WorkSafe NZ hasn’t exactly emerged covered in glory after its four-month court action over the Whakaari-White Island disaster of 2019. In fact quite the reverse.
In the District Court at Auckland yesterday, Judge Evangelos Thomas found Whakaari Management Ltd (WML) guilty on one health and safety charge.
This was after Worksafe’s case against six other defendants had collapsed, leaving its big prosecution push “hanging by a thread”, in the words of 1News.
Six defendants had earlier pleaded guilty to the charges against them, leaving WML – the holding company of the Buttle brothers, who own the island – the sole remaining defendant.
GNS Science, the Inflite tourism group, White Island Tours and three helicopter tour operators pleaded guilty. Judge Thomas dismissed charges against Tauranga Tourism Services, ID Tours and the three Buttle brothers as individuals.
The dismissal of those charges indicates WorkSafe’s case was not well-founded and raises the possibility that some of the other parties might have got off too had they put up a fight. But infinitely more damning than that was the judge’s scathing criticism – largely ignored by the media, other than by Newshub – of the government agency itself.
In what veteran Newshub reporter Adam Hollingworth described as a “huge serve” to WorkSafe, Thomas noted that the agency had given WML a tick of approval in an adventure activity audit.
That audit, the judge said, did not cover White Island Tours’ processes for assessing the risk of an eruption while tourists were on the island. He described this as “an astonishing failure”.
Not surprisingly, WorkSafe didn’t want to be interviewed. Quelle surprise.
The judge’s comment followed an independent review in 2021 which found that WorkSafe “fell short of good practice in its regulation of activities on Whakaari White Island over the 2014-19 period” and called for improvements in WorkSafe's management of adventure activities. It was the gentlest of raps across the knuckles.
All this serves to reinforce the view that WorkSafe should itself have been in the dock for its abject failure to foresee the potentially catastrophic consequences of an eruption on New Zealand’s most active volcano, which tourist parties visited as if it were some sort of theme park. The eruption on December 9 2019 killed 22 people and injured 25 others.
High-profile Christchurch lawyer Nigel Hampton KC said in a 2020 interview that it could be argued WorkSafe bore some responsibility for what happened on Whakaari. He drew a comparison with the former Department of Labour, which brought charges at Pike River despite having failed in its own duty as the regulator responsible for mining safety.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as the French would say.
WorkSafe surely has an obligation to explain why it left itself off the hook. At the very least it should apologise to the victims and their families for its dereliction in failing to act on a very obvious risk to public safety. But no one’s holding their breath. The bureaucrats are untouchable.
And to add insult to injury, Work Safe laid charges against the helicopter pilot, Mark Law, who had not only served his country with distinction in Afghanistan, but was responsible for rescuing numerous survivors(& deceased) off the island; actions for which he, and others, were recognised by the government with bravery awards!
ReplyDeleteSo one government department takes Law to court (the same department that has dodged any accountability), whilst another gives him an award for the same conduct. Bizarre.
Thanks for reminding us of that, Bernard. All the more shameful.
ReplyDeleteI knew keen boating people who lived at Ohope. They took visitors around White Island by boat. Could not land or even go within 100 yards of the island as it was a "no go" zone and definitely no landing. That was the official state
ReplyDeleteSo since then (40 or so years ago) there must have been a change to the rules. A change that would have been made by bureaucracy to allow tours of the island
If it was deemed unsafe years ago then it was still unsafe when the "no go" rules were dropped and as this tragedy has shown should never have had it's classification changed
Bureaucracy taking legal action against these people has diverted the question from who changed the "no go" classification and why.
LNF raises an interesting point about safety around active volcanos. What are the protocols for the ski fields on Mt Ruapehu? Volcanos have at times blown out not via the crater but through the slope below crater level.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Tauranga / Mt Maunganui about 35 years ago. We took fishing and boating trips quite often.
ReplyDeleteEverybody knew about White Island - The dangerous active volcano.
It was totally local knowledge that there was NO LANDING on White Island.
Some of our trips, the captain would cruise in reasonably close to White Island so that we could all see the danger zone, from the boat. But the rule was absolutely no landing.
No exceptions.
Now - 30 -40 years down the track we have Worksafe giving permits to land on the active volcano, White Island.
And Worksafe are now blaming others for the tragedy.
WTF !!!!
My point had already been well made by LNF above.
ReplyDeleteWhat we are saying is - Outrage that "Worksafe" permitted landings on a known dangerous active volcano, and now they (Worksafe) are taking others to court !!!