Waste

National may cut some spending but there is still plenty of bullshit wasting of tax dollars out there. How could these people possibly think this was prudent spending of the public purse?

I’d love to know what the spend on this was.

A natural therapy clinic at Whanganui Hospital offering massage and traditional Maori healing has been shelved after a doctor linked it to witchcraft and wizardry.

The clinic also offered Christian prayer and energy healing – including reiki and colour therapy – to staff for health and wellbeing.

The hospital agreed to offer the therapies as a three-month trial, but it was stopped early, on September 19, because of the doctor’s comments.

“After we decided to have the pilot for staff, there was some negative publicity generated by a couple of our board members,” chief executive Julie Patterson said. “I wasn’t overly concerned about it.

“Some weeks later, one of the senior doctors made a comment publicly in the local newspaper – a positive comment, not a negative comment – about the trial, but linked it with witchcraft and wizardry.”

ᔥ the tipline

It looks like ATEED is getting into a bit of empire building…they have called for tenders for office fitouts for TWO offices…one in Mairangi Bay (pdf 498k) and one in East Tamaki (pdf 496k).

Why does ATEED need two new offices to be fitted out?

It looks like a couple of million bucks is being lined up to be dropped into fitting out these offices.

The CCO Strategy Review Committee, which Len Brown chairs, resolved to direct a rebranding exercise for all Auckland Council CCOs.

Part of this appears to be a requirement for all CCOs to align with the Council’s pohutukawa brand.  Documents released to this blog show that the cost of this exercise for Watercare alone is in the region of $2 million. One can only wonder how much other CCOs are shelling out on re-branding as ordered by Len Brown.

Here is a standalone company responsible for delivering potable water and processing shit. And instead of leaving it to do its job, Auckland Council, under direction from Len Brown, is continuing to apply a mothership approach to operational matters such as corporate branding and as a consequence burdening these organisations with considerable additional uncalled for costs.

Will Aucklanders feel better when they turn on the tap or flush the toilet knowing that the Mayor is demanding that a pohutukawa brand logo will cost Watercare alone in the region of $2m. Is this part of the mayoral plan to make Auckland the world’s most liveable city?”

Worse though, is it appears that the changed has been forced upon Watercare even after they sought some public relations advice from Senate Communications also released to this blog. That advice states:

Hmmm…”lightening rod for wider ratepayer dissatisfaction“….you bet it will.

The headline says it all: “Robyn Malcolm stars in Rubbish Video“.

Anything Robyn Malcolm does is rubbish, so it is unsurprising that a video she stars in is rubbish as well.

Wayne Thompson is a lefty writer at the Herald and he probably thinks he was doing Robyn Malcolm a favour when he wrote:

As star of Outrageous Fortune, Robyn Malcolm was Queen of the West but the feisty actor has now become Queen of the Waste.

Challenging Aucklanders to “get our rubbish sorted”, Malcolm presents a short video on the Auckland Council website as the face of its $200,000 education campaign for the draft waste management and minimisation plan.

Spending $200,000 on an advertising campaign is waste, and now Robyn Malcolm has conveniently also been branded the “Queen of Waste”. Every Queen needs a King and in this instance the King of Waste is Len Brown who remains unable to get a handle on his profligate spending.

The video is rubbish and Len Brown and Robyn Malcolm are the King and Queen of Waste, especially when it comes to spending ratepayers money.

The officers are now clearly running amok with the ratepayer chequebook at the new Auckland Council. Truly there is a wasteful culture at Len Brown’s council.

Communications staff are now placing ads in local suburban newspapers to promote the activities of local boards, this despite the fact that there is already an expensive glossy publication sent out to 500,000 households every month called “Our Auckland”, the replacement to the old weekly “City Scene” that the Auckland City council sent out.

Here’s an example or two of what the new ads are like:

Using Orakei as the example, you will see Desley Simpson, the Orakei Board chair singularly starring in what is a thinly ratepayer funded campaign ad – in this case there is a half page ad in the local Eastern Bays Courier, of which Princess Desley gets to take up the predominate space.

What does it all cost then? A half page ad in the Central Leader costs around $1800 a pop, though there are obviously discounts for regularly buying ads. If they run these ads once a month with a news update for every local board then there will be 21 ads a month – $450,000 a year on retail prices. Even with a big discount, expect this communications lark to cost $300,000-350,000 per year.

And remember, this is to buy extra advertising space for politicians to talk about “their achievements” on top of the crappy and forgotten “Our Auckland” magazine they print. And dollars to a knob of goat poo that there are specialist comms staff appointed to every local board too, presumably to issue press releases about the successes of all the workshops that local boards are hosting for the benefit of local board member waistlines. If local board pollies feel they need to raise their profile, they should get off their chuff and do newsworthy things instead of spending all their time in workshops eating pies and pastries. Local papers normally are happy to print vacuous stories about politicians unveiling playgrounds and park upgrades.

Len Brown has failed to keep the officers under control. Communications at the council look like an unwieldy and expensive mess. Even worse, rates are being used to promote politicians with glossy pictures.

Really! A freaking countdown clock!

Sometimes you have to wonder about the sanity of some of our paid officials. I hope who-ever is responsible for this got left off the hire list by Mark Ford.

Tenderwatch - Wasting Ratepayers Money

What next? Renditions of Kum By Ya in the Parliamentary corridors? Synchronised humming in the Parliamentary Library?

Remember folks, there is NO waste in the public service, every job is required, the PSA and Labour say so.

Words fail me

Spotted on Glenfield Road, North Shore and sent in by a loyal reader.

Another fine example of Tax Payer funded List MP unnecessary expense. Looks like an electioneering ploy to me. Why isn’t it being paid for out of Party funds?

Why are we paying for this?

Ok it is from the UK, but the crap applies here. not nearly enough has been trimmed from the civil service. The video was an April Fool’s joke, but the waste examples and sums are real from Labour in the UK.

Oh dear Lord please give me strength. Would someone, anyone, in the government please sort this shit out, please I beg of you, this is almost daily now.

I mean WTF? I’m good at understanding Governmental NewSpeak but this is complete shite.

GETS Tender Watch Notification for Wednesday, 2 December 2009