There was no doubt, almost from the time the Transpower pylon tower hit the ground, that somebody within that crew had made a fundamental error. We had callers in, the morning of the tower collapse, who pretty much delivered the same findings that the official investigators produced days later. The tower fell because the crew that was performing routine base plant maintenance work didn't follow standard practice and they removed all of the nuts from three of the tower four legs, and it fell over. That human error caused the incident that cut power to tens of thousands of people and cost an estimated $60 million to householders and businesses.
Northland's been hit pretty hard over the past few years with the Covid lockdowns, major closures and weather events, and then the pylon collapse. Some of the events have been acts of God, and you just have to accept that life is not always easy. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. You take a deep breath, and you carry on. But when a major company is responsible for a seismic interruption to business, when there was insufficient supervision of inexperienced workers who hadn't received any formal training for the work they were doing, who weren't certified for the tasks they completed unsupervised, that the inexperienced team member who removed the nuts from the foundation legs was not adequately supervised while performing the task... come on, this is not one of those things! This is not an oh well, we can't control the weather or well, it's a tricky little virus that needs to be controlled situation, this is a SNAFU. This is a FUBAR. And companies should take responsibility when they make fundamental errors or their contractors do.
Ultimately, Transpower is responsible for delivering the part of the region. They shouldn't be trying to weasel their way out of their obligations. Transpower acting CEO John Clarke said compensation for businesses won't be happening: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply, there's not any way that we can compensate them.” It is simply not good enough. This is under oh well you know, one of those things. It's not one of those things, it's a major stuff up.
North Chamber Chief Executive Darryn Fisher says Transpower needs to front up.
“In a place like Kaitaia, where 600 people are reliant on one big business staying alive, the direct result of what has happened here with Transpower puts those things in jeopardy. And I'm calling for the board and that management team to put their big boy pants on, get on an airplane, get up here, and front up to these local communities and explain why their negligence is putting their livelihoods at risk.”
“Transpower have got values on their website talking about how they're good social citizens, and how they're good community people, well what they're about to do through their negligence and avoiding all of this conversation is absolutely crush a workforce and small community towns like Kaitaia.”
And Northland MP Grant McCallum says transfer needs to open up their chequebook for Northland.
“People like myself, the leaders of Northland, sit down with Transpower and say, actually you owe the people of Northland. There's a lot of anger out there. You've heard it from the business community this morning. They're really frustrated. They feel that they have their owed something. And actually the wider community, which has been my pitch, is for the wider community to get a decent cheque from Transpower which we can use to benefit all of Northland, because everybody was affected, the power went out to the whole province.”
It's just not good enough. I mean, come back to what John Clarke said, the Acting Chief Executive: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply”. Well sure, weather events. I totally understand that Transpower can't control those. There are things that can happen that are beyond your control, this is not one of them. This is contracting out to a crew who weren’t up to the task quite clearly. If it had happened to any one of these businesses that had been affected, if they'd made an error of that magnitude, that could be traced back to incompetence and inadequate supervision, you can bet your bippy that they would have to pay, that they would have to recompense their customers. This is a fundamental human error, it is not one of those things, and it is high time in this country that when we made mistakes, we owned to them, and we did our best to mitigate them.
I'm sick and tired of people washing their hands of responsibility. Of going, you know what, you know it happens, we stuffed up and you know, so what? $60 million to householders and businesses who are already doing it tough. Like the man said, put your big boy pants on, own this, it's on you. Not on the businesses, not on the householders who were affected, they're already dealing with enough that they can't control, this is something that should have been controlled, it wasn't. Pay up.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
Northland's been hit pretty hard over the past few years with the Covid lockdowns, major closures and weather events, and then the pylon collapse. Some of the events have been acts of God, and you just have to accept that life is not always easy. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. You take a deep breath, and you carry on. But when a major company is responsible for a seismic interruption to business, when there was insufficient supervision of inexperienced workers who hadn't received any formal training for the work they were doing, who weren't certified for the tasks they completed unsupervised, that the inexperienced team member who removed the nuts from the foundation legs was not adequately supervised while performing the task... come on, this is not one of those things! This is not an oh well, we can't control the weather or well, it's a tricky little virus that needs to be controlled situation, this is a SNAFU. This is a FUBAR. And companies should take responsibility when they make fundamental errors or their contractors do.
Ultimately, Transpower is responsible for delivering the part of the region. They shouldn't be trying to weasel their way out of their obligations. Transpower acting CEO John Clarke said compensation for businesses won't be happening: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply, there's not any way that we can compensate them.” It is simply not good enough. This is under oh well you know, one of those things. It's not one of those things, it's a major stuff up.
North Chamber Chief Executive Darryn Fisher says Transpower needs to front up.
“In a place like Kaitaia, where 600 people are reliant on one big business staying alive, the direct result of what has happened here with Transpower puts those things in jeopardy. And I'm calling for the board and that management team to put their big boy pants on, get on an airplane, get up here, and front up to these local communities and explain why their negligence is putting their livelihoods at risk.”
“Transpower have got values on their website talking about how they're good social citizens, and how they're good community people, well what they're about to do through their negligence and avoiding all of this conversation is absolutely crush a workforce and small community towns like Kaitaia.”
And Northland MP Grant McCallum says transfer needs to open up their chequebook for Northland.
“People like myself, the leaders of Northland, sit down with Transpower and say, actually you owe the people of Northland. There's a lot of anger out there. You've heard it from the business community this morning. They're really frustrated. They feel that they have their owed something. And actually the wider community, which has been my pitch, is for the wider community to get a decent cheque from Transpower which we can use to benefit all of Northland, because everybody was affected, the power went out to the whole province.”
It's just not good enough. I mean, come back to what John Clarke said, the Acting Chief Executive: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply”. Well sure, weather events. I totally understand that Transpower can't control those. There are things that can happen that are beyond your control, this is not one of them. This is contracting out to a crew who weren’t up to the task quite clearly. If it had happened to any one of these businesses that had been affected, if they'd made an error of that magnitude, that could be traced back to incompetence and inadequate supervision, you can bet your bippy that they would have to pay, that they would have to recompense their customers. This is a fundamental human error, it is not one of those things, and it is high time in this country that when we made mistakes, we owned to them, and we did our best to mitigate them.
I'm sick and tired of people washing their hands of responsibility. Of going, you know what, you know it happens, we stuffed up and you know, so what? $60 million to householders and businesses who are already doing it tough. Like the man said, put your big boy pants on, own this, it's on you. Not on the businesses, not on the householders who were affected, they're already dealing with enough that they can't control, this is something that should have been controlled, it wasn't. Pay up.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
Responsibility has been removed from the dictionary. It has been replaced by Koha. A financial reward is what is now demanded, no one cares about someone taking responsibility, just give me some cash. The more the better.
It wasn't just a matter of not following standard practice. It was matter of doing something a child would recognise as folly. What were their qualifications? Did any make secondary school? Did they do any science? Are they typical products of the modern education system? Spent too much time on matauranga which did not extend to steel pylons? If it had become standard practice how qualified was their supervisor? It was like undoing all the wheel nuts on 3 wheels of a car. The ordinary person marvels at the frail appearance of these lines. They would never dream of hugely reducing it further, even on a calm day. Firms have been prosecuted and very severely penalised for staff mistakes causing injury, often where the outcome was result of pure folly by the victim. I seem to recall a council being prosecuted when a rubbish truck owned and operated by a contractor injured or killed staff. But this huge disruption and material loss, although no lives directly, apparently no offence. If they fire the staff, will probably be sued for inadequate notice, warning etc. They were lucky the collapse did not trigger a domino effect (as at Makara decades ago)
Robert, you missed a question -could they speak or read English?
It would help the public if we could see some photos of the culprits and their chain of command...what ethnicity are they.?...were they drug tested?...was it a case of co-governance
I wonder, if here in New Zealand, when instances like this occur, that we adopt what the Iranian Authorities do, that is - "round up all and sundry, that may have been involved, indirectly and/or directly involved and anyone who thinks they should have been involved" and ..????.
My thought process above, comes from News (not likely to be seen on NZTV) that following the assassination of a Hama's leader on Iranian soil, the Iranian authorities have - please re-read above from "round up...to been involved"- and the news source stated that many will be executed.
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