K4309
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Posts posted by K4309
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1 hour ago, harrytom said:
And would all this building be going on if Dalton/Etnz didn't go to Spain??
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 development of almost any type of floor space.
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58 minutes ago, aardvarkash10 said:
There. Fixed it for you.
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.
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30 minutes ago, aardvarkash10 said:
There. Fixed it for you.
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. if they were different entities, then Worksafe would have been charged too.
Bear in mind that Worksafe charged NEMA of all people. Exactly why isn't clear. Surely if they were going to charge NEMA, they would have charged themselves as well? (I would pay money to see that).
So, if the regulator can't do it's job, why bother with it? Across the whole H&S sector, we don't have regulation, we only have prosecution after the fact. We either need to formally seperate these two functions of Worksafe, or just accept it is a joke.
What is really interesting with this Te Huia thing is the regulator (NZTA in this case) have actually gotten off their arse and done something, prior to a fatal incident. This is remarkable.
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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 we already have a perfectly adequate. When applied.
Given this train is supposed to be the Hamilton to Auckland Train, I'm not sure what happens now. If I comment on that aspect it will fall well within political comment, so I will just leave it there.
Te Huia train banned from Auckland city after twice failing to stop on red | Stuff.co.nz
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53 minutes ago, aardvarkash10 said:
The more serious charges are the later ones. Hence the final paragraph.
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 made an unfortunate comment to him when passing that area on that boat before I knew who he was. Lets say I was far younger than I am now).
I have zero understanding of MOSS and other commercial ship requirements. I understand the Master has absolute responsibility for the safety of the vessel and those onboard. But does a risk assessment need to be documented for every voyage, or a standard risk assessment / standard operating procedures for the general operation of the ship?
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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 identify and address the risks arising from the trip.
By failing to take those steps, the business exposed individuals to a risk of death or serious injury, the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of a $1.5 million fine, alleged.
Enchanter tragedy: Skipper faces charges relating to the deaths of five men | RNZ News
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3 hours ago, CarpeDiem said:
Slightly misleading,
The charge against the skipper is: exposing individuals to risk of death or serious harm.
The charge against the company is: operating a ship without the prescribed qualified personnel.
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 registered under the adventure tourism requirements, yet did not sanction any of those operators before the fact. After the fact, they put 40 of the countries investigators onto the case to work out how to ping them. It has been stated by far smarter people than me, that if Worksafe wasn't both the regulator and prosecutor, their regulatory arm would have been charged with negligence also.
Lets just see how this MNZ prosecution goes, but all they have at the moment is an expired first aid certificate.
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1 hour ago, Black Panther said:
When the mnz report is eventually produced I've got $10 that says it'll talk about who had the right vhf channels and who was wearing lifejackets.
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.
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4 hours ago, Psyche said:
The rot is deeper, we are subject to a political managerial class who's main contribution to running these agencies and making the rules for everyone appears to be devoid of real life experience. People who do have practical experience are often not politically adept and get swept aside to be replaced yes men, consultants and reports which confirm the bias and the agencies keep making more rules because they have to do something nevermind that its ineffective or impractical. If only they had the right rules then this tragedy wouldn't occur so lets make more of them! You could argue that walking around on an active volcano is extremely risky and likely to end in a disaster sooner or later, and even if that was the position (not a bad one) then it would follow on that tours would only proceed under the most benign conditions. Not so profitable but a lot safer.
Caulerpa is classic, as far as i can tell there is no know method of eradication and with the sheer area of the coastline to monitor, its effectively impossible. Any diver will tell you how hard it is to survey even a small bay, I doubt that anyone could cover all of Barrier in 5 seasons let alone one without massive resources that we simply dont have. Usually the more you look for something the more you find it, it could have been here 20 year, who knows? Where will this end up and what happens when it migrates around Cape barrier and off to eastern Coromandel, will everywhere be off limits or do they think that if they leave it then Caulerpa will go away magically?
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 have a basic issue with more govt agencies both imposing more rules on us, or not doing their job properly in the first place.
We hade a number of posts to establish this for Worksafe and White Island. Surprisingly we have perfectly intelligent people like Carpe Diem who, for various reasons, don't appear to see that Worksafe themselves were negligent in their duties as regulator.
Then we have the fan worm issue and movement restrictions up and down the Auckland / Northland coast. Black Panther has been repeatedly asking what is the objective or purpose of these restrictions. I've not seen that answered. Yet we have a triumvirate of bureaucracies growing and feeding on the need to control the 'exacerbators', oh, and to establish funding channels.
Now we have the very real possibility that boating will be banned in parts of the Hauraki Gulf, due to caulerpa. The logic behind this is jaw droppingly bad. But that wont stop it happening anyway.
Three of the four topics I've touched on directly impact boating. So for Aardvark, I think that is fundamentally on topic for a boating / sailing forum. But more widely, I am in consternation as to what is going on here. Further, our national advocacy body (YNZ) wont say a word for fear of upsetting anyone but us boaties and risking their Olympic funding.
Something really has to change. And soon. Perhaps if they do ban boating in parts of the Hauraki Gulf it will be the trigger for sorting all this twaddlebollocks out.
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39 minutes ago, aardvarkash10 said:
We have stepped a LONG way from the original subject.
So what?
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11 hours ago, CarpeDiem said:
Your example is contrary to what you propose.
The milk has already been sold, and it was past its use by date when it was recalled.
Anyone who hadn't consumed it by the time it was recalled should of already thrown it out.
By the time the recall came out the damage was already done. Can you see the irony?
I already know you wouldn't support million dollar witch hunts where a bunch of investigators go around taking companies to court and fining them cause they failed to get their h&s plan signed off by a consultant. I cannot believe you're pretending you would.
You've just been bitching about the new standards for drilling holes cause of the overhead and complexity it creates. Yet in the next breath you expect us to believe that you think it would be acceptable for some regulator to bring a prosecution for not complying with that standard when there was no incident or risk to an employee?
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 - WorkSafe knew, but didn't sanction them.
White Island Tours was registered, but its safety audits didn't assess volcanic risk, only walking hazards.
Worksafe fell well short of good practice, regulating health and safety at the Bay of Plenty island.
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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 victims and their families, is disturbed.
"It does appear that corners were cut as well, which is quite terrifying given what ended up happening."
She told RNZ her clients had been failed by many groups, before and after the tragedy, and WorkSafe was one of them.
"It is disappointing that, not only is the New Zealand compensation system extremely inadequate - if not pretty much non-existent for them - but on top of that, there is a regulator that has the responsibility to maintain and look after safety and they obviously haven't done it."
The report said unregistered operators took tourists onto the island for five years leading up the eruption - WorkSafe knew, but didn't sanction them.
White Island Tours was registered, but its safety audits didn't assess volcanic risk, only walking hazards.
Dr Simon Connell researches accidents and the law - he is shocked by the findings.
"It is crystal clear that something has gone horribly wrong, if you can have an audit of an adventure activity on an active volcano, that doesn't take into account the safety issues caused by being on an active volcano," he said.
"That's not a subtle, technical, legal nuance point. That is a serious, serious issue in terms of mindset."
He said there was a conflict of interest for WorkSafe, being both the regulator, and the prosecutor: "In the sense there's an incentive there for WorkSafe to point the finger elsewhere and to build a strong case that says the fault and responsibility lies elsewhere."
"If there had been an independent adventure tourism entity, that had had the role that WorkSafe had had, I would not at all be surprised to see them on the list of parties being prosecuted. And it does seem to me that's a bit of a gap here, if WorkSafe has had failings in the background of this event and there's nobody that's looking at them in terms of holding them to account via prosecution."
University of Canterbury law professor John Hopkins heads New Zealand's Institute of Law, Emergencies and Disasters.
He said the Whakaari explosion, and the failures highlighted since, had brought the country's whole adventure activities safety system into question.
"It's not entirely clear as to who's responsible for the accreditation system, I think it's too easy to evade responsibility. And I think it creates the idea that adventure tourism is regulated in a robust way, but I don't think that's the case."
He said: "The regulatory scheme creates the impression of safety and comfort in the adventure industry."
"I would suggest that's always been weak, too weak, in my view."
The government is currently reviewing the legislation.
In a statement, WorkSafe chief executive Phil Parkes said the agency deeply regretted its shortcomings and he was "fully committed" to change.
But when RNZ asked to interview him and Workplace Safety Minister Micheal Wood about what these changes were, neither would talk.
Whakaari / White Island: Finger pointed back at WorkSafe | RNZ News
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10 hours ago, CarpeDiem said:
Your example is contrary to what you propose.
The milk has already been sold, and it was past its use by date when it was recalled.
Anyone who hadn't consumed it by the time it was recalled should of already thrown it out.
By the time the recall came out the damage was already done. Can you see the irony?
I already know you wouldn't support million dollar witch hunts where a bunch of investigators go around taking companies to court and fining them cause they failed to get their h&s plan signed off by a consultant. I cannot believe you're pretending you would.
You've just been bitching about the new standards for drilling holes cause of the overhead and complexity it creates. Yet in the next breath you expect us to believe that you think it would be acceptable for some regulator to bring a prosecution for not complying with that standard when there was no incident or risk to an employee?
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 blanket ban on going near or onto the Island. I can't see how that is adding any value. It is just Worksafe throwing it's weight around after the fact.
There are several other active volcanoes in the North Island. What is the difference in H&S practices? Should we be closing all access to the Tongariro National Park? Eruptn has posted a good link about that.
No one has yet answered what failing it was that Worksafe apologised for...
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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
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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 there.
Confused? Refer to the link below. See if you can make sense of the rules and how it is set out.
I do like the 'If you need to" clause. This is the 'emergency' rule. But who decides if it is an emergency? The skipper (me) has sole and complete responsibility for the safety of the boat, and all those on it. Fatigue could be a reason to need to take a break. For the safety of the boat of course. I'd love to see a 'treaty partner' or biosecurity lacky stand up to a Coroner on what deems an emergency on a boat, and who is responsible for making that call. There is very clear case history for that responsibility lies.
Caulerpa brachypus and Caulerpa parvifolia in Northland | NZ Government (mpi.govt.nz)
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5 minutes ago, CarpeDiem said:
Some of the helicopter operators had tourists on the island during the incident. Some of those tourists died.
There's no public interest in bringing prosecutions without death, injury, illness or disease.
The public has absolutely zero appetite in spending millions of dollars on witch hunts.
Had Worksafe gone after them 10yrs ago, spending $5M charging them for not having h&s plans in place, there would of been public outrage.
Worksafe are essentially tigers without teeth until an incident occurs.
It's a conundrum that won't be answered on this forum.
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 didn't have H&S plans. It is as straight forward as prosecuting someone when there is a death.
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26 minutes ago, CarpeDiem said:
They plead guilty to the charges of taking people there without a suitable h&s plan.
The charges all applied to actions/activity BEFORE the incident. Some of the companies that plead guilty didn't even take tourists there on the day.
One of the pilots who plead guilty (a) didn't take people there on the day; and (b) was just awarded the the highest possible civilian award for bravery.
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 is a govt and govt agencies that knew full well beforehand that there were commercial tourism activities going to that island daily, but were too hopeless to do their jobs once the sh*t happened. The govt was happy to take the GST and tax from those operators, but ran for cover at the first sign of trouble.
Sorry, rant over. This aspect of it really disgusts me.
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49 minutes ago, aardvarkash10 said:
As above. The plea bargaining is a very normal judicial process. It reduces the cost to all parties while recognising the key elements of the charges albeit at a lower level.
Fact remains, Worksafe prosecuted the companies on the basis that they had failed to take appropriate action ot reduce risk, even though no-one was harmed by those companies or by the risk they experienced.Worksafe only brought the prosecution because 22 people died, and Worksafe got caught out not doing their job.
The fact that those operators were only involved in the rescue on the day has nothing to do with it.
The key point is that Worksafe only did something after the disaster. My prior point is that, if they were an effective regulator, they would be doing things before the disaster.
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1 minute ago, aardvarkash10 said:
Yes, that is EXACTLY what happened this week in the White Island prosecutions against the helicopter operators. All 3 pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE Act
Erm, not following you there.
22 people died. Nothing pro-active about that. Or have I misunderstood what your are on about?
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1 knot of tide in North Channel shifts 35 million litres of water an hour.
To make some basic assumptions, peak tidal flow of 2 knots, and obviously slack water of zero knots, an average tidal flow over a day is probably not going to be far off 1 knot.
You are talking in the order of 840million litres a day of water flowing through North Channel.
But don't worry, it is us boaties anchoring that is spreading the caulerpa. Idiots.
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3 hours ago, Psyche said:
"About MPI
The Ministry for Primary Industries is helping to seize export opportunities for our primary industries, improve sector productivity, ensure the food we produce is safe, increase sustainable resource use, and protect New Zealand from biological risk."Don't forget MPI is what used to be MAF. Think meat inspectors and certification of our meat for exports. Robotically follow a rule book, regardless of outcomes. Biosecurity NZ appears to be the sub-silo more responsible for this kind of thing.
In terms of fishing or anchoring bans in the Gulf, that is going to cause a lot of trouble. I would expect extensive ignorance and active disobedience. Other than media sound-bites, there is no justification for the level of control and loss of public utility. The sound bite is "boats have spread this by their anchor chains". The reality is the moon rises every day, causing tides to rise and fall, shifting billions of tonnes of water around the Gulf every 12 hours.
Who else here is into spear-fishing? If you look at any of the photos or video footage, you will see a pristine marine environment with a good range of biodivesity, exactly the opposite of what they say caulerpa will cause.
This current Stuff article has a photo of what we are told is this killer algae, but in the photo are 10 goatfish. Other than a tasty meal, goatfish feed on worms and snails and stuff in sandy bottoms, the exact thing they claim this caulerpa will kill off. Then NIWA did a swim though video of Bland Bay. Awesome visibility. Plenty of spotties, triplefin are disturbed by the camera and swim out of the weed. Ironically there are patches of fanworm, but eclonia are still present. I put it that if the cameraman wasn't on scuba we would see on video a wide range of fish and marine life.
If caulerpa was so bad, I'd expect to see scenes like kina barrens, everything dead, desert like landscapes with only this algae. But no, the footage show thriving ecosystems. What they are telling us does not match the reality.
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I see that Stuff story dropped this one line from the MPI press release:
"Divers found small 20 centimetre to 30 centimetre patches of the seaweed in the North Channel, north-west of Kawau. Finding exotic Caulerpa in another area of Tāmaki is disappointing but not unexpected given the nature of the seaweed.
Wonder why the wouldn't mention it was found in North Channel?
Very strong tidal flows there, and very few, if any boats ever anchor there. If it was found in Bon Accord then the propoganda about boats spreading it might be true. Not so much when its found in the location with the strongest tidal streams in the district.
What they are saying does not match the reality.
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38 minutes ago, Steve Pope said:
A relevant line from a poem I like, A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, as he will go out when he shouldn't. A man who is afraid of the sea will only be drowned now and again. my apologies to the author.
When I was into my Alpine Mountaineering I always felt a bit inadequate due to a fear of heights (or at least being uncomfortable with a lot of air under my heals).
A wise man told me a fear of heights is a good thing, It is what keeps you alive when climbing mountains.
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1 hour ago, aardvarkash10 said:
So is that a vote for greater govt regulation, or against it?
Haha, neither.
It is a vote for people and organisations to do their job properly.
We don't have a Workplace health and safety regulator. All we have is a prosecutor. If someone dies in a workplace accident, Worksafe comes along and launches a prosecution against those that aren't dead. It is near physically impossible to be found 'not guilty' if Worksafe prosecute you, by fact that someone is dead. The charge is always 'failing to provide a safe work environment'.*
This focus is entirely reactive and punitive. I would argue an effective regulator would be dealing with issues prior to fatallities. Have you ever heard of worksafe taking a prosecution when nothing happened? As in where there had not been an accident, but that an audit found unsafe work practices?
Or, have you ever heard of worksafe giving guidance and industry best practice documents? You know, something useful to prevent harm? In my earlier example of the new tunnelling regulations post Pike River, we had the greatest minds in the country sitting around in a room, with Worksafe, trying to work out what the terms 'underground' and 'tunnelling' meant. Based on Worksafe's interpreptation and guidance, in encompassed almost all normal civil engineering involving trenchless installation of pipes. Clearly the intent of the new regulations was to prevent gassy coalmines blowing up, but no, a completely different and perfectly adequate industry was affected.
There is an extension to your question of more or less regulation. If the current regulations and regulator is not effective, why not just get rid of them and be done with it? It would save a sh*t-tonne of ball-ache if they just passed a law that said if someone dies, everyone left alive gets convicted. That is the situation we have now, but with all sorts of palava in between.
* I see another 3 companies leaded guilty to White Island charges today. This is the classic tactic. Spend millions on investigation and preparing a prosecution. Wait till the day before the trial starts, then offer lesser chargers of which they plead guilty to. It is just a standard negotiation situation. If the original charges were appropriate, why not press them? If the lesser chargers are now deemed appropriate, why were the other charges put, several years and several million dollars wasted? Its all just a charade.
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Pauhia ferry crash
in MarineTalk
Posted
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 all punters onto existing services, and just have a far simpler network to manage. Possibly coinciding with the Minister for Transport and Auckland getting the heave-ho.