Open mike 12/04/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 12th, 2021 - 35 comments
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35 comments on “Open mike 12/04/2021 ”

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  1. Sacha 1
    12 April 2021 at 6:32 am

    Profile of Matthew Tukaki who has sprung to pubic prominence in recent years: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300273308/matthew-tukaki-businessman-mori-advocate–survivor

    A strange thing happened. He got a string of major knowledge management contracts reviewing federal and state organisations. His guru-hood became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    “You go from making it up through the story, to, at some point, you do know what you’re talking about.”

    The list of what he has done since in Australia is so long that you wonder where he found the time: a mix of business, personal and community work.

    …

    Tukaki shifted back to Aotearoa about three years ago. He is the executive director of the New Zealand Māori Council (a statutory authority), he leads the National Māori Authority. And he was shoulder-tapped to lead a ministerial advisory board to help fix Oranga Tamariki.

  2. Incognito 2
    12 April 2021 at 7:41 am

    The following link is to a pay-walled piece. Does anybody have insights that they can and want to share here?

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pro/a-new-leadership-model-afoot-for-the-greens

    • Jester 2.1
      12 April 2021 at 7:49 am

      IMO about time they went to one leader like normal parties. Having co leaders seems very indecisive. Perhaps time for Chloe to step up?

      • Sacha 2.1.1
        12 April 2021 at 7:53 am

        How would a single leader improve the party's prospects? And I doubt their members would choose Chloe yet.

        • weka 2.1.1.1
          12 April 2021 at 6:43 pm

          yep. And the members chose Shaw and Davidson for bloody good reasons that go well beyond the bullshit leadership stuff we see generally in NZ party politics. Ardern aside, do we really want the Greens to be like National, Labour (remember the ABC years) or NZF? /shudder.

          I hope Swarbrick is PM one day, but no point in pushing her into something too soon.

          • Sacha 2.1.1.1.1
            12 April 2021 at 6:45 pm

            I reckon she has other ways to contribute outside parliament before slow politics is ready to make her PM.

        • Jester 2.1.1.2
          13 April 2021 at 7:38 am

          You are probably right that its a bit soon for Chloe but I can see her being leader one day. It's always better to have one leader and a deputy IMO. One clear boss, no confusion.

          • Sacha 2.1.1.2.1
            13 April 2021 at 7:45 am

            Confusion for whom? I have not seen any signs of that yet in the parties with multiple leaders.

      • Stuart Munro 2.1.2
        12 April 2021 at 10:40 am

        Having co-leaders saves them a lot of trouble – look how corrosive leadership speculation is wounding National.

      • UncookedSelachimorpha 2.1.3
        12 April 2021 at 4:45 pm

        Personally I like their dual leadership model.

  3. Sacha 3
    12 April 2021 at 8:20 am

    Similarly, can anyone with a Herald subscription tell us more about this story?

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/covid-19-coronavirus-governments-vaccination-register-just-putting-money-into-a-silicon-valley-billionaires-pocket/7AYAWENXAPSHBP2X6QHICTI5NA/

    The Ministry of Health's $38 million effort to create an online system to manage Covid-19 vaccinations is "just putting money into a Silicon Valley billionaire's pocket", local IT industry group NZRise says.

    …

    • Rosemary McDonald 3.1
      12 April 2021 at 9:08 am

      NZRise appears to be a little pissed off that the MOH has contracted out pretty much all of the work for setting up and maintaining a vaccine register (plus other core MOH work) to numerous off shore companies….

      Previous criticism has centred on a security breach involving the data of more than 700 patients; the Government's inability – until this week – to provide accurate vaccination data; and the related issue of DHBs striking out on their own path, using different software systems, while they wait for the Government's new cloud-based solution to be fleshed out…

      Last October, US companies Salesforce and Amazon were named as key technology partners for the Government's $38m push to create the new online system for managing the Covid-19 vaccination rollout…..

      .. The Ministry of Health has since told the Herald a third partner, Australian firm Skedulo – the maker of a booking plug-in for Salesforce. ..

      … the situation has been complicated by some DHB's opting to use booking software developed by Irish company Valentia Technologies in the meantime, while others are using a system created by US company Service Now.

      … Procurement Rules laid down for all Crown agencies by MBIE, which include Rule 16 with is "priority outcome" provision to "increase the number of New Zealand businesses contracting directly to government."

      The Ministry of Health, of course, says all is good in the hood and and the frontline vaccination workforce are happy as.

      However…there have been data breaches, and MacLennan says…

      "Even in pandemic times, honouring privacy, security, data sovereignty and trust issues need to be factored into decision making," MacLennan says.

      Where there has been a need for speed, too much corner-cutting can lead to a lack of understanding of the process and "potential for signing up to lifelong customisations, vendor lock-in, and business processes that are not fit-for-purpose," MacLennan says.

      I'd need to spend time I don't presently have on this to get more of the gist, but the fondness for Sillicon Valley was fostered during Chai Chua's time. Everyone's favourite DHB CEO Nigel Murray also enjoyed cuddles with Silicon Valley types…if I recall correctly they attended Singularity University events.

      • Sacha 3.1.1
        12 April 2021 at 12:53 pm

        Thank you. Pretty much what I expected.

      • lprent 3.1.2
        12 April 2021 at 4:20 pm

        There were similar statements this morning from Ian McRae at Orion Health in a BusinessDesk article (aslo paywalled) about the MoH not getting an update on Orion's old system to do the covid-19 tracking system. Sounds like there was a dump from MoH in the last few days under OIA


        In the process, it locked out NZ health software provider Orion Health, which claims its 16-year-old National Immunisation Register (NIR) could have been adapted to track national covid vaccinations for as little as $50,000.

        According to documents released under the Official Information Act (OIA), MoH told ministers on Oct 9 last year it had been “advised by the current vendor, Orion, that it will not support the NIR from 31 March 2022 onwards”.

        In the documents, Orion is said to have “formally notified” the MoH of this in January 2019.

        Orion Health chief executive Ian McCrae angrily disputes the claim.

        “We did not advise this, and it is not true,” McCrae told BusinessDesk.

        Reading between the lines, sound like the MoH side it sounded like they had a fairly specific spec that they wanted to follow for the covid-19 based on a path to the updated NIR requirements that they'd been working on for some time.

        The subtext in the article (to me) seemed to say that Orion wanted to update an existing system that was written by them 16 years ago and not to quote based on the requirements.

        The CIR is a stopgap system built to digitally handle covid vaccination rollout this year, based on the bowel-screening register system established in 2018.

        The full $38 million cloud-based National Immunisation System (NIS), which will replace it, will not be operational until 2022.

        Only the CIR was ready in time for the start of NZ’s covid vaccination programme on Feb 20. The systems for booking, recall, and vaccine inventory are not finished yet.

        In an official information response letter on Feb 25, Deborah Woodley, the MoH's deputy director-general of population health and prevention, said, “the NIS procurement plan has yet to be written”.

        She said the NIS procurement process “has been ongoing for several years”.

        “The detailed requirements for a full NIS are yet to be completed and the ministry is not yet able to determine the appropriate route to market while its resources are heavily focussed on covid-19. As such, no procurement decision-making has been completed and the ministry intends to develop the requirements for an options analysis in the next few months.”

    • RedBaronCV 3.2
      12 April 2021 at 11:11 am

      Could we not basically use the system that is used for the flu? Or are the health department looking to use this as an excuse to try to collect a whole lot of extra health data as a major privacy invasion.

      Why not just say what class of people are to be vaccinated (over 75 say) and allocate a day based on surname initial or some such. Then people can just rock up on the 75+ "M" day with some back up days at the end for those who can't make the first cut. And take away there little form. Guess some form of identification might be needed or do we use something like the electoral role with a few add on's as identifier.

      There are certainly going to be a whole host of people appearing who have had no contact with the health system for decades.
      And then there are the people who have no phone and internet connections.

      • Foreign Waka 3.2.1
        12 April 2021 at 1:58 pm

        Exactly my thought…the inaptitude is mindboggling and if it is hoodwinking the same applies.

      • McFlock 3.2.2
        12 April 2021 at 2:52 pm

        Could we not basically use the system that is used for the flu?

        At a semi-educated guess, largely because the National Immunization Register is based around the childhood vaccination schedule, with influenza and a couple of others tacked on and considerably incomplete.

        MoH and IT service aquisition seems to be very silo'd with many iterations of wheel development: the finance mandarins want a budget monitoring system, do limited consultation with what other departments might need, so clinical information is hammered into it a couple of years later. Or they want a clinical notes thing, so they choose a system great at resolving individual records but a bit shite for doing data analyses or expense tracking. Or they develop a child imms register, but don't design the infrastructure to adequately register adult vaccinations. Or do a record system for some chronic condition, but forget that paediatric specialists for that condidtion are in paediatric units rather than the dedicated community units which mostly only treat adults, so kids mostly don't get counted.

        It's a systemic thing, alongside the eternal restructuring.

        • Adrian 3.2.2.1
          12 April 2021 at 3:11 pm

          Not a lot of people get the flu shot, so there is an incomplete roster of recipients and it dosen''t need to be kept at -70. The other thing I have noticed is the current regimes at doctors surgeries for just a routine visit are tiresomely pedantic with distancing and bloody plastic screens everywhere that those with compromised hearing have got no idea what is being spoken to them. You would think we were in a covid hotspot with the virus running rampant. So there are a lot of complications to organise in the rollout.

          On a another note, it must piss the perspex retailers off that there is nowhere to spend their enormous windfall profits the made last year.

  4. Incognito 4
    12 April 2021 at 8:50 am

    National is always desperate to re-write history to suit their narrative and make up shit as they go.

    “The Labour Party came into power on the back of a lot of people’s pain in 2017. They told people they had a plan for mental health – we don’t see it.

    “We see money sitting in a bank account and not going out to services.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300273535/government-set-to-spend-far-less-on-mental-health-than-promised-in-2019

    IIRC, the Election in 2017 was ‘stolen’ from National by the ‘accidental PM’. This may have indeed caused some pain, to National. It appears the pain is getting worse for National.

    http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8679-nz-national-voting-intention-march-2021-202104090133

    Mr Doocey also knows that the money is not sitting in some kind of slush fund doing nothing except perhaps make the Government books look better when taking a snapshot. The money has been allocated and will be spent on mental health care. Mr Doocey knows that too.

    • greywarshark 4.1
      12 April 2021 at 11:13 am

      Easy-peasy juicy-Doocey. That's definitely what NZ needs more mental health measures, so that National politicians can get the help they surely, sorely, need.

    • Herodotus 4.2
      12 April 2021 at 11:30 am

      "The money has been allocated and will be spent on mental health care" Tell that to those who have been waiting for these services that in years to come they COULD be sometime in the future. I am aware of children/young adults waiting since Aug/Sept last year to have confirmed appointments for a child phychologist or some other professional for a diagnosis that currently is not available, let alone for treatment.
      There is not even the option of private as all those professionals out there are already fully committed outside those severe cases that require immediate intervention, and even severe cases sometimes it already is too late.

      And to read point scoring comments ahead of the pain and stress that is out there, perhaps have some feelings for those families out there. The need is currently out there now – the funding is NOT, and as such the consequence of not being addressed.

  5. Peter 5
    12 April 2021 at 9:01 am

    The Herald will turn the Duke's death into family dramas for months.

    In the meantime they will have classics like (how long were the couple married?), Prince Philip's passing will create a 'huge void'

    for Her Majesty. There's a surprise.

  6. Morrissey 6
    12 April 2021 at 9:39 am

    Britain's worst bludgers are now devouring U.S. taxpayer dollars

    No doubt the moral crusader Kelvin "Filth" McKenzie will be on the case of these two like he was with the Chawners….

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/royal-family/300273650/police-called-frequently-to-prince-harry-and-meghan-markles-california-mansion

  7. Ad 7
    12 April 2021 at 10:37 am

    Here's a little thought-balloon from the Fabians on "Anglo-American" capitalism from an East Asian perspective.

    It's on this Wednesday at Wellington Central Baptist Church. It goes like this:

    "The rise of a populist backlash against ‘globalized elites’ in the U.S. and Britain is often attributed to underlying socio-economic cleavages and governing dysfunction in what has been termed Anglo-American capitalism. There is, however, little agreement on what exactly went wrong and why.

    This talk looks to East Asia to explore what might lie behind the apparent inability of some advanced Western states to deliver a range of critical public good functions.

    Capitalism as it has developed in East Asia has delivered rising living standards under the stewardship of both ‘developmental’ states and more patrimonial governing systems. Both differ from the ‘regulatory state’ that emerged from comprehensive state sector reform programmes in countries such as Britain and New Zealand.

    The talk will also explore some of the key differences in state sector organization, legal system and underlying political settlement across East Asia, with a view to interpreting current political cleavages and economic pressures in Anglo-American systems."

    Hopefully our MFAT aid and development people will turn up for that one. Comparing the delivery of "critical public good functions" across developing, patrimonial, and developed societies would make for a fairly long evening I'll be bound.

  8. joe90 8
    12 April 2021 at 12:01 pm

    Short on hoods.

    A single person arrived at Trump Tower for a "White Lives Matter" march and rally Sunday in New York City.

    […]

    In semi-private, encrypted chats, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists planned rallies in dozens of cities Sunday to promote their racist movements and spread their ideologies to larger audiences.

    Hyped by organizers as events that would make “the whole world tremble,” the rallies ran into a major problem: Hardly anyone showed up.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/white-lives-matter-rallies-flop-hardly-anyone-shows-rcna650

  9. Byd0nz 9
    12 April 2021 at 1:46 pm

    Ignition 61

    The rocket motors roar and scream

    The capsule vibrates from every seam

    Teeth are gritting knuckles gripping

    Stomach feels it's inside out.

    Eyes are blurring tongue is furring

    Ears are pinging head is spinning

    Lips are blueish nostrils fluish

    The mind to scared to shout.

    Suddenly a loud crash and bang,

    The spaceman has an anxiety pang

    The capsule is set free,

    He sees the tumbling rocket

    With shaking hand he plugs

    To connect the radio socket

    In silence now, at last

    No more sounds of fury

    " Hullo Earth"………………

    ………………………………….

    This is Yuri………….

  10. Jimmy 10
    12 April 2021 at 3:15 pm

    This from the other day:

    Here's a bit of a challenge for anyone good at maths.

    If you have an unkown number, how do you calculate 90% of that number?

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/04/coronavirus-government-doesn-t-know-how-many-border-works-there-are-but-still-insists-90-percent-have-got-covid-19-vaccin

    Seems like the number was not 90% after all. Now it is 80%….I wonder how accurate that is?

    Covid 19 coronavirus: What new NZ case means for transtasman travel bubble – NZ Herald

    • McFlock 10.1
      12 April 2021 at 4:45 pm

      Well, one way is for each facility to report on whether they have reached a 90% target – if everyone says "yes", you're can state 90% across the board.

      Or the total number of first jabs was more than 90% of 16k as well as 12k.

      Or the total of jabs was for the correct amount of people employed at the time the number was evaluated, and the vax procedure for recruitment hasn't changed so a corresponding proportion of people employed since the number was nailed down is about the same.

      Or anything else mentioned the first time you expressed concern about the government prioritising actual effectiveness over data updates.

      Cut&paste of concern comments over different days? Gosh, you must really be genuinely interested in the health and safety of MIQ workers. /sarc

      • Jimmy 10.1.1
        12 April 2021 at 4:49 pm

        "Gosh, you must really be genuinely interested in the health and safety of MIQ workers. /sarc"

        Not so much, more concerned about being bull shitted to.

        • McFlock 10.1.1.1
          12 April 2021 at 5:07 pm

          But if your copypasta were a genuine request for an explanation as to how the 90% statement could be true for both numbers, I suspect you would have understood the explanations given when you first asked for assistance. People did try to explain it to you in simple terms.

    • Pat 11.1
      12 April 2021 at 6:28 pm

      Mr Trotter certainly appears an unlikely acolyte for such a cause but I cant see Labour moving in that direction…especially if you consider Minister Little's reluctance to chance their majority through (further) inaction on decriminalisation….controversy is to be avoided at any cost.