> My point about the clothing factory story is that belly-aching in
> public about these things is often just the final act in an
> irreversible situation and that no amount of public outcry will undo a
> done deal.

You mean a situation like Section 92a ?

---------------------------------------------------
Keri Henare

[e]    [email protected]
[m]    021 874 552
[w]    www.kerihenare.com

On 29/04/2009, at 12:28 PM, Kent Parker wrote:

>
> My point about the clothing factory story is that belly-aching in
> public about these things is often just the final act in an
> irreversible situation and that no amount of public outcry will undo a
> done deal.
>
>
>
> On Apr 29, 12:11 pm, Mark Rickerby <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I don't think the idea of a cultural portal is a bad one, but I have
>> never felt NZLive was a good realization of this idea. However I
>> remain unconvinced with the arguments about wasting taxpayers money
>> because the vast majority of 'waste' goes directly into Wellington's
>> local economy anyway (it's easy to understand why others feel
>> differently), but I do agree in the case that the money has clearly
>> been squandered. I'm not sure how clear it is in this case, the only
>> empirical evidence seems to be the graph of traffic stats.
>>
>> What nobody has raised is that this outcome is might be due in no
>> small part to the private sector contractors who made the site  
>> lacking
>> the complete vision (or perhaps the $$ they were demanding) to  
>> produce
>> something that lived up to the concept and promise of a cultural
>> portal, and instead has become a basic events guide site.
>>
>> Most of the issues being expressed about what NZLive should or should
>> not be doing are not just a case of government management
>> (mismanagement if you insist), but are emergent from the relationship
>> between the government and private sector. To a large extent,
>> government departments rely on the good judgment of their business  
>> and
>> design partners to guide them.
>>
>> When agencies enter into these relationships, there is not  
>> necessarily
>> a clear pathway from the high level rhetoric of ministers, to the
>> actual administration of funding and management of projects. That's
>> just a simple fact of any hierarchical organization.
>>
>> A lot of people arguing about this kind of spending don't realize how
>> much of our educational and cultural fabric is derived from this
>> funding, and how impoverished we would be without the various things
>> that are being funded. Spending money is not synonymous with wastage,
>> each case has to be assessed in context.
>>
>> I would be hesitant to publicly lambast government and MCH, without
>> first knowing the details of these relationships and the lines of
>> responsibility. Promoting arts and culture is a part of MCH's  
>> mandate,
>> and whether or not NZLive achieves this, it is designed to achieve
>> this, which is enough to justify its existence from a funding
>> perspective. Looking at the documents it's clear that this project  
>> was
>> initiated long before EventFinder launched, so at the point of its
>> initiation, there would have been no such service.
>>
>> The problem I have trying to process some of the arguments here, is
>> that apart from the graph of traffic, I don't see what the evidence  
>> is
>> that the website has failed to meet its objectives. Overpriced, yes.
>> Failure, unclear.
>>
>> For what it's worth, I would rather see the NZLive money spent on  
>> arts
>> funding directly.
> >


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