#LeakQC and the Chain of Command

The privacy breach at EQC should not only lead to a government review of how it treats information, but also signal a turning point for how EQC treats it’s “clients” in Canterbury. While the EQC were initially quick to front the breach last Friday, it’s super sizing over the weekend leaves them looking comically inept. The breach itself didn’t get bigger – they just couldn’t figure out how to read a spreadsheet. So instead of “just” 9,700 claims being released, it turns out they released the master document, with information on every claim in the $15,000 to $100,000 bracket. 

The scope of the breach may not have been realised if it hadn’t been released to the person it ended up with Bryan Staples, of Earthquake Services. He runs a company that offers services to Christchurch people who are frustrated with their treatment by EQC. So while he is in regular contact with the people at EQC as part of his job, there is still some irony in his company being better able to understand the magnitude of the spreadsheet they were sent than those that tried to triage the mistake.

Staples is front page of the Press this morning, and fronted on RNZ as well. I commend him for owning this issue, and coming out strong, especially when Brownlee has been trying his hardest to shoot various messengers rather than wear the blame himself. It’s what Gerry’s been doing for 2 and half years now. Not only is he responsible for the “recovery”, but he is also the minister for the EQC. I was going to suggest that people outside of Christchurch just don’t understand how inept EQC are, but then I remembered that John Campbell could make a show reel out of his EQC investigations alone. 

Dissatisfaction with EQC is widespread and well-known. They’ve had something like 11,000 official complaints lodged with them. If this was any other government department, there would be calls for investigations or heads to roll. But because of the “extraordinary circumstances” of the quakes, somehow EQC and the minister in charge – Brownlee – have got a free pass. This should be the end of that. The erroneous sending of a spreadsheet can be excused; what’s inexcusable is that the spreadsheet contained the information that almost 100,000 claimants have been demanding from EQC for years. The minister needs to ensure that the stonewalling, the obfuscation, the secrecy and the delaying tactics that EQC have employed are no longer tolerated. If he can’t do that, then he needs to go.

 

There and back again: travel diary of my trip to the red zone

Yesterday, a group of us tried to get into Cathedral Square to lay a wreath at the stone cairn. Just a quick précis – way back in the times BE (Before Earthquake), water was a big issue in Canterbury. The biggest. Nick Smith and friends used the Creech Report as an excuse to do what they always wanted and scrap our regional council ECan. This led to a bunch of protests about the removal of democracy, under the umbrella of the Our Water, Our Vote (OWOV) group, which culminated in the building of the cairn. For this, around 3000 people gathered in Cathedral Square, and worked together to build the stone cairn. There’s a great 5 minute clip of that here. 

Last week, the bill which extended the ECan “temporary commissioners” bill was made law by the National-ACT-United Future-Maori government. We aren’t happy about that, and wanted to express our disapproval. However, OWOV has always tried to do things respectfully. We arranged a group to go in to the square, and requested permission from the relevant people at CERA. This request was for 8 people from OWOV, including Eugenie Sage, Sam Mahon, Edward Snowdon, Ruth Dyson and myself. This request was approved.

It was only when someone at CERA got wind of the media coming along that they revoked the access. As the stories in the Press and at RNZ have reported, this was due to a ban on “political events”. At this point, it is worth noting that the access had been approved for a list which included the names Sage, Mahon, Dyson and Dann – but this didn’t seem to bother them. It was the media which got the powers that be worried, and led them to revoke access.

Eventually, they let one person – Edward Snowdon, who engineered the cairn with Sam Mahon – go in with the wreath. In this photo, you can see the farcical nature of the situation: Edward is about to get a vest and a hard hat so he can go in, whilst the Red Zone disaster-porn tourism bus comes out after having done a lap of the square. 

Here is another shot which highlight the idiocy. On the right, you have a food truck which operates every day in the square. You can see that there are cars going in and out of the square, using it as a parking lot. The cairn is still there, just above the tradie’s head. It’s not about safety, or about “protecting” us; it was simply, as Roger said, political. That’s very dangerous ground to tread on.

Here is a story from August last year, from the last time I went into the Red Zone.

That’s me in the highlighter orange. Roger, cycling advocate, led a tour of the CBD for cycling advocates which I was involved in. At one point, we went beyond the cordon and into the square. I’m a strong supporter of cycling in Christchurch, but lobbying for it is a political activity. A cycling lobby group going into the red zone is a political event. One that Roger organised, so CERA approved. He doesn’t have the right to approve and decline political activities solely based on whether he likes them or not. As others have pointed out, political expression is entrenched in our right to freedom of expression. I doubt Roger got into this job to do the dirty work of a dictator.

p.s. if you were conspiracy minded, you might see something sinister in their desire to ban political events from the red zone, and their promise to keep the cordon up if it helps developers 

I was going to call for a caption competition, but this is too damn easy

From the re-opening of the Backbencher. Bright ideas in the comments, if you wish. 

Gerry and the Goosesteppers

Gerry and his new band “The Goosesteppers” try out some of their funky line-dancing moves on the streets of Avonside.

Gerry invites his mates Bob and Steve over to play on his new trampoline.

Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce prepare to throw the captured fugitive Roberto the Lizard into the Bromley sewerage treatment plant.

Got any other captions? Leave them in the comments. If I were a media manager for the Government or CERA, I’d be doing all I could to stop images like this from coming out. While many people secretly think that Bob and Gerry are having a great time fucking up the recovery, releasing images that seem to confirm that seems a really dumb idea.

Image and story credit – the Press

The hour for sensible thinking

We used to have a bar in Christchurch, called the Christchurch Temperance Society. It was the best bar. I left there about an hour before the September 4th quake, in which it was badly damaged. It has now been knocked down. It never re-opened. The Temp provided amazing service, great wine, but really specialised in cocktails. One of their signatures was the Barbara Lee (originally called the Lady Gaga), which was named after a woman of the same name who ran a clothing business next door. I had a quiet chuckle when Barbara Lee (the business woman, not the drink) was being interviewed on the news about something CBD related. Another was called Merivale Madness. One that was made from vodka and blue powerade, and topped with a gummy jetplane, was called “The Power of Christ Compels You”.

I was in the Civil Defence HQ at the Art Gallery this evening for a meeting. There were boxes and boxes of drink for the staff – bottled Kiwi Blue brand water, and blue powerade. Only the blue stuff. The only reasonable conclusion I can draw from this is that Gerry Brownlee will not start a meeting until he has had at least one ”The Power of Christ Compels You”. When he gets to the bottom of the glass, he pulls out the purple jetplane (which is by this stage, soggy and very sticky) and flies it around the room whilst making machine gun noises and yelling “take that hippies!” As his day consists of meeting after meeting, he consumes a lot of cocktails. This would then explain a number of the things he is saying, and the decisions he is making.