puff 205 Wheeler's Corner 47

Subject: 47 7th December 2006


Wheeler’s CornerÓ

Connecting Citizens Who Care



"Broadcast every Thursday at 11.45am on Access 999AM"

Contact Peter at wheeler@inspire.net.nz

47 7th December 2006

This Week: 1. The ship sinks 2. Even the cat was excluded. 3. Marilyn Waring gets real. 4. The growing gap gets wider 5. Top PR prize awarded

On Monday night while temporary staff member Paul Wylie sat slumped in his chair [he looked asleep] other subordinate council staff attempted to save his hide regarding the recommendations to sell off all but 5.1 hectors of the Linklater block. Other than Cr. Gordon Cruden, Naylor, Dennison and that super chairperson Alison Wall who all battled in their own strange way to give some legitimacy to Paul Wylie’s last council recommendations. All four of them: love parks, the people of Kelvin Grove, green space, birds singing in the mornings, families and children including grand children and even great-grand-children. You could almost believe their sincere emotional pleas that their departing employee did the correct thing in recommending sale! Sadly the rest of council did not, they rubbished the ill considered report now presented by past high-flyer Clare Hadley and assisted by a couple of lesser lights. Seven members of the public also spoke against the recommendations. Including Mr. Ross Linklater who Cr. Gordon Cruden did his absolute best to discredit by suggesting that because Mr. Linklater leases the present site and because the charges for the lease had not been increased for ten years and that the council never charged rates, something was amiss. I think he was implying something but it was unclear from his muddled discourse exactly what it was… There were lots of words but little openness or sense to be made of his strange wordy monologue. Surely the lease between the Linklater’s and the council was legal, surely if Gordon was so concerned he could have raised the issue years ago? Council according to Clare Hadley had lost the vital documents. Cr. Naylor spoke strongly in favour of selling the remaining huge bit of the block, according to his wonderfully imaginative stretchable logic, Kelvin Grove doesn’t need all that land. Likewise thought poor old Cr. Dennison. At least Cr. Dennison had the courage to vote accordingly. But not [be-bob] Cr. Naylor for when he saw which way the wind was blowing he voted against that which he preached. [The things one will do to be Mayor…] While all this was proceeding Cr. Wall in her usual Mother knows best lecture mode called it a dignified debate just as the councils leading staff member Paul Wylie awoke to the sound of his recommendations being soundly defeated and crushed by a huge majority. Abandoned by tight eight members Cr. Pope, Broad and Jefferies and even a Judas-like ever-changing Naylor and with Cr. Podd and Hornblow not being present, it could be said that the tight eight ‘SS Sell-everything’ sank to the bottom of the ocean. There are no plans at this point to salvage the wreckage. The captain of the ship decided not to go down with the ship and was last seen floating on a life raft toward the South Island… and specifically Tasman Bay…where he hopes to start a new life amongst the hippies and flower people.

2.

Now after the sun had set on the departing leading staff member Paul Wylie, the Mayor called a special council meeting… It was so special, so secret that the public was excluded. The press was locked out, the blinds were pulled down to keep out the light, the catering people, bless them, were locked in the kitchen and issued ear muffs, even the building cat, a mixed breed Siamese / Persian was forced outside into the cold night air. The reason for all the Nine-Eleven United States type security was so that the councillors could discuss, [now beat this] openly and honestly! ‘Chief Executive Officer recruitment Issues’… Personal Privacy… was at stake. Now as Chris Teo-Sherrell in Tuesday’s Manawatu Standard asked, "how can this be private for no one has been appointed or recruited yet! Chris has a point. So why the outside lawyers? I think the first item on the agenda was to decide if the departing employee staff member Paul Wylie’s offer to remain until April 2007 should be accepted. Most large organisations where the CE resigns [thereby breaking their contract] exit that very day. This is done to protect the organisation and its many secret activities, like who wants to buy the Linklater block or when the next payment from Mighty River Power is due. I hope the council approved and forced this normal and standard behaviour. Second on the agenda could have been how best to recoup some payments that no doubt relied on the completion of the past CE contract. Lastly to put in place the ways and means to ensure that this time around the right person is selected for the position. Still we will never know what they discussed and what I’ve suggested might be incorrect and they could just have wanted to have a private party because of the resignation, slap one and other on the back and say I told you so! Or simply breathe a sigh of relief and have a good laugh. Your guess is as good as mine, possibly better, but we can be sure of one thing, it’s our money they are spending…

3.

Kia ora tatou

Abstract from: Honouring the Experts – Participatory Data Gathering
Marilyn Waring, Professor of Public Policy, Institute for Public Policy Research, AUT.

The last 40 years of social science research on the front line - in feminist work, disability activism, and issues for minority indigenous peoples, refugee and migrant groups. And many others, has demonstrated that most communities have a better analysis of why things are as they are, and can suggest better strategies for change, than all the degree laden clinical office bound experts. But it takes so long for this message to reach the powerful strategy teams in central and local government, who still want telephone surveys to be the objective fodder on which they base their priorities and future plans. How do we begin to bridge the gap between those who know how to do rigorous community research, and those who have never known, but make all the rules and draw up the budgets? Best wishes signed Conor Twyford. Did you know that here in Palmerston North the council depends almost entirely on telephone surveys to find out about satisfaction or dissatisfaction by our citizens with council performance? This is the reason why many wish to see more professional staff employed in our Community Development Department.

Just a note to advise that Professor Marilyn Waring’s NZCOSS 2006 Conference address, Honouring the Experts: Participatory Data Gathering, is now available and can be downloaded from the NZCOSS website at http://www.nzcoss.org.nz/index.php?page=51

3.

The Manawatu Standard reported on Tuesday that the number of top earners at Mid-Central Health has crept up in the past 12 months, with 147 board employees earning more than $100,000 in the year to June, up from 132 in 2005. Chief executive officer Murray Georgel earned more than $410,000 according to the board's recently released annual report. The lowest-paid workers in the hospital have given notice of a strike next week to lift their wages. They are the cleaners and other members of the Service and Food Workers' Union and are employed by Spotless Services, on about $10.25 an hour, or just over $20,000 a year. Paul Wylie of the PNCC earns around $290.000 per year that means that two of our public service citizens earn $700.000 between them. Putting this into perspective it means that two public servants earn the equivalent of around sixty single pensioners. Now sometime back the Hospital Boards and Local Councils tendered out various services such as the cleaning etc. Now while the board doesn’t pay the cleaning staff directly it pays the contractors, while its not known what the contract price actually is it must be much higher than the $10.25 paid to individual cleaners. I would imagine that ‘Spotless’ must have at least a 25% to 40% markup to satisfy its overseas owners and shareholders. Just as we pay the huge PNCC CEO salary via our rates we also pay the hugely over inflated MCH CEO salary via our taxes. It is not hard to understand the emotionally charged situation of both hospital and cleaning staff as they strike for a fair wage. Both the CEO’s concerned get their wage increases based on automatic increases based on the findings of the higher salary commission who recommend the huge increases we are seeing in the public service. They are of course only recommended but they are almost always paid out in full. Could you bring up a family if you were a cleaner at our local hospital being paid $10.25 per hour? Looked at from a different angle, the MCH CEO receives more than the Prime Minister does and the PNCC CEO receives more than a senior cabinet Minister while cleaners earns a below livable wage. It would be true to state that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown massively over the last twenty years. The experiment of letting market forces achieve a balance has failed completely no matter how you view the present state of affairs. Some senior doctors and others consider the young doctors and other hospital staff including the cleaner’s villains for taking industrial action, but what else can they do. They don’t have a commission to automatically recommend increases, they watched while the nursing union organised and gained proper increases and without doubt sees this as the only possible course for them. It is hard not to agree.

4.

‘He [CEO PNCC] will leave a legacy in Palmerston North that will be remembered long after he has gone’. Malcolm Hopwood, present council Public Affairs manager and winner of the ‘PR statement of the year 2006’.

5.

My God asks ‘how is your Christmas shopping going?

Peter J Wheeler

Wheeler@inspire.net.nz