When you remove nuts & bolts, things tend to fall over

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, June 22nd, 2024 - 21 comments
Categories: democracy under attack, the praiseworthy and the pitiful - Tags:

It doesn’t take an engineer of somebody with a deep understanding of the Laws of Physics to work out that if you remove essential elements that hold together a physical structure it is likely to fall over or collapse. The same universal principle applies to infrastructure. And to essential services. And to democracy.

The coalition government thinks it can avoid this principle by gutting the Pubic Service in the back-offices only without it affecting front-offices and public-facing services. This is disconnected thinking.

The coalition government thinks that if it repeals a whole load of law & regulation things will be hunky-dory. As if removing road cones makes roads safer. This is just potty thinking.

Any business knows that if you want to keep the business running well or running at all that upkeep of equipment is essential. This government wants to run this country as a business but obviously doesn’t know or understand even the most basic principles.

Investing in New Zealand, its people, and in future generations needs to go a lot further than heavy subsidies for ECE and $3 school lunches. A penny-pinching zero-sum dance of veils in a room full of smoke & mirrors is what constitutes The Plan of this coalition government. It’s not even tragicomedy.

Piece-meal cherry picking doesn’t make for a nutritious meal. This government is stomping around like a child on a sugar-rush in a candy store. It makes promises that it cannot keep and it should never have made in the first place. Because they were dumb promises only intended to lure voters.

It is unfathomable that support for the coalition government hasn’t nose-dived yet possibly because it has experienced only very slight turbulence so far, mostly self-inflicted because of the hot air from their own brain farts.

It only takes one nut to screw up for this unhinged coalition government to topple over. That moment can’t come soon enough and my sincere hope is that it will only take a feather or a butterfly to trigger it and not a major event such as a natural disaster or a pandemic. May it go down with a whisper so that we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

21 comments on “When you remove nuts & bolts, things tend to fall over ”

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  1. Anne 1
    22 June 2024 at 1:16 pm

    It is incomprehensible to me that this government will not or cannot comprehend the consequences of their own actions or inactions as the case may be.

    When a car or a bus or a train or a boat becomes old and unsafe you get rid of it and buy a new one. If a house, or a school or a hospital or a bridge or other essential infrastructure becomes unsafe you repair it to the upper-most standard of workmanship or you replace it. That is normal behaviour.

    You never, never, never try to cut corners as this government is doing. The inevitable outcome down the track is going to be tragedy – possibly on a massive scale.

    Yes. It costs money – lots of money. But a responsible government will never shy away from doing what is right when the health and safety of the populace is at stake. The Labour led Govt.'s response to Covid is a shining example. It would not have happened under this irresponsible bunch of 'meat-heads' and many thousands more people would have died.

    Hence, I consider this government's action in buying their way into power with the promises of tax cuts etc., at the expense of the health and safety of a large portion of the population to be a criminal offence.

    • Darien Fenton 1.1
      22 June 2024 at 4:01 pm

      You are so right Anne. Aratere being a case in point ; Watch as Simeon tries to blame the workers.

      • mac1 1.1.1
        22 June 2024 at 4:23 pm

        RNZ re Simeon Brown in a stand-up at Picton. He won't blame Kiwirail management. When will the workers be blamed, indeed?

        "He did not respond directly to a question about his confidence in the leadership of KiwiRail.

        This was a question for the Minister of Finance and the Minister of State Owned Enterprise, he said."

        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/520250/live-transport-minister-fronts-up-over-ferry-grounding

        • Anne 1.1.1.1
          22 June 2024 at 6:44 pm

          https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/06/22/govt-very-disappointed-in-kiwirail-amid-aratere-grounding-brown/

          Sniveling little creep. Sorry if that offends anyone but imo that is close to the mark.

          • Patricia Bremner 1.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2024 at 9:19 am

            They are operating true to kind.

            "You are spendthrifts, so we need austerity for you and your arm of Government, the Public service. We will direct the spending to our own, as we are better managers."

            The cycle of no forward planning, no budgets for replacement or maintenance, cuts of public service jobs and loss of small business confidence, fear of job losses, less tax take, and a spiral into depressed production and growth. This will be followed by public owned assets being sold to present and overseas atlas members, big business and billionaires, "to pay for our temerity to try to build homes hospitals train our people in trades and medical areas, replace ferries and improve port equipment to deal with larger ferries. Oh and spend money on covid and prevention.'

            Many of our infrastructure woes started in 2008, when the Key years meant selling off assets and building a "white elephant casino" encouraging tourism and poorly paid roles for the locals, changing employment law to allow exploitation across the board, cutting Public Service to the bone. The pay system for teachers fell over, and many of us were not paid, and thousands of workers were cheated of holiday pay, and are being compensated to this day, all while they were telling us we have a "rock star economy".

            There was more horror, Hospitals cut off from each other, and systems not able to pass information via their tech. We were taken in by a smiling conman, who through Bill Birch and the contracts act, led to a whole generation which has worked with few protections. The deaths at work in forestry an indicator. When will voters learn? These people care for wealth more than any thing or person.

  2. roblogic 2
    22 June 2024 at 1:37 pm

    Big companies tend to like the idea of running a lean operation and doing mass redundancies now and then. It makes the share price go up, thus enriching the execs and shareholders. Doesn't matter if the company is making the best widgets in the world – the financial mindset only cares about quarterly profit.

    Late stage capitalism is a perverse joke that markets itself as a dynamic force but in reality it's parasitic on the real economy, turning good companies into zombies and extracting maximum value at the expense of long term survival.

    This is the moronic mindset of the pinstriped fuckwits with MBAs running our government. They talk about the value of work whilst destroying the economy and breaking contracts and firing thousands. Liars and fraudsters prosecuting a class war against workers on behalf of landlords and giant corporations.

    The only public infrastructure this govt seems to care about is Roads – but only for the rich and the trucking lobby

    • Incognito 2.1
      22 June 2024 at 1:56 pm

      Big companies tend to like the idea of running a lean operation and doing mass redundancies now and then.

      When ex-CEOs apply the same thinking to NZ Inc, we get massive lay-offs in the Public Service.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/513456/how-many-public-sector-roles-are-going-and-from-where

    • newsense 2.2
      24 June 2024 at 10:19 am

      Boeing.

      The money men took over the company and made several killings.

      Cave Creek. It was actually traumatising for me as a kid and I don’t go on viewing platforms anywhere and I dislike bridges and other structures I can’t feel confident about high up.

      • Obtrectator 2.2.1
        24 June 2024 at 11:23 am

        It's been going on at all levels, everywhere, probably since time began. Which astronaut was it who remarked that, while lying there waiting to be fired into space, it occurred to him that every piece of the rocket he was about to ride had been provided by the guys who put in the lowest tender?

  3. roblogic 3
    22 June 2024 at 2:17 pm

    Aratere ferry grounding just the latest problem to hit Interislander's ageing fleet

    This wasn't supposed to happen eh Simeon? Because according to your lot, investing in public infrastructure is wasteful and unnecessary and we can chug along with number 8 wire and duct tape, she'll be right.

    Here's Dr Peter Davis, commenting on a Newsroom article about crazy rates rises:

    This is all self-inflicted. In the case of Three Waters local authorities were reminded several times over 20-30 years under different administrations, including the passing of legislation and reports from the Audit Office, that they needed to set aside depreciation and other funds for this infrastructure. […] I think New Zealand has given up on trying to be a member of the western, developed, democratic club of affluent or semi-affluent societies. The incoming government has great faith in localism and the private sector, but we could well end up with defence forces that cannot mount any worthwhile presence, threadbare essential infrastructure (except for roads), barely solvent local authorities, foreign investors picking the cherries out of our assets

  4. SPC 4
    23 June 2024 at 4:48 pm

    The pylons need to be painted to avoid corrosion.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/520334/transpower-s-power-pylon-maintenance-backlog

    Other ways to preserve an asset.

    https://archive.li/IjyBU

  5. Jimmy 5
    24 June 2024 at 2:40 pm

    "Mornez Green, managing director of Omexom, the company completing maintenance on the power, said the incident was “unprecedented”.

    “We removed too many nuts from the bolts that resulted in the tower falling over."

    So I presume Omexom will be up for a decent amount of compensation due to their stupidity. It's good to know that tower didn't fall due to corrosion though.

    Northland power outage, pylon collapse: Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew confirms why tower fell – NZ Herald

    • Belladonna 5.1
      24 June 2024 at 5:16 pm

      Well, that's blaming the workers with a vengeance

      Andrew said Transpower crews were completing “routine maintenance” on the tower in Glorit.

      “It is unprecedented and inconceivable that all the nuts were removed at once,” Andrew said.

      “Our view is that the specifications and procedures [for the maintenance] were not followed”.

      …

      Green said the competence of the people on site will be assessed during the investigation.

      …

      The crew on the site were “stood down immediately”, Andrew said, and all base plate work was halted across the country.

      • Jimmy 5.1.1
        25 June 2024 at 11:08 am

        Pretty hard not to blame the workers. I'm no engineer, but who in their right mind would unbolt three of the four legs of the tower all at once!

    • thinker 5.2
      25 June 2024 at 7:07 am

      But I always thought the private sector did things right, while public servants were the cause of all our woes.

      This is one to remember when Touchy-Luxy tries to trot that old chestnut out…

    • Graeme 5.3
      25 June 2024 at 8:52 am

      Would be interesting to see the timeline of how operating procedures changed to get to the point that 3 baseplates ended up unbolted at once. Wonder how they got to that point and why?

      And how did that decision flow u and down the management / administration chain. Transpower stopping all baseplate work, nationwide, indicates that this isn't confined to one contractor.

  6. SPC 6
    24 June 2024 at 5:40 pm

    Dawe – Surely it is inconceivable that all the nuts and bolts were removed?

    Clarke – No.

    Dawe – Really?

    Clarke – Yes really. We know the pylon fell down and it would not have fallen down if the nuts and bolts had still been attached.

    Dawe – So the nuts and bolts should not have been removed?

    Clarke – You have it.

    Dawe – How did this happen?

    Clarke – We've already established that someone removed the nuts and bolts

    Dawe – So what will you do?

    Clarke – Do a work around and then replace the pylon

    Dawe – I mean to prevent this happening again

    Clarke – Remind people of the correct way to do it

    Dawe – Which is what exactly?

    Clarke – I thought we had established that

    Dawe – Not to remove all the nuts and bolts?

    Clarke – You have it.

    Details

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/northland-power-outage-pylon-collapse-transpower-chief-executive-alison-andrew-to-make-announcement/77DBD3SCGFHNJHLAC654SKATKA/