding procedural mistakes, and avoiding hurt feelings for people disappointed that their bosses or colleagues do not value them as highly as they value themselves.

There is no evidence that the drawn out pain of employment law's processes actually improve the ultimate outcomes even for those tempted into using them, thus feeding the incomes of those who run them.

If Police Minister Collins was determined to empower the good people in her force, and to remove the excuses for inaction from those made cynical by a resistant culturel, she'd  get her Cabinet colleagues to use some of their ration of policy courage to  restore Police leader powers to deploy subordinates without having to bog down in procedures designed by stupid lawyers. 

The esprit de corps of a uniformed force is always at risk of turning septic, against outsiders. From the sound of the PWC report there is a huge pool of lower level leadership in the Police that has ceased to worry about the power of senior leadership to discipline. As Police Association President Greg O'Connor  pointed out this morning the Police is necessarily a command and control organisation.

When an accounting firm pans the Police culture the 'culture' may close ranks. The Government better be very careful indeed or they could find that the mass of the Police will become more cynical and choose to ignore what they'll see as the irrelevant PC concerns of the top, If they are expected to 'transform' without the legal powers to do what is needed, that cynicism will extend to much more than ending the macho culture PWC appears to think is resisting elimination.

When ANZ acquired National Bank from Lloyds it also got the wisdom (for a time) of Sir John Anderson and Steven Fyfe. Steven is to retire next month. I'm sure he will be useful on other boards.

Now both are gone it will be interesting to see how sure footed ANZ is in avoiding the anti-Aussie and anti-bigness sentiments that are the natural predators of our big banks.

Populist hostility to big money is found in most countries. Here it is remarkable how little reflection it has found in policy, since our banks became Australian dominated.

There is, however an increasing force of kiwi staff and ex staff with stories of Aussie arrogance. There is a natural habitat for the local challengers to occupy.

Sean Gabb of the UK Libertarians has a well pitched comment on the attempts by the 'ruling elite' to use the Arizona assassination attempt to justify further infringements of free speech. 

I had thought of predicting that in Monday's post on venomous political speech, but the post was already too long.