Bureaucrats cut marine radio lifeline

Barry Groom provides a radio link for sailors. Below are two he helped to save, Heloise Kortekaas and Bruce Cox. Pictures / Simon Baker

For 33 years Barry Groom has been a comforting voice on the radio to sailors in distress, assisting in more than 300 marine rescues in the South Pacific and countless other minor emergencies.

Yesterday Mr Groom and his wife, Lynette, ran Waikuku Marine Radio's last 24-hour service, as a row over their superannuation means his voluntary operation will have to be scaled back.

Work and Income this month started recovering nearly $15,500 it says the Grooms owe. It is taking $21 off their combined superannuation to recover the debt - a debt Mr Groom will have to repay until December 2019, when he'll be 89.

"The good Lord doesn't say that I'll live much longer than the age I am at at the moment, but Work and Income in their infinite wisdom will tell me how long I'll live."

Faced with the prospect of having to survive on $107 a week before tax, Mr Groom has reluctantly had to curtail the voluntary operation he started with Lynette in 1973.

They get no Government help and it costs the Grooms $5000 a year to keep Waikuku Marine Radio running.

"Every radio is taking power, power is costing money, heating is costing money. At the moment, it's a lot to heat the place because it's 6.1C down here, and local temperature is minus 3.8C - which is bloody cold."

Mr Groom's enforced debt repayment contrasts with that of the Labour Party and its allies who are battling any moves to have them repay election spending they may not have been entitled to.

He says Prime Minister Helen Clark should pay back the $446,000 cost of Labour's election "pledge card".

He said it wouldn't be fair if the Labour Party didn't have to repay their debt.

"It's not fair at all. It's bloody ridiculous. I don't think anything that goes on in the Beehive is fair.

"I'm astounded at how manipulative the Government is. They can manipulate anything they want to," he said.

A trained radio operator, Mr Groom started Waikuku after an accident with a circular saw left him with just two fingers on his left hand.

"I just had to do something for my sanity."

He built up the station to cover the South Pacific, in addition to a VHF transmitter covering the eastern seaboard from Port Chalmers to Wellington.

He reckons he has been involved in more than 300 maydays and smaller incidents - "too many to mention" - involving an onboard injury or illness.

Mr Groom also broadcasts a weather report every morning, taking information from three weather charts he gets daily from the Maritime Safety Authority.

From Waikuku in North Canterbury, he and Mrs Groom provide a service to mariners throughout the South Pacific, offering encouragement in troubled times and alerting authorities to emergencies.

The Grooms' financial situation spells the beginning of the end of their service.

At the heart of the matter is a small English private pension Mr Groom receives on top of his New Zealand super.

The Department of Work and Income regards the English pension as public money, and slashes super payments so people receiving overseas private pensions do not get more than their New Zealand super entitlement.

But the department did not find out about Mr Groom's private pension until 2003 and initiated proceedings to recover the money it regarded as an overpayment.

The Grooms are not alone - more than 52,000 pensioners and their spouses are in a similar predicament.

Work and Income has called it a policy issue, and referred it to the office of minister David Benson Pope, where a spokeswoman said the complexity of the policy meant work was still on-going to resolve the issue.

Mr Groom said the service would continue on reduced hours. "As long as money holds out, we can continue."

He does not see anyone taking over.

"Nobody would take on the job, 'cause they know it's a right pickle of a job, to be honest."