Thursday 10 November 2011

sorry isn't quite enough

following on from my previous post, michael redman continues to play the victim and complains of being scapegoated in yet another article by the waikato times - an article which exclusively quotes mr redman without any response from councillors or staff. i'm wondering if this is a tactic he's using to try to pressure councillors so that they won't go ahead with the decision to sue him.

meanwhile, the councillors are refusing to resign but not refusing to say sorry. an apology, in itself, isn't enough even though it's nice to see someone willing to acknowledge their wrongdoing and apologise for it. i don't know that i'd support a mass resignation from the councillors though - given that 9 out of 12 of them were involved in the main decisions, it would gut the council and force mr hide to appoint a commissioner. regardless of the woes the council is facing at the moment, especially with high levels of debt, i don't think things would be made better by a hide-appointed commissioner.

more than that, former ACT party president and current hamilton east candidate, mr gary mallett, is waiting in the wings and has been public with his criticism. which makes me think that he might be ready to put his name forward for mayor. this would be the same mr mallett who told the then very-employed chair of the board of the top performing public high school in hamilton that people like him should go out and get a job (purely on the basis that the chair was maori and mr mallett loves to play the race card - loves it to the extent that he would pay to put in half-page ads in the local community paper every week, that were hugely anti-maori). this is the same mr mallett who was resoundingly defeated in the WEL energy trust elections a few years back. just the thought of him having any kind of political position in this city is vomit-inducing.

so i'm not sure what kind of penalty is sufficient for the offending councillors, including those who are no longer sitting. perhaps some kind of charges of negligence - because the audit office report is clear that there was a lack of due diligence, that there were councillors who weren't asking the questions they should have asked and who were accepting "commercial sensitivity" as an excuse to not do their job thoroughly.

and while we're on the subject of taking responsibility for one's actions, the "parties" charged in relation to the pike river tragedy are also not so keen to own up to their doings. not only are they keen on name suppression, but i suspect that they aren't going to put their hands up and say "guilty" to save the taxpayers the significant costs of a trial - if they are guilty, of course. but hearing the news from the commission of inquiry, there seems to have been a significant amount of negligence as a result of cost-cutting. and really, those responsible should just step forward, admit to what they've done and take the consequences of their actions. whatever those consequences are, they won't be as bad as losing one's life underground in a mining accident.

i'm not holding my breath though. given that the original company is in receivership, it's quite clear that certain "parties" were quickly strategising so that there would be a minimum amount available to be paid. rather like union carbide, and a tried and true strategy it is.

2 comments:

Chumbawumba said...

"i suspect that they aren't going to put their hands up and say "guilty" to save the taxpayers the significant costs of a trial"

I know! The cost of these trials is just ludicrous! There must be a better way when people are so clearly guilty.

stargazer said...

i didn't mean to specify any particular person charged is clearly guilty. what i said is that someone is clearly guilty, and whoever that is should front up and take responsibility. in any case, now that charges are laid, if the three no longer suppressed parties are actually guilty, then yes, it would be good if they took personal responsibilty be entering guilty pleas. it's been known to happen in other criminal cases.