How much more shit can you take from the Board?

It needs a public inquiry ASAP. As well as the effect they have had on my family, they have victimised heaps of people and totally screwed over the industry at large. A small few putting their own wants and needs before the greater good of the public.

 

Some one nearly died in an explosion and they tried to pin it on me…..even though I spent the previous 6 years to the explosion trying to warn that something like this would happen. The man in all probability responsible wasn’t even questioned about the site of the explosion.

 

Just recently the Board lost their status as a charity, yes a charity I kid you not, and then the Chairman, Allan Bickers, blamed those that exposed this immoral “error” for the extra money they will have to now charge, now that that they will be charged tax, it appears it is ok by Mr Bickers to have the front as a charity to avoid paying tax, may be this is legal, but is it moral?

 

The public are charged ultimately for their expensive running costs/fees and huge wages, via the exorbitant cost imposed on the tradesman. Some of these “fees” and “levies” have no standing within the law, but it is OK because they need the money to remain solvent…….this is according to the minister charged with the overseeing of this Board’s operation.

 

Question…..how many people are in prison using that very excuse? I needed the money ……so I acted outside the law. They have gone from a small, respected, professional industry watchdog, run from a town house in the Hutt with a modest staff paid modestly…… to becoming an immoral huge juggernought of bullies with a gaggle of lawyers in a very plush mirrored skyscraper on the Terrace, some employees earning six figure sums…..ultimately funded by the public…..allegedly they even went on a trip to Melbourne, partners included at a huge cost, paid for by tradesman and the public.

 

They have been sacked quite a few times in the last decade…..but renew their “new” members of the Board….. from the exact same organisations….then we wonder why we have the same problems, over and over again. I liken them to a flock of geese where the leader is constantly changed….but the premeditated course remains the same. Of note they can only be sacked by the minister who appoints them…..which would mean a politician admitting he had made a mistake in his judgment…..that’s going to happen…..anyone fancy a large pint of Tui???

 

The Board is rife with nepotism and internal bullying. An alleged recent case was a lady who taped her bullying… but settled out of court, and was thus bound by a confidentiality clause. Preventing anyone knowing the full extent. What sort of man bullies an office lady??? A coward that is who, a coward that tries then to cover it up with legalise.

 

The cost to be a tradesman has sky-rocketed in the last decade, because as all legally working, licence holding, Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers have to pass on the huge cost they are charged just to work…..on to the customer. This has ultimately led to “under the counter work” by those unwilling/unable to pay these fees, enabling the very people that the Board say they are there to prevent. It is the public that pay, yet again, in shoddy work and lost tax to help run this country.

 

They are now proposing this same crap for builders…..Allan Bickers PGDB chairman is all for it….. being on the Builders version of their Board too, aswell as the Plumbers Board…..funny that. All these new extra costs will now in all probability have to be charged by builders too…..we have a housing shortage….how on earth is this going to help? We have been building houses, with plumbing, for hundreds of years, ticking along fine without these self serving power trippers.

 

All Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers have to retrain every year, doing menial, repetitive “up-skilling” to obtain a licence…..just to do a job that we are already qualified to do (at a cost, passed on to the customer and this “up-skilling” is not done by those working under the table).

 

An organisation that is one of the main providers for this “up-skilling” is overly represented on the Board, making up 50% of the required trades-people to be represented. All in the face of the best recommendations by the NZ Law Commission, who says that an industry Board should be free of industry groups to maintain its perceived impartiality, LOL.

 

Please see my “impartiality hearing” to see their version of impartiality, along with the “impartial” investigator. Frankly, and excuse my language, it is just smoke, mirrors and bullshit.

 

Foreign nationals are treated like second class citizens…..After being asked to come here because of the “skill shortage”; they are reduced to an apprentice on entering the industry, regardless of qualifications and experience. Conveniently then employed and worked as a very knowledgeable skill resource, paid as an apprentice, but not allowed to run their own company. The Board even went as far as blaming the heinous foot and mouth outbreak in the UK…. on UK tradesman. I believe this is unfounded.

 

We have a huge rebuild project in Christchurch and tradesmen are leaving the industry, and even the country, hand over fist.

How much more shit can you take from the Board?

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/rant-or-rave/5/how-much-more-shit-can-you-take-from-the-board/1315/

regarding bickers..... he don't do justice.........
re not complying with the circus , strength always in numbers.
and some hardy resolute people to organize and lead.
i can sense this lot on the board are uplifting revolt