Cécile Meier on LinkedIn: My Net Worth: Quin Henderson, Southbase Group CEO (2024)

Clearly, lobbying works. https://lnkd.in/gTNU8-9x

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Andrea Vance nailing it:https://lnkd.in/g_fZpaaC

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The Government is unlikely to introduce planned changes to the Building Code to slash buildings’ emissions and lift their energy efficiency. New rules mandating the industry to reduce waste, measure buildings' carbon emissions and give them an energy efficiency rating, like the one on fridges, were supposed to come into play next year. But Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk told BusinessDesk they were unlikely to happen. MBIE launched its Building for Climate Change programme in 2020. Last year, it had 16 FTEs working on the programme. After this year's restructure, four to six FTEs are left working on climate change-related work, along with other things, including reviewing insulation standards.https://lnkd.in/gA4gjYjA

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Contractors and consultants are cashing in on public sector restructures.The Ministry of Education spent $715,000 on HR, communication, 'change' and legal contractors. Other ministries coughed up hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant fees to assist with redundancy plans. The NZ Herald reported that the children’s ministry Oranga Tamariki paid consulting firm Deloitte and PR agency Campbell Squared Communications $800,000 for its restructuring. The Ministry for Environment paid Ernst Young consultants nearly $1m for its restructuring last year, The Post reported. The amount was almost a third of the savings the proposals were supposed to deliver ($3.5m) in the restructure’s first stage, the article said.https://lnkd.in/g6AnyVeK

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Loved this piece about (now retired) veteran investigative journalist Martin van Beynen, and really surprised to get a mention in it. I have great memories of our heated debates on feminism and other topics some may label as 'woke' when I worked at Stuff in the Press newsroom. While we disagreed on almost everything, the conversations were always fun and respectful. As Philip Matthews wrote, "in person, away from phones and screens, we are much less polarised".I wish we all could have more respectful conversations with people who hold different views, rather than staying in our echo chambers.Wishing Martin all the best for his health and his retirement.https://lnkd.in/gG2H-a56

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The line between contractor and employee has been getting blurry in the public service.The Ministry of Education has hired 24 former staff as contractors since 2018. More than half of the staffers – 13 – had finished working for the ministry less than six months before returning as contractors. Of the rest, five had finished working for the ministry less than a year before returning and two had finished less than two years previously. The ministry, which has about 4500 staff in total, said it engages contractors for “time-limited business need for specialist skills and capacity”. However, the data shows 16 staff were contracted for more than six months.This included six contractors who worked at the ministry for between 12 months and 3.7 years.One contractor was hired for three years – from 2021 to 2024 - at more than $270,000 a year.

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NZDF says it stands by its digital team spending $1.35 million on 19 two-day workshops at Wellington venues since 2019. Each quarterly event cost, on average, $71,000 – about half the total catering spending for the entire Inland Revenue Department (IRD) in the past financial year. An insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the spending was a “staggering waste of public money”.A large portion of the costs were for venue hire, which was wasteful because the events could be held at multiple NZDF facilities at no additional cost, the source said. However, NZDF said the spending was justified because the event catered to about 300 staff and business partners, and its facilities were unavailable. The workshops are part of a $182.5m IT upgrade, plagued by challenges and delays. https://lnkd.in/ggztxfTD

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Investment funds into early childhood education are thriving despite rising costs, staff shortages and inadequate government funding plaguing the sector. Milford Private Equity has shares in the growing early childhood education (ECE) chain New Shoots. PMG’s direct childcare fund, which started in 2017, has continued to generate good returns and grow its value through difficult times for the sector. After a rocky period early last year, during which it terminated two leases with the now-defunct Rainbow Corner Group, the fund increased distributions to investors in early 2024, with further increases targeted this year. Erskine Owen also has a daycare property fund, which it advertises on its website as fully subscribed with a projected cash return of 6.25% a year.The fund’s property portfolio includes multiple sites previously tenanted by the Rainbow Corner Group, which went into liquidation last year. https://lnkd.in/e_5WRA_n

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