I recently attended the 50th celebration of Schick Construction, a local company started by a guy with a truck which now employs over 300 people. It was inspiring. Why then is it so hard to find inspired people in our public sector?
After 18 months as a councillor I now know the answer. The culture of these organisations is based around the fear. If you do something it could go wrong… better to play it safe and do nothing, that way we can’t get in trouble.
Mike Keir
Councils and central government have created inflexible organisations with a web of regulation that ties their hands. Annual plans, long term plans, consenting processes that are highly bureaucratic. To change anything takes years.
For me this has been a depressing realisation. I will not stand again as a councillor as life is too short to spend in such a negative, risk averse environment. I am a contractor, I like risk, it is inspiring, invigorating.
The system has to change, and I want the public to be aware of that – I can’t change it from the inside. That’s why I won’t stand again.
We have the most expensive infrastructure costs in the world largely due to regulation along with a very poor structure for efficient implementation. The recent attempt at resource management reform would have made this situation worse and this new government either does not understand the depth of the problem or is not prepared to tackle the hard work required to unpick it.
However rather than have this column sound like a dirge I would like it to inspire.
There are things to celebrate – the growth of local companies like Schick, like the Porter Group, another business started by a man with a truck and now the biggest privately owned hire company in the southern hemisphere, Tainui Group Holdings, a corporation that reinvests into our community with a long term vision. We are lucky to have these organisations and there are many of them.
I love to read the stories of community in this paper, stories about the amazingness of volcanoes when we live in a land that is full of them. I thank people like Fred Cockram for his honest comment.
These are the things that make our communities strong. We grow and develop in spite of governance which acts like a handbrake with regulations to deal with the few who exploit and abuse, while constraining the many who want to do cool stuff.
Look to the United States for inspiration, it has been, and still is a powerhouse of innovation in spite of having had poor governance since at least the Vietnam War. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if councils got on the train of enabling our communities to grow and thrive?
The irony is that this is what they say they do. My council’s goal is to build liveable, thriving, connected communities.
Yeah right. Both our council structure and rating systems are no longer fit for purpose, If we do not change this model I doubt this will be the last double digit rates increase.
See: Tamahere rep to quit
I quit. Photo: RDNE Stock project, pexels.com
