Rod Emmerson’s view
Goff would benefit from 90- day rule
Normally your columnist Brian Rudman and I have little in common, but his comments about our new mayor’s puzzling choice of priorities are right to the point.
Goff is probably suffering from culture shock, finding that the Beehive and the Town Hall are really poles apart. One makes rules, the other makes decisions.
He has found himself surrounded by highly paid executives, mostly from a business background, who speak a different language and understandably, will be suspicious of a retired politician at the helm.
Goff, with no business experience would benefit by following the golden rule for executives new to a position. It is called the “90 Day Rule” and is taught in many management courses. indulges in inappropriate behaviours with a lewd and tasteless comment like, “real men ride women”? Will they point to parenting failures here?
Emmerson’s cartoon depicting Max Key as a young Donald Trump was apt. Perhaps a new party is in the offing. ‘ Young Nationals’ might soon be called ‘ Young Trumps’, or should that be ‘ Chumps’. All people behaving badly deserve our opprobrium.
For the first 30 days, make no decisions and meet the staff. For the second 30 days, tour your territory, make no decisions. For the next 30 days, quietly study the key objectives and results expected by your shareholders [ ratepayers]. Only then are you in a position to make one or two small informed decisions, and start to contribute. Break the rule and suffer the consequences. decision and nobody now would want to return to Athletic Park. So the solution for Auckland has to be a covered, 50,000- seat stadium downtown to replace Eden Park.
A quick word
According to his daddy, Max Key “didn’t mean to make the comment that he made in the way he did”. Rubbish. He meant exactly what he said. Bad enough to hear our number one’s son using bad diction in telling bike riders, “Real men ride ‘ woman”’ but to hear on TV1 a judge in a prominent rape case using the same incorrect diction was mind blowing. Tony Lawson, One Tree Point. At the end of the day, he didn’t pull anyone’s ponytail. Ardent Leisure, owners of Dreamworld, really must be living in a dreamworld to award their CEO almost $ 850,000 in bonuses. It seems that it would have been preferable to spend at least a portion of that huge amount earlier on a higher calibre of equipment maintenance engineers. That photo in the Herald of Dreamworld with the spectacularly rusty roofs does suggest a large lack of maintenance. Martin Guptill, one of the Black Caps’ worst bowlers, was given the ball in the second ODI and bowled probably the worst six balls one could witness to some of the world’s best batsmen and picked up two wickets. That is what makes cricket one of the most absorbing, tantalising and seductive sports ever invented. It’s not librarians but all the overpaid turkeys at Auckland Council making these daft decisions who should be getting the chop at Christmas. At my local well- known fruit shop New Zealand oranges were $ 2.99 kg and Australian oranges were 99c kg. Why would I buy New Zealand, with such a difference in price? Is the Warriors problem they have too many assistant coaches? Anti- nuclear groups and peace activists have promised to greet the USS Sampson with a protest flotilla. Is that the same flotilla that greeted the Russian and Chinese ships that visit New Zealand? Or are these antiAmerican- everything activists just being hypocrites? New Zealand has one of the most successful constitutions in the world. Its flexibility and simplicity makes it the envy of many nations. It ain’t broke and Geoffrey Palmer wants to ‘ fix’ it?