Courts may have to fix safety woes

Anna Wallis PHOTO/FILE

Recently a tutor giving a demonstration to students in forestry skills injured himself. He was hospitalised with bad chest and leg injuries.

The man teaching the students how to work in forestry safely was a director of Great Lakes Harvesting, the company fined for safety breaches in the death of Wanganui man Reece Reid. The company pleaded guilty to failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of the 23-year-old, who had not been working in the industry very long.

However, the director, Murray Clunie, didn't think he had a case to answer.

At the coronial inquiry he rejected criticism he had a flippant attitude to health and safety, saying a report on the accident was written by a former manager with basically a score to settle.

Mr Clunie has the right to employment and it might be a bit much to expect him not to work in forestry, and not to tutor students.

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But it is incomprehensible how he came to be employed by Waiariki Institute of Technology. It was their course, run out of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, at which - according to reports - Mr Clunie was part of a team cutting down an old pine tree when the accident happened.

For far too long the forestry industry has taken too little care with workers' safety. Years of experience doesn't mean expertise - it can just mean years of doing things the wrong way. And every death could represent hundreds of near-misses and unreported accidents.

Mr Clunie could be exonerated after the investigation. But that still leaves the Waiariki Institute employing a man whose company was successfully prosecuted in the death of a worker.

It will take a huge effort to change the culture in the forestry industry. And that may have to come through the courts.

The first prosecution for manslaughter after a forestry death has begun. Manslaughter is a charge against a person, not a company and this prosecution demonstrates a much-needed shift in accountability.