K4309

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OK, no jokes now. I've been down there and spoken to the owner, who is f**king hopeless. He is a surfer, not a sailor (his words), and hasn't got a clue. Who is local and wants to help get this off the rocks before it smashes up and we have 10 million carbon fibre splinters washing around our marine environment? High tide is 7pm tonight. I can get two good anchors, chain and a hundred or so meters of rod, my 3m inflatable and a 2hp outboard. I'm also perfectly happy to swim around in the dark, have dive torches and appropriate wetsuit. Anyone got a RIB or dinghy with bigger

That really f**ks me off. Its only been there 5 minutes. I was out fishing off Army Bay when they towed it around, maybe only 1 month ago? Sure it was there on Saturday. And its not like we had a descent NE storm or any swell. What did they moor it with? Fishing braid? That is just incompetent to moor a boat and have it bust off within 5 minutes, and without a descent storm. Edit: 14th June it was towed around there. Its the 17th July today. 32 days it lasted on the mooring. And we haven't had a NE blow yet. Who can spell 'insurance job?'

Yes. You will need a dredge about the size of the Mangere treatment plant to make it work without spreading more of it around in the discharge water. That said, if this thing does go feral, its main problem is smothering everything. A suction dredge would be ideal to remove it from the sea-floor, allowing all the snails, crabs and worms etc to get going, and the associated fish to feed off them etc. If there is already wide-spread infestation of the caulerpa, manually removing it by suction dredge would mitigate the smoothering impact of it, keeping our marine biodiversity going. All

I love how they've known about it for 2 years, AND are taking immediate action.... Bringing some guys over from LA next month to give them tips on suction dredging. Shame they didn't get organised waaayyyy back when it was first found at Barrier. If I thought banning anchoring and fishing made any difference, I would support the bans. I don't have a remote anchor winch, so naturally give my anchor and chain a full visual check every time I bring it up. And it is beyond me how fishing can be a problem. Other than all the techniques that don't touch the bottom (trolling, topwater spinn

Just curious BP, when was the last time you took the GH ferry? I haven't taken it in living memory, but I've just worked out that if I get one of those HOP cards, I can take the kids for free, and we get free entry into the Maritime Museum, so an ideal school holiday excursion all funded by the rate payer. Now all I have to do is find the one retailer that does HOP cards up here.

What is the dodgy attachment for, and are you trying to infect my device?

I am fairly concerned for the people that bought a house they could afford in Hamilton that already worked in Auckland, or live in Hamilton and took a job in Auckland on the basis that there was a scheduled commuter service. That said, if there are fast commuter trains from Papakura, why does Te Huia need to go into the city? I understand there is already track capacity issues? My suspicion (you can call it a conspiracy theory if you like) is that coordinating the various train schedules into Auckland is too complicated, and this is a good excuse to stop Te Huia at Papakura, transfer

Spain? You mean Jeddah, for the Jamal Kashoggi memorial regatta. There is more money in greenwashing tyrannical dictatorships and legitimitising their war on the piss-poor goat-herder neighbours than there is racing boats y'know. But I wouldn't think anything Dalton does would influence land development. That area has been prime for development for some time. I am very surprised nothing has been announced for the land at Sailor's Corner. Was sad when Smart Marine closed and moved, but just can't get the revenue from medium format retail in an old shed that you can from multi-level develop

PS, I'd be most appreciative if one of you inteligent gentlemen could explain to me how it is that Kiwirail can't do it's job and needs regulator intervention.

Yup. I understand exactly what you are saying. The onus falls on the businesses. In the case of WI, the tour operators. So why bother with a regulator? Are we supposed to have oversight of high risk industries? Mining? Adventure Tourism? While the WI trial is all over the media, the businesses are getting all the bad rap. The whole reason I'm going on about this so much, is that Worksafe as the regulator were negligent and should be charged and in the same prosecution. It has been stated by various specialists in the field that if Worksafe weren't the regulator and the prosector, i.e

Whilst this may appear to be a major thread drift, this is a very good example of taking action / sanctioning an operator BEFORE a major fatal incident. We can only lament if Worksafe took action against all of the White Island tour operators it knew weren't registered or complying with the Adventure Tourism requirements. The Te Huia Train has ran a red light twice in a month, so NZTA / Waka Koathanger has now banned it from Auckland. Perhaps if more government agencies did their job, and / or didn't wait for disasters, we wouldn't need so many rules and regulations, given the ones w

Yes, indeed. That is why I copied the whole lot from the RNZ story. It will be very interesting to see what comes of this. In isolation the charge on the medical certificate looks pedantic. But it may also be a symptom of someone that is not across their responsibilities and requirements. (this of course just conjecture). Is there an equivalent commercial shipwreck where the Master survived and was prosecuted? I can't immediately think of an example. The Mikhail Lermentov was a fair while ago, but I don't believe the Pilot got prosecuted. He continued to work on the MV Straitsman (I

Goodhew is charged with breaching his duties as a worker on the vessel and in doing so allegedly exposed individuals to a risk of death or serious injury. The charge carries a maximum penalty of a $150,000 fine. His business, which trades as Enchanter Charters Ltd, is charged with operating a ship without the prescribed qualified personnel. It alleged Goodhew did not have a medical certificate at the time of the incident. The business is also charged with allegedly failing to address voyage and passage planning in its Maritime Transport Operation Plan, and allegedly failing to identi

We are all obviously very interested in how the prosecution will play out. I think that is what aardvark calls due process, but the substance of the charge against the company, "operating a ship without the prescribed qualified personnel" is in relation to an expired first aid certificate. Now, I might be wrong, the particular qualification may have a slightly more convoluted name, but for all intense purposes, it is a first aid certificate. This is the reality of where our regulators and watchdogs have gotten to. Worksafe were fully aware all but one of the tour operators were not r

Or worse, the old guy who's ferry got nailed will get prosecuted for having an expired first aid certificate. It is all they have on the Enchanter Skipper, with 5 dead.

This is a very good appraisal of the issue Psyche. Of primary relevance to the original topic, we have this serious crash of a passenger ferry. We now have three govt agencies investigating it. They have said it will take them a couple of years to work out what happened. We can all see what happened. It is beyound me why we can't have just one govt agency investigate this, and determine what happened within a week. If there are some minor details to work out, that can be done in a court of law, assuming what we all believe, that the guy in the fizz boat was negligent. More widely, we

So what?

So you will see from the RNZ report that everything you say isn't needed was actually happening. There were registrations of the tour operators and audits of their systems. So all that cost and BS was already there. Worksafe audited safety plans that covered walking hazards only, on an active Volcano. As a Director, if you've had your safety plans audited by the Regulator, and they passed, would you not think you have discharged your responsibilities under the H&S Act? The report said unregistered operators took tourists onto the island for five years leading up the eruption - Wo

Whakaari / White Island: Finger pointed back at WorkSafe Two years on from the disastrous Whakaari / White Island eruption, a lawyer representing Australian victims says the regulatory shortcomings are "terrifying". WorkSafe has charged 13 parties with health and safety breaches, but the regulator is facing heavy criticism for its own shortfalls. An independent report into WorkSafe's actions leading up to the eruption shows it fell well short of good practice, regulating health and safety at the Bay of Plenty island. Rita Yousef, who is acting for some Australian eruption vi

You will note that no one died, yet action was taken. That is the contrast. How is it that all 13 entities involved with WI were doing it wrong? Including non-commercial govt agencies such as GNS. And Worksafe itself. It is not normal for 13 different sets of Directors to all make the same mistake. If it were just the commercial operators we could cynically argue they were just out to make money. But that isn't the case. For 13 sets of Directors to allegedly get it wrong, there is a systemic failure in our regulatory system. What we have now is blanket prosecutions, and a pseudo

I can't really believe we are even having this discussion. So you don't think it's in the public interest to stop people dieing at work? Here is an interesting parallel. With food safety, we don't actually wait till people are dead before doing something. But with workplace safety, it is perfectly acceptable to just wait for people to die? So what benefit is there of having a regulator? Dreamview Creamery's raw milk recalled after discovery of listeria Dreamview Creamery's raw milk recalled after discovery of listeria | Stuff.co.nz

MPI is going schitzophrenic. The headline message is "No anchoring or Fishing" in controlled notice areas. But, you are allowed to fish in one CAN area, but not anchor. In the next one down the coast you are allowed to anchor, but not fish. In the third, you aren't allowed to anchor or fish. And it turns out you can anchor if you decide you need to. Or if you live there. On the Barrier, you are allowed to fish, just from structures or the shore. At the Merc's you are allowed to anchor. But there is a complete ban on fishing. In the BoI you can't do anything. Unless you live

I disagree. On the contrary, there is substantial public interest in taking H&S prosecutions before their are deaths and injuries. If it is your partner, parent or child that doesn't come home, you are very interested in the regulators actions. This is the difference between a regulator and a prosecutor. If our H&S system is going to be effective, it needs to be proactive, not reactive. This is the basis of every good H&S plan in the country. Yet the regulator doesn't follow the same principles. More so, it would not have cost $5m to prosecute the WI operators that d

Noting also that the professional rescue services were stood down, to leave people to die slowly and painfully on the island. It was the private operators that got in and saved lives. This point was not widely covered by the MSM. I was disgusted by that. And then of course Worksafe come in and prosecute them. Rescue helicopters from all over the upper north island were dispatched (as per MSM coverage), then all parked up and Whakatane aerodrome and shut down. Then MSM went on to say how many were rescued, giving the implication they were rescued by rescue services. What we have here