Trev’s bloody slide

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
31
1844

Playground at Parliament labelled ‘monument to extravagance’ by National after running well over budget

The National Party says it’s scandalous that Speaker Trevor Mallard spent $243,000 on a kids’ slide.

“It’s a great slide, it’s very attractive to kids and some of us older people as well,” Mr Mallard said at the playground’s opening last November.

Today the price tag of the playground has been revealed at $572,000, well over the initial $400,000 budget.

When Trev announced a Parliamentary playground, I shrugged.

Jacinda was pregnant, everyone was going ga ga over babies being allowed in Parliament and it seemed like harmless #feminism #solidarity #equality virtue signalling.

Give the baby its bottle and playground I thought.

I’d assumed that it was some tiny bit of cash left over in some budget and it was all harmless enough fun.

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The plans looked bleak and about as much organised fun as a Wellington bureaucrat could arrange in a committee meeting so who cared really?

But then I read on TVNZ what this slide plus some stepping stones had cost and my mouth dropped in absolute horror!

Someone please tell me this bloody ‘slide’ pretending to be a budget MacDonalds playground didn’t cost fucking $572k?

Half a million for a fucking slide & some stepping stones while child poverty stats grow & 19 600 wait on state house lists?

How can a virtue signalling gesture cost this much?

This slide costs $40 bloody dollars from Kmart!

$572 000?

What the fuck is it made of? Dragon teeth and uranium?

Look, I’m all for pointless virtue signalling gestures like any of us are – BUT $500 000?

That could buy a fucking state house!

It’s a bloody slide!

For $572 000 I expect a teleportation portal at the bottom of the damned thing that immediately transports me to an Amsterdam coffee shop!

How the loving Christ are we spending half a million on a slide when almost 20 000 are waiting for a state house???

If National had pulled a stunt like this, the damnation from our side would be deafening, but no one has even blinked about this costing half a million.

Labour can’t plant trees, build light rail or build affordable housing, but they do make a mighty fine slide.

Sigh.

 

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31 COMMENTS

  1. What you don’t seem to realise, Martyn, is that such squandering of OUR money and precious resources is not exceptional; it is the norm for both central and local government.

    I recall the $300 cost to replace a light bulb, the $100,000 cost to install an artwork, the $12 million budget blowout for the construction of the Len Lye Centre, the $32 million cost overrun for the upgrade of the Northern Outlet, the $600,000 foot bridges to circumvent a difficult section of the Te Henui walking track (a local contractor had offered to sort the problem in a couple of days for free!), the goodness knows what cost when a tree fell on an unprotected main water supply pipe -causing complete loss of the water supply to much of the district for a up to a week -all when I was living in New Plymouth.

    The system is riddled with hangers on, incompetent ‘experts’, overpaid consultants and promoters of boondoggles -just to keep the money flowing in the right direction….out of the public purse and into their bank accounts, whilst increasing debt levels.

    One of the best scams is the ‘earthquake risk’ scam, whereby if there is no work you declare a perfectly sound building that has withstood multiple earthquakes over decades or even approching 200 years (St Mary’s) an ‘earthquake risk’, and have it reinforced , or even better as far as the operators of these scams are concerned, demolished and replaced, thereby generating even more unnecessary work. Got some rotting timber on sections of the [concrete] coastal walkway? Don’t replace the rotting wood with durable concrete! Replace it with more wood, so that will rot and have to be replaced again.

    Somewhat before my time was the saga of the New Plymouth Post Office Clock Tower, which was declared an earthquake risk. I believe it took 3 days of intense hammering with a swinging ball to knock it down.

    So, expect the newly constructed bridge to be found to have serious design/construction defects and for it to be declared unsafe, so it can be demolished and replaced/upgraded fairly soon.

    Meanwhile Daffy Duck will continue to collect his perks. He may even be in for a knighthood in recognition of his outstanding contributions the nation’s debt burden and unsustainability. Just think, Sir Duck.

    • Don’t hold your breath @Afewknowthetruth.
      I had high hopes for proper public service reform – for both central and local gummint. In fact I thought it was something the coalition should have at least started soon after they came to power. (They’d probably have had support of all coalition partners).
      Instead we get this sort of stuff:
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/119793451/human-rights-for-the-public-service–but-what-about-the-rest-of-us
      AND
      https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/12-06-2020/why-is-a-bill-proposing-to-shift-power-to-unelected-officials-getting-an-easy-ride/
      and it seems they’d prefer it all to be kept under the radar.

      • I stopped ‘holding my breath’ in 2014, when it became blatantly obvious to me that public ‘servants’ would do whatever they wanted, including completely disregarding the Local Government Act (2002), and there was no accountability anywhere, nor any means to hold the perpetrators of the travesty of governance and public consultation to account.

        Nothing has changed since, except that more people recognise the corrupt and inefficient (and ineffective) nature of government and it’s various departments.

        The only thing bureaucrats are good at is collecting revenue and spending it unwisely (squandering it). Oh, and destroying the environment in the name of development.

        • Don’t get me started! 🙂

          I’m not sure what the Code of Conduct says these days, but I’ve encountered ps that couldn’t tell me what was in it (during the times when I was one); still others who would tell me, even demonstrate to me that they didn’t think it applied to them. And that’s before you even get to the contractors. It’s a function of the culture of neo-liberalism (greed is good; tickle down, self-entitlement, TINA et al), and ticket clippers.

          Having said that, there are some bloody good, ethical and dedicated people labouring under a dysfunctional cistern. They’re often the ones who decide to get the hell out of some departments rather than become bloody martyrs.

          Kindness and transformation would be a fine thing, and ever there was an opportunity, it’s now, although it’s probably been missed.

  2. This will be typical of Jacinda’s ‘shovel ready’ projects

    Auckland Council spent 18 million dollars on a cycle way up Queen Street in Northcote for people using the Northcote ferry….then closed the ferry.

  3. NZ’s has the worse brain drain in the world, and we replace those leaving with chefs and labourers and retail/fast food managers.

    We also have the profiteering/gig/subcontractor model with our workforce with even more drop in skills and productivity and now we can’t get anything done.

    This is directly related to how we treat local workers and skills in this country. Employment is now a Ponzi, where nothing gets done, the cheapest tender wins, than runs over budget, doesn’t work for the most part and generally takes years, while those that pay property for the right skills go bust as they can’t beat the undercutting system of tenders where the workforce doesn’t even have the staff for the most part and needs to import them in…

    We have a system where there are middle men on middle men, the actual work is swamped with intermediaries and long winded processes with short term people on contract that have just arrived on the job, peoples mates, cashies, … tenders, recruiters, planning, design, architecture, procurement, project management, contractors, sub contractors, committees, before you know it about 100 people are involved and take a margin off making a slide, and it can end up being made out of asbestos and the person installing it, can’t read the instructions, and is on minimum wages while the slide comes in at $500k+

    Welcome to a country that can’t even make a working cycle lane for millions….

    Wellington City Council unsure how cycle lane just inches wide happened
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/wellington-city-council-unsure-how-cycle-lane-just-inches-wide-happened.html

    Let alone roads or construction anymore …

    Pure Low Wage NZ where profiteering rules, and you get what you paid for in the supply chain, (at the point of what you are paying the last person who does the work who is probably working for free and paying back their wages)….

    Now it’s all about ‘funny money’ for directors who have little idea of what their company is supposed to be doing…. and while it is very profitable for them, not so much for their workers or society.

    Mainzeal loan generated hundreds of millions in wealth, court hears
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/375760/mainzeal-loan-generated-hundreds-of-millions-in-wealth-court-hears

    Concrete safety investigator ‘surprised nobody had been killed’
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/402908/concrete-safety-investigator-surprised-nobody-had-been-killed

    Multi-storey building flaws ‘almost the norm’
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/340396/multi-storey-building-flaws-almost-the-norm

    Apartment complex hit with $32.8m repair bill
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/331505/apartment-complex-hit-with-32-point-8m-repair-bill

    Council unable to identify possible defective buildings in capital
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/403417/council-unable-to-identify-possible-defective-buildings-in-capital

    Keep bringing in those essential skills of chefs and labourers NZ! And make sure that you pay so little that 25% of your country has to work overseas to get ahead!

    Why pay an expert a decent rate, when you can hire 100 other workers on low wages to try to do the same work and their employers can profit more from that model?

      • The biggest ticket chippers are the building materials supply chain dominated by the capital that owns Fletchers. All off shore investor and holding companies.

  4. Maybe they should have given the contract to some overseas outfit.

    Ironic, there would have been discussions about safety and doing everything right so that no kid gets hurt but it would seem that someone while doing that has made a killing.

  5. Welcome to NZ where people open up companies and then flee the country a few years later owing hundreds of thousands (or millions) to creditors and employees… So of course in environment nothing gets done and you don’t have to worry about quality!

    “Capital A & M provides mining was established in 2018 and provided earthworks, landscaping and cartage services in the West Coast area.”

    “Rodewald said Capital A & M owed almost $2.1 million, including $36,000 to staff and $73,000 to Inland Revenue, and Kotze’s shareholder current account was overdrawn $74,416.

    So far, $65,000 had been recovered, including $55,000 of wage subsidy funds recovered from two sources.

    Rodewald said the remainder of the money was gone and was not recoverable by the receiver.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121837941/coronavirus-mining-company-claimed-84k-subsidy-before-director-disappeared

    Mainzeal’s Yan says NZ laws don’t apply in China, won’t pay back $18m
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271022

    Also they love to leave their environmental waste behind too,

    Taranaki oil producer Tamarind ‘may be insolvent’, directors warn
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12284777

    “Receivers called as Tamarind Taranaki placed into liquidation after watershed creditors meeting
    Taranaki Chamber of Commerce chief executive Arun Chaudhari said he understood 10-15 per cent of the company’s $360m debt was owed to local suppliers.”
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118332123/tamarind-taranaki-placed-into-liquidation-after-watershed-meeting-with-creditors

    Rio Tinto
    https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/mataura-asks-govt-act

    Do we learn anything from it, nope…

    Government suspends financial oversight
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300004126/government-suspends-financial-oversight

    Coronavirus: David Parker tells councils to keep consenting during Covid-19 crisis
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121102312/coronavirus-david-parker-tells-councils-to-keep-consenting-during-covid19-crisis

  6. $180,000 for a consultant. Consult what? Oh, I suppose a plan had to be drawn, costed, $2000 tops and that’s good money. There’s a lawyer to consult re rules and regulations and T’s and C’s, another $2000. Now, there’s still $176,000 to fill, what have I missed?

  7. What a sad man Nick Smith is. The totally irrelevant MP still smarting at dropping even further down the Nat list is desperately trying for a “gotcha” moment against the Government by spending his days researching the expenditure on a far king playground no less. At least some kiwis will get something from the playground. I noticed however he was very quiet with the Saudi sheep deal / farce etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

  8. Just look at the money Kiwi Rail squanders as well.

    At ($6.2 Million) to fix a small rail track slip at Raupunga half way to Wairoa???????

    Did they use gold plating???

    The Kiwi Rail board and engagement needs to be fired.

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2006/S00128/ceac-agrees-with-nzf-policy-for-heavy-rail-around-this-country.htm

    ‘Put his railway guy with experience and his ilk in charge of a railway’ – not these idiots that obviously know nothing about running a railway.

    I got this interesting letter from a friend of mine who has been in the rail industry for many years (40) and wished to share it with anyone who is interested in rail especially the ‘Government’ as they are in the planning stages of restoring rail in NZ. -This was from: stu dow sent to CEAC on 12/6/20.

    Please read and consider his worthy advice.

    “Subject: Another order mooted for DL locos… (RNZ, 11 June 2020): Article Link here;
    https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/6a326863-3224-40cf-9a78-66ade9251587

    “Subject: Another order mooted for DL locos… (RNZ, 11 June 2020): Article Link here;
    https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/6a326863-3224-40cf-9a78-66ade9251587
    “KiwiRail says it has no choice but to buy more Chinese made diesel locomotives – even though they’ve been troublesome and unreliable for more than a decade.”

    Statement from; Stuart Dow, Railwayman (in my 40th year of service)

    “My first reaction to this was “Are you kidding me”.

    It has been well-known in New Zealand’s rail fraternity for several years that these DL Locomotives are not up to scratch, yet Kiwi Rail has somehow managed to deceive both the politicians and taxpayers, the funders of Kiwi Rail, to this fact.! I have said before that Kiwi Rail has the best spin doctors in N.Z and here is a perfect case in point.

    These locomotives should have NEVER been bought.!! China is NOT a builder of reliable heavy-duty Diesel locomotives. In fact, the most powerful diesel locomotives in China were built in the U.S.A.

    There are approx. 300 6000hp Locomotives of EMD ancestry and on the highest elevation railway line in the world, from China to Tibet, the Locomotives used were built by that well-known American Locomotive building company, General Electric. GE (recently re branded Wabtec) being number one in the world in heavy-duty locomotive construction.

    The most successful Diesel locomotives used in N.Z have also been built by these two American Locomotive Builders.

    Todd Moyles attempt try and justify the purchase of these Locomotives is laughable, when KiwiRail has cut up approx. 40 DC locomotives in the last year or so.

    Whilst a lot of these locomotives required substantial work to continue in use, there were plenty that didn’t. In fact, KiwiRail have sold 2 to an Australian company, which has an option for up to 4 more, so you can see there is still life in these old girls yet.!

    Has Kiwi Rail forgotten that whilst North Island tonnage may have increased by 1.4 million tonnes between 2015 and 2019, it has nosed dived since the start of Covid-19.

    It has been reported to me that tonnage in the North Island has dropped by between 10 and 20 percent and a similar amount in the South.

    Also, since April 9, not one Electric hauled train has run between Hamilton and Palmerston North. Why.??

    If Kiwi Rail are that short of locomotives, surely using the Electric’s on the central portion of the Main Trunk would free up Diesels for use elsewhere. YES, it’s that simple. I should know, I was part of the team rostering the New Zealand Locomotive Fleet for 3 years, earlier in my rail career.!

    If more intensive use of the Electric’s is not enough, there are at least 14 recently preserved former N.Z rail operated Diesel Locomotives in various parts of the North Island which, provided they are in a suitable mechanical condition, could slot straight back into use for Kiwi Rail.

    I’m sure at least some of the owners of these locomotives would be only too pleased to lease them out and earn some much-needed revenue to defray their original costs and expenses and help assist rail preservation in N.Z.

    This again is not rocket science and is something that occurs with monotonous regularity across the ditch in Australia.

    And failing that, there are numerous Second hand diesel locomotives around the world, including as close as Australia, that are available NOW and could be used almost straight off the boat.!

    As for Mr Moyles statement re the need to purchase bespoke Locomotives for New Zealand, this is not correct. Whilst the N.Z axle loading and Structures gauge are restrictive, there are several Locomotive Manufacturers around the world who offer Diesel Locomotives suitable for use in N.Z.

    There may be a need to tweak the car body or lighten the loco’s mass slightly but this is not a major issue.

    Some Locomotives that operate on the same track gauge or the VERY similar metre gauge, that spring to mind are Motive Power USA’s MP27CN and MP33CN, both used in Australia, Progress Rail USA’s PR22L (used in Tasmania on track lighter than that in N.Z) and GT38ACe (in Indonesia) and GT42AC (on metre gauge in Chile).

    Wabtec (formerly GE) has the CM20EMP (in Indonesia) and the C23EMP on metre gauge in Chile. The C23EMP being a modern version of Kiwi Rail’s DX (now DXB/DXC class) locomotive, built at the Wabtec facility in South America, which is located in Brazil.

    This haste to lock in locomotives that will not be delivered for a minimum of 6 to 12 months is incomprehensible and shows that both Kiwi Rail Senior Management and the Board, which both back any REAL Railway expertise, are out of touch with reality.

    You wouldn’t buy a new Toyota Corolla that failed to perform to your expectations yet Kiwi Rail are proposing to buy a Locomotive that is a PROVEN and CONTINUAL under performer.!!

    This is a COMPLETE waste of the New Zealand taxpayer’s money and does nothing to engender the public’s faith in those in charge of the New Zealand rail system.!!

    To quote a former N.Z Government Railways General Manager, Mr Trevor Hayward, “It’s time for Change”.

    I welcome any feedback and feel free to distribute as you see fit.
    Stuart Dow, Railwayman (in my 40th year of service) “

    END

  9. Aw, c’mon! Don’t be such a tight-arse. Lighten up a bit.
    Go read the story today about a local Mangere resident asking to join his local golf club! The one that John Key his wife and son are members. Poor bugger had to have not one referee, not three, but twelve! And clearly he had to have millions of dollars in the bank before they could even consider him! And, here’s the good bit , the church ‘bought’ the land (for a couple of Bibles in English, perhaps?) the golf club is now on, from Maori way back in the day. All so rich, mostly white men and occasional women and boys, can hit a wee white ball into wee brown hole – 18 times a day!
    And your’e getting upset about a quality children’s playground on public property that anyone can use (no refs required) at any time and for no individual cost to them at all?
    I say: Slide on, Sir Daffy!! Slide on!

    • It is not for everybody as there is nothing for a child with a disability. The same thing happened in Christchurch with the Margaret May park which originally opened to much fanfare but nothing for the Disabled. I thought this is why consultants were hired. There are attractions now but it cost extra money to do the work retrospectively. Never mind though tax payers have deep pockets

      • Unlike the Rt Hon Trevor, I haven’t had the pleasure of playing there, Trevor, so I’ll take your word for it that there are no facilities for the Disabled. Fair point.
        It’s the Margaret Mahy Park, to which you refer, I think.

      • You are a little hard to understand Trev. You want something for the disabled at Margaret Mahy park I presume. They put them in and then you complain that it has cost money for the taxpayer. If you don’t agree with taxpayer’s putting up facilities for children then you shouldn’t be asking for things for the disabled either. Seeing the way that everybody enjoys the park, I think that it is money well spent and entirely agree with disabled children’s facilities being added, and know that disabled have to advocate for themselves nearly all the time. That’s why we have services for the deaf close to speakers in Parliament. Don’t make negative comments about taxpayers deep pockets when government does something good please.

  10. Sigh. Trevor Mallard – case of second childhood? Reduce the pay of pollies and government connected CEOs and this culture of spend, spend for some people; e.g. Cycle Ways for the comfortably off, while expensive transport for the indigent strugglers. And Then – cut the number of times that pollies can stand for election or on a list to three with a break of 20 years before they can stand again. That would give them time to go away and earn their own living for themselves. It would bring a more down to earth (for farmers) and seasoned group into Parliament, able to cook up some good policies which they wanted to implement before they slide off to some sinecure. Things like seeking sinecures wouldn’t change but getting their a into g, with results would.

    And change Question Time rules also to cut out the time-wasting, game-playing and insolent repetitions – it results in a very slack level of output from the green-carpet factory floor.

  11. who did the work? a mate of Mallards? this stinks but nothing will be done, politicians dgaf, its not their money thats being wasted, its OURS!!

    • I wouldn’t worry too much about the Saudi spending given Brownlee did everything in his power to save on the Christchurch earthquake rebuild costs.

      • Bert, you forgot to add, “to give to his mates instead….”

        I wouldn’t worry too much about the Saudi spending given Brownlee did everything in his power to save on the Christchurch earthquake rebuild costs, to give to his mates instead…

  13. If you spent $600k on those little Kmart slides you could join them together and have one as long as two Mt Everests, weeeeeeeee!!

  14. “What you don’t seem to realise, Martyn, is that such squandering of OUR money and precious resources is not exceptional; it is the norm for both central and local government ”

    Can we have a breakdown of the cost here.
    Someone has made out quite spectacularly here raping the taxpayer again.
    It doesn’t seem to matter what party is in government they all squander the giant slush fund for all its worth.
    $500.000 is a hell of a lot of money to the struggling man, woman and children in this country who are reliant on charities like Variety who are begging for funds to help under privileged children.

    The tax payer funded kiwi aristocracy that does not answer to the people who are regularly shafted in the name of government.

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