In all those years of working for local government I came no closer to working out how it works, or indeed if it works at all. I am sure it must at some level but sadly for those who work diligently within that environment it remains rare for anyone to have a positive experience dealing with local bureaucracy.
It is also rare that a council or any other local authority will display innovation or even common sense. Entrenched would be a more common descriptor and operational philosophy, and that is hard for the community to overcome or comprehend.
I had a case years ago when I was rung by a young and earnest reporter from a weekend newspaper inviting me to respond to claims that (my) council had refused a resource consent for the building of chemical-free toilets on the basis that “making” worms swim in human excrement would have a traumatizing effect on the worms. I responded that she (the reporter) must be joking. She wasn’t. The claim was true; just not my council, thank God.
And so we arrive at the case of Ashburton and the magpies. It goes like this:
Local magpies are repeatedly attacking Ashburton posties. It sounds laughable but this is a serious situation—there may be only two or three birds involved but they are attacking year-round, not just during, and typically, the nesting season.
They, the posties (already under the trauma of possible job losses in their sunset industry), have laid 30 complaints with the Ashburton District Council about the birds. The council’s response? Not our problem; it’s Environment Canterbury’s problem. Environment Canterbury’s response? Not our problem; the birds are flying from council land; it’s their problem. Besides (and here come the clincher), “we would only step in if the (magpies) were attacking other birds, not humans.”
My God! Attacking birds. Local bureaucracy gone mad. Duck (or is it magpie) shoving. Ministry of Silly Talks.
It is an affair less resonant of Alfred Hitchcock and more , I am afraid, of Monty Python.
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