This is the paucity of qualified engineers in key decision making roles. Cabinet and Councils are constantly making big decisions having to rely on consultants etc rather than by using their practical real world experience. Excessive reliance on consultants is foolish and expensive.
I have tried to find out how many qualified engineers there were in Parliament and ChatGPT gave me just ACT MPs David Seymour and Simon Court. There are other MPs with STEM qualifications but I do not know whether any have civil or other engineering degrees and experience. This is a massive intellectual/experience deficit for decision makers.
I asked ChatGPT for the number of Mayors with engineering qualifications which came up with just Auckland’s Wayne Brown and Nelson’s Nick Smith. There maybe more.
Parliament on the other hand many MPs with law degrees who are drawn to the political process for obvious reasons as well as many in the social area, including teaching and unions. A few farmers from the practical world.
In Wellington the lack of engineers at governance level has been exposed in three different areas. First the struggling “Wellington Water” had just one engineer on its board who replaced a CEO who departed after performance issues were raised. That left the board with no engineers which was remedied by the appointment of one new director with engineering experience. In my view there should be at least two engineers with relevant experience on the board of this entity and its successor from July 1, 2026.
The Moa Point disaster and the truly massive cost blowouts for the adjacent sludge minimisation plant also indicate a failure at governance level. It’s no good just blaming the Moa Point operator Veolia. The job of directors, in this case the WCC, is to hold contractors to account The WCC failed.
Of course it would be rather helpful if the WCC senior management team included a City Engineer. Someone who would sit next to the CEO along with the CFO. The Grant Thornton report showed the WCC is hopeless at managing contracts which mostly explains the massive cost overruns on projects like the old Town Hall rebuild etc, etc. Hopeless management like this means the WCC is inevitably rorted by contractors. Not one new project of consequence would be started until the WCC becomes a competent contractor.
NZ is not alone in having so many lawyers instead of engineers in its Parliament. A similar situation in Europe according to a BBC podcast I heard. China on the other hand is led by an engineer in President Xi and it shows. Auckland City has Wayne Brown who has used his real world engineering experience to upgrade the city.
My hope is NZ’s political parties will produce more engineers for Parliament so practical people can help make the critical infrastructure decisions necessary. Business as usual won’t cut the mustard.
Barrie Saunders has a background in Government Relations and blogs at www.barriesaunders.wordpress.com. - where this article was sourced.
I asked ChatGPT for the number of Mayors with engineering qualifications which came up with just Auckland’s Wayne Brown and Nelson’s Nick Smith. There maybe more.
Parliament on the other hand many MPs with law degrees who are drawn to the political process for obvious reasons as well as many in the social area, including teaching and unions. A few farmers from the practical world.
In Wellington the lack of engineers at governance level has been exposed in three different areas. First the struggling “Wellington Water” had just one engineer on its board who replaced a CEO who departed after performance issues were raised. That left the board with no engineers which was remedied by the appointment of one new director with engineering experience. In my view there should be at least two engineers with relevant experience on the board of this entity and its successor from July 1, 2026.
The Moa Point disaster and the truly massive cost blowouts for the adjacent sludge minimisation plant also indicate a failure at governance level. It’s no good just blaming the Moa Point operator Veolia. The job of directors, in this case the WCC, is to hold contractors to account The WCC failed.
Of course it would be rather helpful if the WCC senior management team included a City Engineer. Someone who would sit next to the CEO along with the CFO. The Grant Thornton report showed the WCC is hopeless at managing contracts which mostly explains the massive cost overruns on projects like the old Town Hall rebuild etc, etc. Hopeless management like this means the WCC is inevitably rorted by contractors. Not one new project of consequence would be started until the WCC becomes a competent contractor.
NZ is not alone in having so many lawyers instead of engineers in its Parliament. A similar situation in Europe according to a BBC podcast I heard. China on the other hand is led by an engineer in President Xi and it shows. Auckland City has Wayne Brown who has used his real world engineering experience to upgrade the city.
My hope is NZ’s political parties will produce more engineers for Parliament so practical people can help make the critical infrastructure decisions necessary. Business as usual won’t cut the mustard.
Barrie Saunders has a background in Government Relations and blogs at www.barriesaunders.wordpress.com. - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
Problem is today's engineers need to do maths. One university research project trying to explain why so many students can't pass 100-level engineering courses concluded, drum roll please, they can't do maths (report probably chucked in racism, too). Hence we import Indian engineers, and they are not on city councils.
During the 1980s I spent time working in both WCC and the Ministry of Energy. Both were then dominated by engineers. In WCC the City Engineer was the next most important person after the Town Clerk. Engineers were also in charge of all the departments that involved some form of construction. It was the same with MoE, in which all top management positions were held by engineers.
Afterwards, it wasn't the lawyers who took over, but the "managers" who seemed to have no expertise in anything, apart from buzzwords. Most "managers" were DEI. Many of them were just photocopying clerks when I was there, but they fitted the profiles for promotion, and did the right woke courses. They would certainly have no idea how to negotiate construction contracts.
As an engineer when you come to NZ, you find that your qualifications and experience - in thermal stations, steel plants and nuclear reactors as well as project management are not recognised. IPENZ is least helpful, requiring thousands to verify your qualifications, which have already been assessed by NZQA. Then when you apply for a job and get shortlisted, the agent tells you that the client raises the issue of culture. Then you get a technical job in a regional council so that they know you, when an opening comes up for an engineer w/ regard to a new train set they tell you that they want an engineer w/ that experience - forgetting that engineering is essentially picking up new skills and being adaptable. So they bring in an engineer from Hong Kong and as a result the new trains were too big for the Johnsonville tunnels. So in essense you bring in engineers w/ the requisite skills but then refuse to give them a chance. IPENZ also is basically a rubber stamp if you submit false qualifications as evidenced by the CTV disaster. The sad thing here is watching the disasters produced by a lack of experienced engineers and the resultant boon doogles - the Wellington Town Hall and Library, the Moa Point disaster etc
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