Rewards for Effort?

Two regular issues that got lots of reader support were continuing coverage of Air New Zealand’s lack of customer focus and the regular oddities from our judiciary, both producing reader’s tales of woe and warnings for me to watch my step in case I ever land in front of some judge unhappy to have their authority questioned.
The column predicted that last year’s election would be made close by National’s tax cut call responding to the last budget and also picked the difference to be Helen’s single minded tenacity which saw her back as New Zealander achiever of the year. The economy looks to have peaked, the Reserve Bank Governor looks panicky and Cullen is grumpy about Australian banks not paying their share of taxation.
The opening column last year was the first of a long line of media questions about Jonathan Hunt scoring our top honour, as well as getting to take his eating disorders to London on the taxpayer. Chatting last year, David Lange told me that Hunt getting the order of NZ for flattering the PM (who didn’t need it) had so devalued his own holding of this honour that he had written it out of his autobiography.
Back from offshore business I downloaded this year’s honour’s list to see what lessons could be learned. Well if we thought last year’s was odd, this latest list seems odder still. Whoever is on the selecting committee did quite well with the sports section making better choices than the Halberg Awards group and no doubt gaining public support for honouring our sporting heroes. (Anyone remember the old days of amateur sport when all that Meads and Whineray got was a gong?)
But after sport the list gives us no idea what the Honours committee values at all. In a society completely dominated by technology there is no mention of it at all. The constant supply of clean water, sewerage, electricity, telecommunications, data, radio and TV signals, fuel, open highways, hospitals, schools and all the paraphernalia of a modern society has gone un-noticed by an award system that focuses on arts, culture and other luxuries totally reliant on the pillars of technology, engineering, business and the taxpayer.

What do we make of the top ward to the CEO of Air NZ just before he sacks hundreds of the government’s union supporters and heads off to Australia to work for one of the banks that Cullen reckons are ripping off the taxpayer? If Ralph Norris was to get an award it would be for his work at the ASB, not for Air NZ which remains a shocker.
Many of us would love to support our national carrier but its international service ignores business and the company milks the local monopoly. Senior service staff are disgruntled that management tell them that personality doesn’t matter (in a service industry!).
Sadly most of Air NZ’s faults are easily and cheaply fixed but it’s just not happening. The government sacked the board of Tairawhiti Health for a lot less than Air NZ are guilty of. I presume that because politicians don’t pay for their tickets and fly first class anyhow, they may not be aware how bad things are.
Oddly another top performer from an Aussie bank seems headed for control of TVNZ. Does this mean that Cullen doesn’t mind not getting that tax?
As for two more judges getting awards, that just shows me how out of tune I (and all you readers) must have become. One judge called counsel together before Christmas to say he would not be bullied by this column, before reserving his decision for three months. What perspective suggests that a few hundred words in a Sunday paper is bullying and imagine having the luxury of three months to make a decision in business or anything.
As for this year, well I predict another electricity supply crisis that will see ministers scurrying for cover and if you really want an award there looks to be a gap for anyone who can compose whale music for the nose flute, provided of corse that it is not a commercial success.
Wayne Brown