It was a lolly scramble

Newshub reports:

Before landing on the lottery as their chosen system, internal briefings obtained by Newshub show officials tried to develop a waitlist or automated booking system but found it would cost several million dollars and take several months and “the most difficult part” was “creating clear rules… to determine who is eligible”.

A simple waitlist system would not take months to develop. There are already huge number of booking systems out there for accommodation providers.

Ultimately though, they went with a lottery system, or as Newshub can reveal, a lolly scramble. Documents from a workshop show the system’s architects using the analogy of “lollies at a party” to describe the scenario of thousands of New Zealanders trying to get home.

“We used to have enough lollies for everyone… Now there’s sugar supply issues… Suddenly we get a lolly, so we drop it on the floor and everyone dives at it” which means “attendees think our party is terrible”.

Rachel Bradley described it as “disgusting”.

Hipkins also wasn’t impressed. 

“It didn’t come to me, and had it come to me, I would have objected at the time,” Hipkins said. “Ultimately, I think it was inappropriate.”

But that is exactly what they did implement – the online equivalent of a lolly scramble.