NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Budget 2025
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Fatal crushing of Tauranga worker: Inquest spotlight on faulty sensors

Kiri Gillespie
By Kiri Gillespie
Assistant News Director and Multimedia Journalist·Bay of Plenty Times·
29 Jun, 2021 07:03 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌

Subscriber benefit

The ability to gift paywall-free articles is a subscriber only benefit. See more offers by clicking the button below.

Already a subscriber?  Sign in here
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

The scene where a man was crushed between a shipping container and a truck. Photo / NZME
The scene where a man was crushed between a shipping container and a truck. Photo / NZME

The scene where a man was crushed between a shipping container and a truck. Photo / NZME

A representative of an auto electrical company that worked on a truck and trailer later involved in the fatal crushing of a worker has hit back at inferences of poor work.

A coronial inquest into the death of a worker, who has name suppression, yesterday heard Mount Auto Electrical Ltd (MAEL) - under pressure to get the truck back on the road - released it having identified its safety sensors were not working but understanding the client's workshop would fix them.

It was the sixth day of an inquest in the Tauranga District Court into the March 14, 2016, incident where the worker was crushed between a container and the side-loader vehicle, also known as a swing-loader.

The incident happened at a Totara St yard owned by the Port of Tauranga and leased to the worker's employer, Coda Operations Limited Partnership (Coda) from which Priority Logistics (PLL) operates.

At times, repair work on Priority Logistics' fleet vehicles was outsourced to companies including Mount Auto Electrical and supplier and manufacturer Hammar.

Mount Auto Electrical managing director Richard Farminer said the vehicle in question was brought in five times between 2011 and 2016 for electrical faults.

Start your day in the know

Get the latest headlines straight to your inbox.
Please email me competitions, offers and other updates. You can stop these at any time.
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

However, Farminer shut down inferences his company was responsible for "wrong wiring" as previously suggested during the inquest. He labelled the testimony of Coda health and safety general manager Louis Buckingham as "mistaken".

Farminer said Mount Auto Electrical was not the only company to carry out electrical work on the side loader as Buckingham had earlier stated.

The court has previously heard of the "poor" condition of the truck's electrical system including its control box and wiring, and issues with some safety sensors.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"MAEL is not responsible for wiring shortcuts. We would never carry out repair work in this way. No work was done to any existing wiring and never were any wiring shortcuts required," Farminer said.

He said Hammar did "major work" on the vehicle in 2011 and 2014.

Discover more

New Zealand

'Tell them to bring their guns': Details of fatal police shooting revealed

28 Jun 04:34 AM
New Zealand

Fatal crushing: Former driver confirms 'faults' with truck prior to 'terrible event'

25 Jun 06:00 AM
New Zealand

Death at work: 'If he wasn't standing there, we wouldn't all be here today'

22 Jun 06:50 PM

He listed several invoices for jobs in which his company supplied parts to Priority Logistics' in-house workshop, usually because the part arrived after the vehicle had already been released.

Between 2013 and around the time of the incident in March 2016, Mount Auto Electrical supplied Priority Logisitics' workshop with 450 parts, Farminer said.

Someone would have had to have fitted the parts, and it was not Mount Auto Electrical, he said.

During the inquest the court has heard the workshop typically carried out rudimentary repairs and maintenance to its fleet, such as changing light bulbs.

"I believe the PLL workshop do a lot more work than just replacing light bulbs and LED lights," Farminer said.

Priority Logistics jobs typically involved the driver coming to his company halfway through a job for a fault to be identified and addressed while the driver waited, Farminer said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Most jobs took one to two hours.

Mount Auto Electrical was only engaged for specific jobs with a "narrow" scope to allow for the truck to get back out on the road "as priority", he said.

"We identified safety systems were not operational. We alerted PLL but they told us it would be dealt with at a later time."

He said he assumed Priority Logistics' own workshop would take care of the issue.

Priority Logistics did not want Mount Auto Electrics to inspect the electrical system or to carry out general repair or maintenance work, Farminer said.

"There was a lot of urgency with that swing-loader to get that back. Obviously, these machines are under pressure - so the job is under pressure to get it back. That's why we only focused on the specific job it came in for."

"Moving forward, if there was an issue with safety sensors or something, we wouldn't let it go."

Counsel Greg Stringer, representing Hammar, said the modification work his client did on the truck was mostly mechanical with very little electrical work affecting any safety sensors.

However, Farminer was reluctant to agree, saying: "I can't see how you can remove cranes without disconnecting wiring. If you remove a crane arm or leg, and there's a sensor in there, how do you not disconnect it?"

Under questioning from David Fraundorfer, representing Coda, Farminer said the company had made changes to improve its invoicing and communications with clients.

"It's not something we took lightly. We were all affected by what happened, to be honest."

Mount Auto Electrical still does work for Coda.

Subscriber benefit

The ability to gift paywall-free articles is a subscriber only benefit. See more offers by clicking the button below.

Already a subscriber?  Sign in here
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

Watch: Man heckles Winston Peters at media standup

New Zealand

'Lower prices': Govt's next steps on supermarket shake-up

19 May 10:16 PM
New ZealandUpdated

Teen avoids conviction for giving cop concussion after he 'swung a haymaker'

19 May 09:50 PM

The Hire A Hubby hero turning handyman stereotypes on their head

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Recommended for you
'Lower prices': Govt's next steps on supermarket shake-up
New Zealand

'Lower prices': Govt's next steps on supermarket shake-up

19 May 10:16 PM
'Pushing really hard': MP backs Pāpāmoa for new 24/7 urgent care clinic
Bay of Plenty Times

'Pushing really hard': MP backs Pāpāmoa for new 24/7 urgent care clinic

19 May 10:12 PM
NZ's new cheapest petrol station revealed
Business

NZ's new cheapest petrol station revealed

19 May 10:04 PM
Upper Hutt teen avoids conviction for giving cop concussion after he 'swung a haymaker'
New Zealand

Upper Hutt teen avoids conviction for giving cop concussion after he 'swung a haymaker'

19 May 09:50 PM
AmCup challenger reveals intention after Naples confirmed as host
America's Cup

AmCup challenger reveals intention after Naples confirmed as host

19 May 09:40 PM

Latest from New Zealand

Watch: Man heckles Winston Peters at media standup

Watch: Man heckles Winston Peters at media standup

Rail Minister Winston Peters was heckled at media standup.

'Lower prices': Govt's next steps on supermarket shake-up

'Lower prices': Govt's next steps on supermarket shake-up

19 May 10:16 PM
Teen avoids conviction for giving cop concussion after he 'swung a haymaker'

Teen avoids conviction for giving cop concussion after he 'swung a haymaker'

19 May 09:50 PM
Opinion: Duck debate needs more balance and better context

Opinion: Duck debate needs more balance and better context

19 May 09:30 PM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search