Lies, damned lies and statistics

Those readers holding their breath awaiting the day the Audit Office rides into town, take one look at Wanganui's LTCCP and claps the Diva in chains for over-stepping his authority had better learn to breathe through their noses. The Audit Office website essentially says next years visit will be an "audit lite", since nearly every Council has done nearly everything wrong anyway.

Now you'd think that the prospect of getting off lightly would be cause for celebration in the Mayoral office, but that overlooks the way he operates - which is to create a climate of fear, loathing or distrust and then position himself as the solution to a manufactured crisis. If it's not litterbugs or marauding gangs or the residents of Whakatane (after all they might move to Wanganui in droves) it's asset management. This is one area which virtually every Council appears to have screwed up, so Wanganui is by no means alone.

All aspects of Local Government are now subject to internationally accepted accounting practices for the first time, and the situation revealed is not pretty. A pipe that's been in the ground for 50 years, having depreciated over that time, is worthless and must be replaced according to the bean-counters. The state of the pipe is neither here nor there: it gets listed as requiring immediate replacement and is written up as a debit on the books. In Wanganui, the peak debt level might now be $100 million, not $53 million. Since this picture is repeated nationwide, it seems central government will have to become involved, either to relax the rules as they apply to capital assets, for example, or come up with the cash to put everything right.

While we might rail at these meddling bureaucrats, it is worth noting that had these rules been applied over the last 50 years, Wanganui would already have a Gallery that meets OSH standards, and a Splash Centre in good repair.

Clearly it's a major issue for any local authority, and the Diva opened Monday's Council meeting with news of his recent meeting with the auditors:

I wish to alert councillors to problem that we share and will share with a large number of other councils.

The audit office have the responsibility of auditing both our annual report and more importantly the LTCCP that will occur and that we will be required to deliberate about for public comment next year. The ten year plan for 2006-16.

The difficulty is one that we share with virtually every other council in New Zealand but one that is no less horrendous. And the LTCCP that we did in 2003 missed a lot of things that it should have included. Particularly relating to the valuing of assets and also the depreciation of those same assets and their replacement cost.

So far so bad, but then the Diva got completey carried away, stating:

Now this has meant strange things, like - I’ll give you an example today. The Auckland City Council had looked at the possibility to deal with their rates - sorry to do with their asset management and replacement and depreciation. The rates bill was up 200% over the next two years - ten years. 200%.

Yes, except that it's not true. Auckland City Council have publicly acknowledged that it is the wish-list of assets that will cause their budget blow-out. As the NZ Herald said, "Auckland's wish list exceeds its grasp". Heading the list, ironically, are Mayoral dreams such as the "Outside the Square" project, which Council officers have ranked near the bottom of a list of 36 new projects (heading the list are much more prosaic things like transport and stormwater). And it has very little to do with the 2003 LTCCP because it factors in a swag of new spending dreamed up by the present Mayor and Council.

Not being able to wave the demands of a referendumb about to demand his pet projects be given priority, Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard has been forced to accept the counsel of his Council, saying that he hoped to be allowed to "spend a little bit of money cleverly to start with".

Unless Councillors throw away the recommendations and insist that every project on the $3.7 billion wish list be built (others not thought a priority include both an $18 million swimming pool upgrade and a $40 million arts precinct) the Diva's dire predictions of 200% rates rises in Auckland (and thus, by implication, a possibility in other towns including Wanganui) are a nonsense.

Cr Sue Westwood was the only one awake enough on the day to question whether the 200% prediction was a result of the LTCCP revelation and he fudged thus:

"Yes, in some cases because they have got to - obviously infrastructure problems up there in terms of their transport and others they simply haven't done the work that is required in terms of revaluing their assets, depreciating them and also planning for their replacement."

So with Council finances in such disarray up and down the country, will Wanganui be in for particularly brutal treatment at the hands of faceless evil Government auditors? The Audit Office have this to say:

...the extent of procedures and testing undertaken for an audit is determined based on the risk that information might be mis-stated such that it would lead readers to draw incorrect conclusions about the position and intentions of the council. Accordingly, the assumption that every asset management plan will need to be reviewed is not correct. As with the other areas of our audit, we will be considering: The high-level systems and controls that the council has in place to establish the service levels and the financial and asset management implications of service level decisions. If the council has good systems and controls, it is likely that we will test (on a sample basis) how well these systems and controls work and have been applied in preparing the LTCCP.

And Wanganui? - here's the Diva again:

Our finances are obviously going to undergo a serious inspection in the next couple of - two to three months.

So either Wanganui doesn't have "good systems and controls", thus necessitating a "serious inspection" rather than an "audit lite", or another example over-dramatisation. Of course, that's what Divas do. Then again, the Audit Office might be motivated to give Wanganui a good going-over if it thought that Council was mis-stating information "such that it would lead readers to draw incorrect conclusions".

How is a District Councillor to make sense of it all? The NZ Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM) comes to the rescue with a series of documents about "The LTCCP Jigsaw". Here's a quote:

...the Act asks Councils to describe how additional capacity, maintenance, renewal and replacement is undertaken. But what does this entail and to what extent do you go in describing the "how"?

Some Councils in 2003 / 2004 LTCCPs thought it meant stating the service delivery mechanisms (eg contracting). Others pretty much ignored the "how".
What’s best? We suggest the "how" information should be brief:
(a) noting major new projects (when and where) that will add to asset capacity
(b) for maintenance, renewal and replacement of assets merely referencing to Council’s asset management plans which describe asset management strategies.

While Wanganui (in common with virtually every other local government area in NZ) clearly has a problem, it's hardly responsible governance to leap out at startled Councillors and handily-placed reporters yelling "Boo!!". But it's good politics, talking up a crisis in order to somehow be seen to be saving the city from the Axis of Government-LGA-LTCCP evil. And politics isn't just what the Diva does best, it's all he does.

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Yes, no, maybe...

Well we do admit to promulgating scuttlebutt. Hearsay has it that Phillippa Baker-Hogan will not be standing on the diVision ticket. She turned the Diva down. Holy humiliation Mayorman! Meanwhile, Morgs, in true budding politician mode, is practising a "neither confirm nor deny" policy as to his candidacy, and says an announcement is pending on his website tomorrow. More as it comes to hand, as they pay Simon Dallow a fortune to read off a screen much like the one you're looking at.

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Don't let's lose our heads

And the winner on the night was... the Queen, whose portrait will be restored to the Council Chamber. Well, to the doorway, anyway. After a prolonged absence from the hallowed halls of power at Guyton Street. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's visage will once again gaze benignly upon her dutiful subjects as they enter the doors of the hallowed Chamber (that's enough kowtowing - Ed.)

That wasn't enough for Cr "Sir" Don McGregor, who was adamant the Queen ought to be returned to keep an eye on proceedings. Placing Her Majesty above the line of sight of people entering the Chamber wasn't on, he said, drifting off into a reverie about his days of playing hide and seek when no one would ever find you if you exercised the cunning strategem of climbing above their heads. No Don, no one would ever find you because you were hiding up a tree wearing a kilt.

He suggested hanging her (in the nicest possible way) above the head of the Diva - but that "isn't going to happen" according to the Mayor, who clearly figures there's only room for one (that'll do for that line of thought- Ed.)

Sir Donald was supported by Rangi Wills, who said he never recalled Council deciding to remove the portrait in the first place. That might have had something to do with the fact that Council never did, and the decision was taken on the whim of the Diva, but Rangi wisely decided not to go too far down that road lest the hangings weren't confined to portraits.

Apparently the Tupoho Working Party had asked that a copy of the Treaty of Waitangi be displayed in the entrance, but that got lost in the debate. They're probably lucky the Diva didn't order the original rolled up and used as a draught stop.

Meanwhile, the Diva has taken the Chron to task for it's story yesterday stating the "Alexander Gallery" option is a damp squib (of course LawsWatch had the story months ago, but the Diva prefers to refute our reports anonymously).

The 2004 report by Kevin Hindson is "out of date", the Diva says, having been "superseded by a number of events" including "the cancellation of the Warren & Mahoney extension, the Referendum '05 rejection and the new thinking of the 'Heart' architects" (which of course no one but the Diva and a select few are actually privy to).

That's just a tad disingenuous when parts of the paper - such as those that specifically reject the 'corridor' idea - are still applicable. It may well turn out that that's the only viable option given the Diva's determination to strangle arts funding, but that in no way negates Hindson's reasoning as to why it's not a good idea.

Most telling in his spray against the newly re-invigorated Chron (a bit of industrial argy-bargy must get the blood flowing) was the sentence "If the reporter had bothered to contact council or myself, then the whole story could have been properly relayed."

Ah yes, the media must report the news properly. "The particular job of the cultural editor is to express in lofty varied language what has been said in the political section... superficial intellectual vapourings... have no justification for appearance. A plethora of tasks and multifarious possibilities are now open to the cultural editor....The local sections of our newspapers must subordinate themselves to these requirements" - so wrote none other than Joseph Goebbels in April 1933. We hope Mr Maslin remembers his job is to be subordinate.

Update (8.25 pm): A shy and retiring Diva?! It hardly seems possible, but it's true. An intrepid Watcher (well alright... Matt Dutton) set off to last night's meeting intending to capture some lovely photographs of the Chamber and if perchance the Diva was looking particularly alluring, to add to the stock library of LawsWatch portraiture, some of which Watchers will be familiar with. Let's let Matt take up the story:

No sooner had I the Diva in my sights than I was pulled up short by his informing me that "there is no photography allowed here". This was indeed news to me, so I desisted. Later in the meeeting, however, a Chronicle photographer appeared and commenced to snap away.

This morning I asked Malcolm Hunt for the official version. It seems that recording of meetings, while it is explicitly allowed in the procedures, must be conducted unobstrusively and at the discretion of the presiding member. Since discretion is not a strong point of the member in question, this seems somewhat ironic. I enquired further about press accreditation. Mr. Hunt suggested that I contact (Spin Fairy) Helen Lawrence.

Rest assured that Watchers will continue to do their jobs, and rest assured that any recording will from now on be truly unobtrusive.

In the meantime, we can provide you with this photo showing the space between the flags to which Sir Donald hoped the Queen's portrait might return.

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Flushed with a lack of success

Newly appointed Cultural Czarina Sally Patrick has already hit the first speed bump on the road to glory paved for her by the Diva.

Stuffing the Sarjeant overflow into the Alexander Library via a "corridor" isn't a starter, according to parks and culture manager Keith Hindson. This, Watchers will remember, was floated by the Diva at the last Mayoral forum as a way of preserving and protecting the Sarjeant art overflow (and thus avoiding trouble with donors) whilst still being perceived by his uncultured support base as not giving a damn about art.

But Hindson had already knocked that idea on the head back in 2004, as previously noted by LawsWatch and finally woken up to in today's Chron, concluding it was "not a viable option". He pointed out that not only were works of art at risk, but possibly also staff and the public. Trying to squeeze part of the Gallery into a library which is only 750 square metres would lead to:

• An increase in the cost of services, infrastructure and staff required to manage two independent buildings.
• Curtailment of current activity, services and events.
• Degradation of the Sarjeant’s “flagship” status.
• No additional gallery display space to facilitate community-related events.
• No improvement in the collection storage conditions and capacity.
• Sending the "wrong message" about the status of the arts in Wanganui.
• Creating uncertainty about the future of the Gallery (a bit late to worrry about that now, we suggest).
• The possibility of some of the collection having to be sold off.

None of this is new, of course. But with the newly appointed Ms Patrick no doubt keen to put her stamp on things as "Cultural Manager"where does this leave Mr Hindson, quoted as "Culture Manager" and, most importantly, as pouring cold water all over the Diva's meisterplan?

As First Mate Warburton reshuffles the chairs on Captain Laws's Titanic, it seems some may get hurled overboard.

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Meanwhile, back at the by-election

Former Councillor Margaret Campion has announced her intention to stand, saying "honesty, integrity and respect are important to me". Could this be a not-so-veiled reference to current Council behaviour?

Resisting the urge to scream "you're heading for the wrong place, then", Watchers merely note that she joins Mark Simmonds, former President of the Chamber of Commerce and owner of Wanganui Security, which he has built into a significant high-tech security company now getting a lot of its revenues from outside Wanganui. And described by one commenter as "some competition for ML in pullin' the babes if not quick one-liners". The mind boggles.

It was none other than Mr Simmonds himself who was on security detail the day Dotty and the Dwarves applied a lovely coat of whitewash to the Code of Conduct complaints.

Showing he was less-than-chastened by the fact that some citizens found his behaviour offensive, the Diva gave the single-digit salute, as he so endearingly calls it, to a bunch of teenagers outside the hall. They responded with gestures that suggested that perhaps the Diva was - how can we put this politely? - is in regular tactile contact with himself.

Whilst it's fine and dandy for Wanganui's First Citizen to go making rude gestures to the town's lesser citizens, clearly this should not result in any dimunition in respect for such high office, because the Diva took some umbrage at this response and ordered Simmonds to disperse the yoof with extreme prejudice.

This of course placed Simmonds in a hopeless position: him against about 10 teenagers and if they'd had a go at him, it would have been in front of three lots of TV cameras and a bunch of reporters. We imagine he developed a warm and lasting regard for the Diva at about that point.

Who needs Jimmy Barnes concerts (clearly not locals, who are not buying tickets in droves) when there's free entertainment of this calibre in which you can actually take part? If you're not enrolled already, do so today at the elections web site.

Update (4.25 pm): A Watcher has started a rumour (in comments on the previous post) that none other than Morgs Hunter-Bell intends to enter the fray. We're presently seeking confirmation from the man himself.

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Do not adjust your set II

Blogger.com (LawsWatch's home on the web, in case you're wondering) has been behaving somewhat oddly of late. First it began showing a blank page, then yesterday could not be reached at all. Most of these outages are not confined to LawsWatch but also affect other blogs on the network. Our apologies to our readers - most of these problems are outside of our control, though we work with Blogger.com engineers to fix things as quickly as possible on those few occasions when we can do anything to help.

Further problems today - though we suspect an errant Watcher with finger trouble rather than net-based gremlins this time - resulted in a whole raft of comments on the last post being inadvertently deleted. However, in a bit of smoke-and-mirrors trickery which would make a Spin Fairy blush, we've recovered the text of, we hope, all of them, which we've numbered because the original posting times were lost:

1. Patrick a cool chick? A cool chick my arse. She's a control freak with a talent for well-placed bottom licking. And buying DVDs with subtitles for the library does not mean you're suited to the position of Cultural Manager. Dell has experience in libraries and museums, and the Dewey Decimal System is taught to primary school children for Christ's Sake, and is hardly a mental challenge. The librarians Patrick hires are a case in point.

LW note: We were being slightly facetious in referring to the Dewey Decimal System, we admit. It was about the most complex aspect of running a library we could think of, and to be honest, eludes the memory of most Watchers when hunting for a book. Thank goodness for computerised catalogues.

2. Nicky (bless her) said:
"With lots of out-of-towners having already booked tickets, it's up to us locals to be in as well and so to ensure another crowd-pulling concert next year."
Brief translation: we're gearing up to provide underwriting for this event, despite promising that we wouldn't, because we haven't sold enough tickets.

3. Sally Patrick is the "Cultural Manager" with Sharon Dell as her 2IC. So where does that leave Bill Milbank? Shafted, big time, I'd say. I have heard that Bill was not notified of the "meeting" or "hosted briefing" (read: uninvited). As for having Dot & Co. as "Friends of the Sarjeant" all I can say is JAYSUS.

4. Oh for goodness sake ! Laws for all his shortcomings, was elected saying he would do this sort of thing! Seems they are there to make decisions and delegate roles and they are doing it... I would like the great unwashed consulted a little more though... that Community Survey comes to mind...what happened to that?

5. anon 8:58 said Good point about Milbank and Dell too by anon (8.24pm). With one senior manager you don't need three middle managers and its all been done within the 2005/6 budget so savings must be being made somewhere.

they could curate :)

6. Well well, so the meeting Warburton called made no mention of the Director's job being axed. Yet here it is in the Chron. in black and white. Are the artists representatives who attended Dr. Warburton's little soiree going to now recognise that they have been taken for a ride? When the Sarjeant Gallery has been destroyed you can all console yourselves that you did the right thing. You remind me of people dociley donning oxygen masks with the 'plane burning around you.

7. Wake up dreamers. Michael Laws is out to smash the Sarjeant. Stop compromising with these pricks and do something effective, eh?

1. Destroy the extension plans
2. Destroy the Trust Board
3. Confuse and fragment supporter's groups.
4. Destroy the management structure.
5. Destroy the collection.
6. Now for the opera house.

"Cultured" people don't vote for Mickey. Why would he want them to stay in Wanganui? Still think "they" won't let him get away with it?

Dupe.

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