All 'Bout the Money
An MBIE debacle and a private limo for Shane Jones.
It's all 'bout the money
It's all 'bout the dum dum da da dum dum
I don't think It's funny
To see us fade away
It's all 'bout the money
It's all 'bout the dum dum da da dum dum
And I think we got it all wrong anyway
Songwriters: Douglas Ian Carr / Meja Anna Pernilla Beckman.
This week, people lost their minds over a failed software project at Steven Joyce’s mega-ministry, MBIE. After spending 20 years in software delivery, I was less surprised, having delivered a number of projects in the public sector that show you how you have to operate.
The Minister must be kept happy is rule #1, but how that is achieved is an introduction to the dark arts and skullduggery of reporting on projects while still getting things done.
Silly things like having to break work into chunks that don’t mean anything in order to stay below financial thresholds that require business cases, which slow projects down in a morass of bureaucracy.
I once got a telling-off for delivering a series of seven or eight Statements of Work, essentially the documents that define what will be delivered, any exclusions, risks, etc. Someone at the Ministry thought it was a bit cute to see all these invoices just below the threshold, so I was told not to do that again by the very Ministry person who had suggested I do it in the first place.
At another company whose main client was MBIE, the relationship between the two was like a bad marriage. One party was unhappy and wanted a divorce; the other, who had them over a barrel, even asked them to pay invoices early so they could make payroll. One day I reached my limit and quit on the spot; I hadn’t even looked for another job; I just decided I could no longer be a party to what was going on, and blowing the whistle would have been career suicide.
My first reaction on seeing Erica Stanford so furious was to wonder whether she had asked the right questions. She seems to point fingers a lot, and the buck never seems to stop with her, despite her having been in charge for quite some time. Reading on, I found what had taken place was certainly unacceptable, but I still wasn’t surprised.
Back in 2023, Independent consultants told Immigration managers that the project would not meet its 'go live' date and that “we have doubts as to whether the project will in fact deliver at all, and we question its continuation”.
Their report spoke of a “poor delivery history” and an “inability to meet agreed milestones,” yet six months later MBIE described the project to Stanford, saying, “The latest IQA confirmed the project approach was sound and robust, the build is achievable, and the risk management practice is effective.”
They were lying, and the people involved should clearly lose their jobs. MBIE admitted it had been “incorrect and misleading” but maintained there was no intention to mislead. I have some sympathy for Stanford; she has been blatantly lied to, and it is mind-boggling that, in MBIE’s apology, they claimed there was no intent to deceive when there obviously was.
It turns out MBIE has also been shooting the messengers who spoke up, saying that some staff were replaced “because they raised concerns about the project's viability.” Which tends to discourage others from speaking up.
If you asked any member of a development team whether the reports going up the chain were a warts-and-all reflection of the way things are going, they would laugh their heads off and roll their eyes; you learn early in the sector that the bearer of bad news is not thanked.
Project Managers must tell the truth, even if it has dire consequences for them, but all too often we see reports that show a green light right up until the light slams to red without warning, and there is nothing you can do about it.
As for the level of media attention given to this debacle, it looks to me like this is a political move to make people lose sympathy for the public service rather than being about this project. Don’t get me wrong, $33 million is a lot of money, but to put it in perspective, the break fee to cancel the Interislander (iReX) ferry contracts was $144 million. So Nicola Willis wasted four times the cost of this seven-year project, with the single stroke of her petulant pen.
Not to mention the billion dollars National wants to waste on building a white elephant of an LNG facility in Taranaki, which we wouldn’t need if they invested in more sustainable capacity, and which experts have said would not help in an energy crisis such as the one that is theoretically ending.
Perhaps most bizarrely, Winston Peters has threatened to send those involved to prison for what he called a “conspiracy against the people”. No doubt he was after a headline, but so far as I’m aware, we’re not actually locking people up for negligence or poor performance.
Winston says the MBIE people should go to jail, even though there is no suggestion that individuals have benefited privately. By contrast, Shane Jones has taken $30,000 from taxpayers above what was approved, taking the piss with his expenses. Maybe Jones is the one who should go to jail?
Private limo on standby for 24 hours part of Shane Jones’ $63k travel bill
Last year, Jones attended a mining conference in Canada, no doubt to flog what lies beneath our conservation estate. He flew business class and kept a private limo on standby, spending a whopping $63,000, even though Cabinet had approved only $33,000.
In other words, Jones spent $30,000 on baubles of power he wasn’t entitled to, and there is a term we use when people spend money that isn’t theirs.
Winston rapidly dialled back his level of outrage at the wasting of government money, saying of the expenditure, “When I saw that, actually, I couldn't believe that it was so low. So, what you've got is normalcy in this case, and there's nothing for us to apologise here for.”
Chris Hipkins noted, “Christopher Luxon tells New Zealanders to tighten their belts, but when one of his senior ministers blows an extra $30,000 of taxpayer money on luxury travel, limousine rides and eye-watering accommodation costs, he signs it off without consequence. There seems to be one set of rules for ordinary families and another for Shane Jones.”
It reflects badly on the coalition that, at a time of austerity, they continue to set such a bad example.
Whether it be Louis Upston claiming a grand a week to live in a house she owns, Karen Chourr blowing $16,686 on parking at Auckland Airport in just eight and a half months, which is not something anyone using their own money would do, or Jones blowing $63,000, the amount a home care worker is paid for an entire year, to make himself available to mining lobbyists.
Many large IT projects fail, whether in the public or private sector. Either way, the taxpayer or consumer pays for the failure. I’m not suggesting that what has taken place at MBIE is acceptable; it’s not, and the heads of those who knew where the bodies were should roll, but let’s keep this project in perspective.
Most of all, let’s not allow a Minister who perhaps didn’t ask the right questions to create the impression that there is something wrong with the public sector.
Have a good Thursday, folks,
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end, here’s some classic 90s pop, Meja with All ‘Bout The Money.
It's the same old story - can you imagine the absolute outrage and uproar had it been a Labour government doing this casually dishonest stuff? Just plain sickening.
Well said Nick. I too thought Stanford was relishing the chance to blame and shame public servants. Seems to be the pattern in this government for the Ministers to blame their ministry staff like they're somehow completely detached from them.