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Networkn
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#2273889 10-Jul-2019 11:48

tdgeek:

I don't think I said they mismanaged EQC funds? Maybe what I said seemed like that, can't recall.

EQC was mismanaged. They had kids being paid $75 per hour to scope houses. One scoper was fired as he got his 18yo daughter doing that. The repair process was a farce. Poor work, so much rework. EQC was heavily mismanaged, its not a case of EQC funds being mismanaged although that occurred indirectly. Off course this was a new ball game, and you cant help but expect issues, but they were big and ongoing, Ian Simpson going and replaced by the Orion guy didnt change anything. So, National mismanaging EQC funds? No, thats not what I or anyone else meant, not directly. Perhaps they should have done better in managing these issues as they occured, but thats hindsight, but it was very very bad, and its still not finished 8 years later

The 11B hole was a myth was it not? IIRC how the spreadsheet they use shows the ongoing costs of a policy, such as a pay increase for public employees, and how that appears to each subsequent budgetary period, something like that. Im not aware that has reached the news of late

EQC was mismanaged, and financially that cost taxpayers big.

Sorry, I misread this. The bow drawn to say National weren't financially prudent kinda made it sound like to me at first glance like it was primarily a financial thing.

The 2 EQ's in CHCH were unlike anything we had experienced before, on a scale never really imagined (I guess a lot like Katrina). I can imagine a shedloads of mistakes were made, some really sad and frustrating stories. I am not sure how you prepare for something like this, but could it have been done better, absoloutely, by whom and under what circumstances? I do feel the Kaikoura earthquakes were handled a lot better, as were Wellington, would you agree?

I do recall recently there was an article about the hole, OK found it:

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/05/steven-joyce-s-11-7-billion-hole-claim-to-be-proven-correct-economist.html

Sure, it could be bias claptrap, but in theory there is some sense in what is being said? Just out of curiosity, would you expect heads to roll if it was proven correct (or close)?

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#2273922 10-Jul-2019 12:18

I can see how my wording could be construed as such, particularly how we have been bashing heads of late.

I dont know how well Welly and Kaikoura went, but certainly no fallout of any sort that I am aware of, which gives it a clear passmark. Chch, it wasnt so much what went wrong, it was it kept going wrong. No comms. I think most of us can manage failures and bad news if we are kept in the loop, but even small things when we are kept out of the loop are really annoying. Expand that out to what some people down here were dealing with, and it was really bad for them. Me, I didnt have issues that bad, but me and others I know heard horror stories from the repairers. I feel there was little chain of command from top down.

I dont know about the hole, but you can certainly reconcile what was budgeted for and see those fundings in future years. AFAIK that was spelled out. The article appears to be drawing a conclusions for new fundings? Take teachers pay, if the budget allowed for $x and what ended up was more, thats not a big hole event. Those of us that do or have done financial reports, they are variances. Not funding holes. We budgeted 600 mill it was 750 mill, that happens. Just as we budgeted for tax collection of 40 bill it was 43.2B, that happens, and it happened this year I recall.

Whether its bias, exaggeration, you cant escape the numbers, the actuals will be reported from Treasury, and the parties can see the end results, whatever that may be

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#2274535 11-Jul-2019 11:17

networkn:

The 2 EQ's in CHCH were unlike anything we had experienced before, on a scale never really imagined (I guess a lot like Katrina). I can imagine a shedloads of mistakes were made, some really sad and frustrating stories. I am not sure how you prepare for something like this, but could it have been done better, absoloutely, by whom and under what circumstances? I do feel the Kaikoura earthquakes were handled a lot better, as were Wellington, would you agree?

The Minister was the obstacle. There was plenty of media coverage of the abject shambles that was the initial couple of hundred million wasted by EQC on damage assessments / scopes - that all needed to be redone. There was plenty of media coverage with evidence of the abject shambles that was the EQC/Fletcher EQR home repair program and a warning that what has happened with botched repairs was going to be of the scale that it is.

The Minister denied that there were issues, when undeniable evidence was put in front of him he claimed that these were only isolated examples. He was an attack-dog - pushed the concept that those complaining about clear wrongdoing were whingeing and ungrateful, and that it was his government generosity rather than binding legislation (by way of the EQC act), and that the ingrates should be thankful they were getting anything at all.

I spent two years living in my house that I'd paid full insurance and EQC levy on, in conditions where it should have been condemned, it wasn't even close to weather-proof, no effective heating, half of the windows were smashed and boarded up, I was forbidden to fix it myself - even inexpensive temporary repairs to make it more liveable - or EQC would "cancel my claim". I caught EQR staff and/or a contractor who did a fraudulent $12k transaction for no work carried out - only managed to prove that as a staffer at EQC accidentally sent un-redacted documents by mistake after I made an OIA request. I was compensated and received a thorough apology - but only after their brick-walling was exposed by me sending back to them the unredacted documents that proved beyond any doubt that they were lying.

Meanwhile, the Minister was on a mission to create an illusion for the rest of NZ that the people of Christchurch were all getting "free paint jobs" at the taxpayer's expense, and that if you weren't happy, you were a "moaner and bleater".

Would someone else have been able to do better? That's an unanswerable question, but it's hard to imagine how anybody could have done worse.

Wellington after the Kaikoura quake was only a small fraction of the scale of Chch.

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#2274545 11-Jul-2019 11:29

I am very sorry you went through that, it sounds terrible.

It's unfortunate, that in situations like these, there are unscrupolous people who will take advantage of situations to cheat, steal and defraud people.

Fred99

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#2274594 11-Jul-2019 12:50

A problem is that there's an expectation that corruption/fraud is unsophisticated - like some fake invoicing scam, fingers in the till from an employee with some bad expensive habit etc.

In that case, I guess I proved that an "irregularity" happened. I couldn't show for certain who benefited, nor that it wasn't a "mistake" or just a stupidly thought out contract. Well-planned fraud is usually like that. I had plenty of exposure to that when I was working in contracting in Aus - far less in NZ. We believe we're less corrupt, that's perception - nobody knows the reality.

networkn

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#2274598 11-Jul-2019 13:00

Fred99:

A problem is that there's an expectation that corruption/fraud is unsophisticated - like some fake invoicing scam, fingers in the till from an employee with some bad expensive habit etc.

In that case, I guess I proved that an "irregularity" happened. I couldn't show for certain who benefited, nor that it wasn't a "mistake" or just a stupidly thought out contract. Well-planned fraud is usually like that. I had plenty of exposure to that when I was working in contracting in Aus - far less in NZ. We believe we're less corrupt, that's perception - nobody knows the reality.

I believe a percentage of it occurs in a fair number of decent sized projects. The building across the road from us, had about 30 skips during construction, people were driving by at night and dumping stuff in them. I needed to get rid of some stuff, but couldn't get my head around just doing it, so when one of the managers walked past one day, I asked. They were reluctant, but eventually agreed in exchange for a small fee. I agreed and paid it. I ended up having a bit more stuff than originally expected, tossed it anyway, and dropped a box of beer at the site managers office, who knew nothing about it, was outraged a staff member had taken payment for it. Turns out the guy had been doing it quite a bit. We didn't see him on the site after that. Small scale obviously, but smaller project than an entire city rebuild.

I am not excusing this behaviour, or the experience you had, however, I don't reallly feel this would have happened under different leadership. You can't close every potential gap, unless you don't want to get anything done. Most people felt there were already too many checks and balances in place slowing things down, so it's a balance thing obviously.

Self checkouts at supermarkets are an interesting comparison. Having discussed with the local store manager about times I've seen people apparently sneaking stuff by, and asked her about it, he said that what they save in costs, more than covers even moderate theft. Many retailers I work with, factor a certain amount of theft into their cost of sales and they don't take additional expensive steps to prevent particular types, because the cost of it exceeds what is taken.

I once saw the amount of stuff they lost in a month and was truly shocked, there are a huge number of thieving people around.

Fred99

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#2274606 11-Jul-2019 13:27

I guess the thing that annoys me is that there seems to be at times a lack of determination/effort by government to investigate and prosecute, but that seems to depend who the alleged offender was - perhaps more than how much was taken.

As far as nailing fraud goes, I suspect there's bipartisan reluctance to strengthen laws protecting whistle-blowers, our Protected Disclosure Act is very weak as far as protection for the whistle-blower goes. It may seem okay in theory, but proving that you were treated unfairly after making a disclosure is a problem, and the act requiring that a whistle-blower use internal (to the organisation) processes before escalating to the Auditor General or Ombudsman is an obstacle to transparency.

This reminds me - I need to change banks.

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

networkn

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#2274614 11-Jul-2019 13:56

Honestly, this is just the way things are. We were defrauded by a trades person of around $2500. We had clear evidence of it, and rocked up to the police station. They did have a look, spent an hour with me, said they would call back, which they did. Declined to prosecute, despite the evidence was that he was doing it over and over. The discussion was that there was SOME wiggle room in the defence, meaning the cost of prosectution was likely to be pretty significant in terms of crown resources. The amount taken was sigificantly less than that, so he got away with it. (He ended up on Fair Go though for the second time, and his fathers company is now bankrupted and

I guess it depends how big of a Government you want, and where you want the resources spent. To chase down this stuff, would require a lot more people, and if there were more people would you want them across this instead of doing other things anyways? I guess the answer would vary from person to person. The person affected may feel strongly yes, others maybe not as much. (Worthwhile noting there is a strong correlation between the size of a Government and how much corruption is occuring)

I don't want to minimize your experience, that's not what the comments above are about, but to say the Government couldn't have done much worse, probably isn't near true, it could have been much much worse. Look at New Orleans and Katrina. If the Bush administration was managing it, you could still be in your home in it's original state. Sounds like, at least from your perspective, they also could have done better.

wsnz

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#2274728 11-Jul-2019 16:43

Fred99:

Meanwhile, the Minister was on a mission to create an illusion for the rest of NZ that the people of Christchurch were all getting "free paint jobs" at the taxpayer's expense, and that if you weren't happy, you were a "moaner and bleater".

That's certainly not the picture it painted for myself or any of my colleagues. No one I know was under the impression that every affected resident of CHCH had their claims settled quickly and promptly, and all issues were completely resolved. Quite frankly, given the extent of the damage, I'm surprised how far repairs/development has progressed.

After a few years, we're still fighting our insurance company over a simple burst water pipe causing damage to the kitchen. I would have thought that could have been resolved quickly, but no. I don't hold much hope for resolution of a major claim.

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#2274733 11-Jul-2019 17:05

I love this quote from the late Ross Perot (replace GM with government)

“I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At GM, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is go hire a consultant on snakes. Then you get a committee on snakes, and then you discuss it for a couple of years. The most likely course of action is -- nothing. You figure, the snake hasn't bitten anybody yet, so you just let him crawl around on the factory floor. We need to build an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it. “

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

networkn

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#2274734 11-Jul-2019 17:09

Peta would be outraged

Fred99

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#2275049 12-Jul-2019 09:15

wsnz:

After a few years, we're still fighting our insurance company over a simple burst water pipe causing damage to the kitchen. I would have thought that could have been resolved quickly, but no. I don't hold much hope for resolution of a major claim.

Doesn't surprise me - and that's really not comparable.. Insurers will usually cover for water damage if it's a sudden leak, not if they can pin it on lack of maintenance - which opens a can of worms as to whether they cover the damage at all.

It's a bit different when your house has been shaken to bits by an EQ - they can't realistically argue that they're not liable.

Anyway, that's private insurers not EQC. You can sue private insurers. You can't sue EQC - and you couldn't sue Fletcher EQR who were acting as an "agent" of EQC, thus governed by Act of Parliament and subject to how they (under direction of the minister) were interpreting the EQC Act. You could (at vast expense) seek a determination in the High Court, as some people did (collectively - to share the immense cost), then EQC - reporting to the Minister - could appeal or ignore the High Court anyway, which they did on several occasions.

There were shenanigans with private insurers, some of which still aren't resolved, but dealing with EQC/EQR was a whole different kettle of fish, and people being treated extremely unfairly had no practical recourse except to appeal to the minister - who repeatedly rubbed dirt in their faces.

I only managed to get out of their grip by getting full information through an OIA request, that paper trail proved bad behaviour beyond any doubt and confirmed fraud, I had a visit from EQC head office, a morning pouring over the paperwork with the senior manager holding his head in his hands and promising to sort it out - which he did. Others weren't so lucky - EQC clamped down on OIA requests, either stalling release indefinitely, or sending only partial information, heavily redacted.

After clearing that, dealing with my insurer was relatively straightforward.

At the root of the problem was that successive governments of both flavors had failed to increase the EQC levy over decades, thus the size of the disaster recovery fund proved to be inadequate to cover the scale of the disaster - just as they had been warned by EQC that it would be inadequate. If there was a surprise, it was that ChCh got hammered rather than Wellington on which they modeled costs.

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#2275063 12-Jul-2019 09:28

Next time, I will watch them doing the repairs. Ours wasnt anything bad, but it was still poor

Cracked walls, repaired by painting over the cracks

Missed foundation cracks

Fixed a pre existing crack in garage, didnt fix the new one

Didnt fix cracks in ceiling

Walked in and started painting garage floor immediately after previous days repair. Glad I swept and hoovered it that morning

Broke the vanity so replaced it with a second, that had an obvious imperfection

Removed skirting in bathroom, rebuilt floor, vinyl laid, put back old skirting (I guess thats ok) 8mm above the floor, freaking hell

I asked if they can paint the skirting in the other rooms, they said yes, $280, never billed me

If I was doing a reno and got people in and they were bad it wouldnt be this bad

Rikkitic

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#2275073 12-Jul-2019 09:38

Dingbatt: I love this quote from the late Ross Perot (replace GM with government)

“I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At GM, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is go hire a consultant on snakes. Then you get a committee on snakes, and then you discuss it for a couple of years. The most likely course of action is -- nothing. You figure, the snake hasn't bitten anybody yet, so you just let him crawl around on the factory floor. We need to build an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it. “

That sounds like a great idea. Good old boys with weapons excitedly rushing around the factory pursuing real or imagined snakes, shooting each other in the foot. So much better than asking an expert who has made a career of studying the problem and has years of practical experience and actually knows something about snake eradication.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

networkn

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#2275074 12-Jul-2019 09:39

In an ideal world all repairs would have been done to the highest possible standard, they would have taken their time, and a qualified supervisor would have been involved and a happy client sign off would have been required. In reality, they had thousands upon thousands of repairs to complete, not nearly enough people, let alone supervisors, and had they have taken the time to do a great job, there would still be many people more waiting for their repairs to be done.

I can totally understand why anyone would be unhappy with that quality of work, but realistically, I am unsure how it would have been possible to do it and still meet everyones expectation of repair timeframes as well. As it was a lot of people had to wait far too long.

It's not really fair to compare private renovation to this I don't think.

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