Evening all. Parking fees. They can be a bit steep, and the only reason people might be happy paying them is because it's always a relief to find a park. The rates in Wellington haven't got as exorbitant as Sydney, but you also have to juggle finding a spot with time limits for being there or, worse, not noticing you are on a dreaded clearway.
The new millionaires will be parking wardens on commission.
Saw an article in the DomPost yesterday that indicated 40% of the rental space in Wellington was now consumed by the bureaucracy, and since 1999 the office space leased for bureaucrats has increased by 77 per cent for an annual spend of 106 million.
Rental space increases over the last few years indicate just how big the bureaucracy has grown. Some of the departments have grown by acquisition. Ministry of Social Development gobbled up the entire Child Youth and Family Services, which in itself was large and others, like TEC have closed branch offices but presumably grown head office. The Health department has grown I believe, and yet the promise of establishing 21 or so District Health Boards was that central office shrunk. I don't think that happened.
There is another hidden cost to the growth in our bureaucracy - Contractors.
It seems to me government also grows to manage outsourced contracts. If the contractor stuffs up, the department says "not my fault" and gets a new one. Minimising accountability. It would be interesting to see some figures on this, as I only have my Tiger-sense and a few anecdotal stories to go off.
Anyway, enough on bureaucracy and more on Friday Night Chat stuff. I'm not around, being off doing the old fashioned 'face to face' style of meeting. Hopefully, I shall be back sometime in the evening to see how the weeks gone for every-one else.
Cheers!
Hello Zen. Is that the waka bring the crays into your marae?
ReplyDeleteThinking about bureaucracy and costs, I realised a while back that virtually the entire cost of a house is a compliance cost:
ReplyDelete- Consents etc are of course a compliance cost.
- Labour is a compliance cost, if I didn't have to get registered plumbers, electricians and builders by law I'd do the majority of it myself.
- About half the material cost is a compliance cost. Were it not for the building code, I could make a rammed earth house for next to no cost, or make other savings in materials here and there, probably halving the cost of materials.
So were it not for the laws, you could build a home for a fraction of the cost. Most of the cost is compliance. Makes you wonder why we bother with the laws, considering how well the old buildings that were built with no permits actually lasted. I was in Ireland over the last 2 years, heaps of 300-year-old houses there built with no permits but still going strong.
Wgere the hell is everybody?
ReplyDeleteNice pic Zen. 'Tis entirely the appropriate haste with which crays should be delivered.
ReplyDeleteFor the last couple of days, it's as though politics didn't exist in NZ.
ReplyDeleteAdolf, New Zealand is a social engineering experiment and politics is a shady game of cards. Most brain numb kiwis are as silly as sheep.
ReplyDeleteGood evening everybody (all one and a half of you)
ReplyDeleteLet's get the complaints out of the way first.
I am a traditionalist. Your new template almost caused me to suffer an infarction. I may get used to it but I don't want to.
The previous template has now been used by many others but will always be (for me) the place where the "nice" end of sir humphreys landed.
Anyway... Sun burn... had my monthly hair cut Wednesday, spent Thursday and today on a tractor with no hat... Applying whisky to the burns until my ride arrives to take me out to the throbbing coastal conurbation of Pihia for the evening.
Paihia as well..
ReplyDeleteGood evening everyone.
ReplyDeleteI,ve just spent an hour waiting in the chippie for 2 terakahi and one lot of chips.
Very nice they were but I do wish Oceanz at Silverdale would byuy one of those huge fishing ftyer ranges you see in the British chippies.
They should get more staff too.
Just having one guy cooking is not good enough.
Oh and the traffic in Auckland this afternoon has been horrendous.
Evening all.
ReplyDeleteZen: Parking costs 40 cents an hour in Oamaru and FM: down here bad traffic means you have to give way to a couple of cars.
Anyone else noticed that the week after the clocks go forward doesn't go quite as smoothly? It's like having jet lag without enjoying a holiday to compensate.
Homepaddock, I've enjoyed a couple of lie-ins until nearly 9am this week.
ReplyDeleteI had been getting up around 7am because of the daylight.
The part of the house I rent is quite new so it has blinds which are useless at keeping out the sun.
Today I had to drive from Silverdale to Te Atatu and I took the SH18 North Harbour road which has a new bit of motorway, but the trsffic now builds up as you get to the single carriageway bit which has yet top be upgraded.
Coincidentally, as we are a few weeks before an election, the diggers have arrived to start work on the missing link and there are now roadworks at the end of the North Western Motorway.
The diggers have also appeared on the South Western motorway by Mangere Bridge.
Yes, there is an election underway.
Evening all.
ReplyDeleteA lazy day here, spent in good company.
Too right, Mr. Dennis--how did we ever manage without little council busybodies telling us what to do with our own property? And charging us for the unwanted regulations as well...
And no groveling apology from the owners about the new template...
ReplyDeleteYou've had an hour, that's it I am off out......
Parking here has gotten really bad in the last 5-6 years.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe that sometimes I can't get a park outside the shop I wish to visit!
Sometimes I have to walk as far as 50 meters!
Bloody place is getting overcrowded!
50 METERS!!
ReplyDeleteIt's the end of the world as we know it.This newfangled motorcar will be the death of us, mark my words.
Why should Rimutaka be any different from anywhere else Os??
ReplyDeleteI see an Otara shopkeeper who had the temerity to get himself stabbed is facing assault charges...
ReplyDelete& another in Avondale ... cutting comment kg.
ReplyDeleteWell, pointed at least Mojo.
ReplyDeleteI hope the cops have him cuffed to the gurney, would not want the latest victim to rush onto another knife before plod can charge him...
ReplyDeleteKiwi taxpayer to Helen's cops:
ReplyDelete"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
(with apologies to Bill S.)
Evening all. Sorry I'm late - just had a great day out and finished it up with a nice meal at a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant.
ReplyDeleteBarnsley - you are right, traditions must be maintained. My abject apologies delivered in a suitably grovelling manner.
There is no excuse I can offer for my insanity. I only hope the new look confuses the lunatic left more.
I'd restore the template immediately to its former glory, for that would be the only honorable action to prove my deep sincerity, but it turns out I am actually a hard nosed bastard, and you'll just have to harden up. I will at least be prepared to buy you a beer should the occasion arise, and we'll toast to the good olde days (and even the good older days of Sir Humphs. Actually, that'll be another beer.)
Two beers then. How's that?
User selected themes is the answer. Or perhaps I could start a new set of links to blogs using the old NZC template, so that you can go there to soothe your frayed traditionalist nerves? I'm such a good sort on the occasional day, it makes we want my meds.
Spot on Adolf and Mojo: I always like to park my ship close by, as fresh crays and the customary right to park where I damn well please are an important part of my cultural heritage.
ReplyDeleteDown in Otara there are 74 chopping days to go before Christmas.
ReplyDelete