Garth George: Adrift in a torrent of incompetence and stupidity

We are surrounded by stupidity and drowning in incompetence. Not a day goes by that this newspaper doesn't present us with further evidence that our country is bereft of effective leadership and is wallowing in political and bureaucratic bungling.

The refusal of those placed in positions of trust in the Government, the bureaucracy, business, the community and even sport to accept responsibility for their actions or lack of them is a cancer that is increasingly rapidly spreading through our nation.

The latest, and probably least important, evidence is the Transit New Zealand decision to stop roadworks at Meremere because someone said there was a taniwha in the swamps.

Whoever believed that was stupid; whoever acted on it was incompetent.

After all, the Westie fairies at the bottom of my garden are brassed off because they have to hide under big leaves or squeeze into worm holes for days at a time to escape being sprayed with insecticide. But I would no more think of asking the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to stop the spraying programme so as not to offend my fairies than the ministry would think of granting my request.

Another relatively unimportant but nevertheless indicative example of incompetence and stupidity is the contretemps between senior players and New Zealand Cricket. Given even a modicum of intelligent leadership on both sides, the dispute would never have reached the impasse it has and the great game would not be in disarray in advance of the most important season in four years.

And when it comes to rugby as administered by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union - the World Cup and Steve Devine stupidities - the less said the better.

The big and dangerous problems are in the Government, for this Administration has shown itself to be grossly incompetent, particularly in areas that really matter.

Look at the rotting-houses tragedy in which thousands of New Zealanders' lives have been shattered by the discovery that they have been ripped off by shonky and/or incompetent developers and builders and stupid building inspectors, and their biggest and most cherished investments in this lifetime are in jeopardy.

Look at the health system in general and the mental health system in particular and grieve for those who have lost loved ones at the hands of those who themselves have been victims of the incompetence and stupidity of the people who are supposed to "manage" the health services.

Grieve, too, for those who live in constant pain and suffering, sometimes for years, because the health service, with the connivance of the politicians, keeps changing the criteria of surgical and other waiting lists to give the impression that they are getting shorter.

Look at the machinations of the Auckland District Health Board under Wayne Brown, and its senior "managers", and ask yourself why it is always at loggerheads with someone and why other board members, some of them elected, have nothing to say.

The dispute with radiographers and other technical specialists is only the latest of a long line of disputes affecting the provision of Auckland district health services and which most other health boards seem to have managed to avoid.

To spend hundreds of thousands of dollars moving patients round the country, when it would have cost much less to settle the pay dispute with radiographers, is just the sort of stupidity of which I write, and which seems to reach its most absurd in organisations that were once public services but which today pretend to be businesses.

Look at the education system, which although desperately short of teachers and resources is embroiled in a huge curriculum, examination and assessment change, much of which is unnecessary - and largely unwanted, specially by educators who carry a bit of national mana.

And just imagine how much stupidity and incompetence it took to allow the teachers' pay dispute to stutter on for 18 months and to arrive at the conclusion that kindergarten teachers should be paid the same as secondary school teachers.

Look at the welfare system in general and the Department of Child, Youth and Family in particular, riddled with incompetence and stupidity to such an extent that children are given into the custody of known abusers and paedophiles, not just once but time and time again.

Look at ACC, which in newspaper and television advertising campaigns run at huge public expense exhorts us to take care in all sorts of situations, then buys large blocks of shares in the nation's two main breweries.

Look at a justice system that continues to impose fines probably amounting to millions of dollars a day when there are $420 million in unpaid fines nationwide, an increase of more than $109 million in just two years. And, worse still, victims of crime are still hanging out for their reparations.

Behind all this incompetence and stupidity is a cadre of cabinet ministers who refuse to take responsibility for the sad state of their portfolios and whose main talents seem to be ducking for cover or trying to blame someone else.

As for our Dear Leader, she's so busy gallivanting all over the world playing at being a stateswoman that she's never at home long enough to apply the sort of disciplined leadership that this country needs if it is to achieve even a fraction of what it has to do to stay in the First World.

* garth_george@nzherald.co.nz