More on 15 Minute 'Smart' Cities in NZ and Surveillance Contractor Datacom
Wellington ratepayers have paid over $11million in 3 years to Datacom to create their own digital prison
I wrote back in March about my local council and Datacom, the contractor in a PPP arrangement with NZ and Oz Governments and an intrinsic part of the UN Agenda 2030 plan to implement ‘15 minute cities’. The full article is here:
Steps Towards 15 Minute Smart Cities in NZ
“Residents urged to check for recycling alerts!” Shouted my local newspaper headline a couple of years ago.
I have since attempted to get more information from other NZ councils about their ‘partnership’ with the same company, with limited success. I’ll publish more about that when time allows, but meanwhile, here’s some info on Datacom in our capital city, Wellington.
Context to Wellington
Wellington is a very different urban area compared to other cities and towns of New Zealand. Those who have been there, know what I mean. The geography of the city consists of many kms of rocky coastline, numerous bays dividing different kinds of communities that are linked, yet not linked…(very) steep inclines make some streets inaccessible by less than competent drivers and many cyclists: there are no vintage San Francisco-style trams and lifts here. Some private residents, seeking that ultimate sea view have paid for their own cable-car to access their abode. Garages are a bonus. A flight into Wellington Airport is usually a memorable one - strong head winds and a runway almost in the sea makes it a challenge. A funky student vibe comes from the main historic campus of Victoria University of Wellington - other NZ universities also have (modern) bases here. That PR spin phrase of ‘coffee culture’ was/is heavily promoted about Wellington, and property prices have historically been out of reach for many everyday Kiwis. In these times of financial strife, what is keeping that buzz of the Wellington dream alive? Well of course, many of the bloated Government Depts and associated PPP Quangos I have written about previously are based here. And even though well-overdue redundancies are starting to happen in those sectors now, individual’s pay-offs and ‘property portfolios’ likely allow the buoyancy to continue, at least for the time being.
Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Wellington
One of those PPP quangos is Datacom, which also has a large proportion of its workforce in swanky new offices in Wellington. And it’s not surprising that the Wellington area has been targetted by Agenda 2030 fanatics like Datacom for quite some time. For instance, a PPP project constructed an expensive $1.25 billion new motorway (‘Expressway’) into the city, which even after decades is still unfinished and has inevitably caused extensive damage to local communities, economies and natural/sacred habitats.
In another example, residents living in communities along the Western coastline towards access to the City are also targetted for part of the Global Climate Change fraud of ‘Managed Retreat’ (compulsory purchase), something Aussie Substacker
has researched extensively both sides of the ditch.As I explained in the article embedded above, NZ doesn’t really have a public transport system - in a way those from overseas would define that phrase. Yes, there are exceptions, and there are some very positive options, but overall, public transport is so unreliable, costly, inefficient and inconsistent, most people choose to drive. And we’ve seen for many years, ‘shared vehicle lanes’ like those in the UK and the US in Wellington, to encourage more sustainable journeys.
‘Welly’ as it’s called, suffers from severe traffic congestion. Not like Spaghetti Junction, you understand, but we are still talking hours wasted, if you travel at the ‘wrong time’ or get caught in a queue the result of a crash. So you can imagine the confusion and exasperation from residents and visitors alike, when large chunks of the already limited, steep and narrow road space was dug-up and replaced with colourful cycle paths to ‘keep people safe’.
Like other areas of the world, and New Zealand, pretty concrete and timber ‘planters’ were positioned to separate the spaces:
Datacom’s location in Wellington is a complex one, with expensive prime-location buildings leased by Council now vacant (and presumably also costing ratepayers) when Datacom moved to a new purpose-built office space:
So, how much exactly are ratepayers paying Datacom for the privilege collecting their data? I asked in an OIA to the Council:
Please provide details - separated into specific types of services provided by and/or to Datacom and/or associate companies and the amounts paid/invoiced.
I'd like to see a table detailing these amounts over the past three financial years please, including up to current day if possible.
This is what I got:
If, like me, you know how likely our NZ public servants are to be able to use an Excel spreadsheet effectively, or even be bothered check their manual calculations on a (bizarre) table like this, you won’t be surprised to see the figures above Wellington Council provided me, don’t add up. In fact, the total comes to $11,239,988. I haven’t got the time or energy to look closely at the other numbers. But whatever the nearly $12million is, I wonder whether Wellington ratepayers know what they are paying Datacom for exactly?
Undoubtedly, some of these ‘services’ include an App like Antenno to snitch on neighbours and CCTV to catch those dastardly deviants. And here’s a map of the locations of some of those cameras in Wellington, which is claimed to be “one of the safest cities on Earth, and Wellington City Council [and] supports that by pro-actively monitoring our urban public spaces through our closed-circuit television network, City Safety Control Room. This CCTV surveillance system is a Council-led harm reduction initiative and is strongly supported through our partnership with the Wellington Central Police.”
Why these locations? What are they ‘pro-actively monitoring’ us for, exactly? And who is mulling over these images? What part does facial recognition and ANPR play in these CCTV policies and do Impact Investors have an interest in this data? What analysis is happening and why?
There are many more questions, than answers here. And no more time today to investigate. Do you have any experiences of Datacom in NZ, the Antenno App, CCTV or cycle tracks? Let me know below, or email me directly in confidence.
Keep going Ursula.
Our local council provides witchcraft lessons to 'open up the black gate.' Plus obligatory drag queen story time and fashion shows and 'pool party with a drag queen' for kids. They are also selling off public land to private venture capitalists and refuse to open the books.
I really wish they would just pick up our rubbish and trim the trees.
I used g00gle to try to research fifteen min city Welly and found virtually no direct references just alot of word salad about the plan....unsurprising. I'd like to know too.