Back to Black
Urging tourists to ask adventure companies if they are registered just doesn’t make sense.
Of all the advice that people get given before they go on holiday – where to find the biggest ice creams, the best pies and the most deserted beaches, for example – the least useful would surely be Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway’s suggestion that, before booking or using their services, holidaymakers should ask adventure-tourism companies whether they are registered. I mean, really?
Lees-Galloway said that being registered was a strong indication that those operators take health and safety seriously.
That may be true, or it may not, but, applying the same logic, the kind of tourists who ask if a company is registered may not be the ones who jump off bridges for recreation.
Aside from that, many clients of adventure-tourism companies are overseas tourists who cannot reasonably be expected to have any knowledge of New Zealand’s health and safety legislation.
We have regulators to check whether operators are registered or licensed, don’t we? Do we?
If I buy my big ice cream, it is not my responsibility to ask whether the dairy is registered for GST and has a food-safety certificate, if it even needs one. Unless you work in the “Ministry of Bureaucratic Regulations", you would have no idea who is supposed to be registered, licensed or certificated for which activities, let alone checking up, when, as a tourist, English might not be your first language.
Lees-Galloway’s suggestion is well meaning but, in the wake of the Whakaari/White Island tragedy, the idea that regulatory compliance or noncompliance played any part in what happened is akin to asking bereft homeowners after an earthquake whether they had paid their rates. Unlicensed operators may face penalties for not having proper authority, but it was a volcanic eruption that killed people. It might comfort us to think that in 2020, we can regulate our way out of being victims of the Earth’s forces. The evidence says otherwise.
It was Robert Frost who wrote in his poem The Death of the Hired Man, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” And, it seems, they also have to take in your surfboard, mag wheels, cacti, favourite pink plastic cake stand, boxes of winter clothes, class photos, half-burnt scented candles, books, furniture and the remains of your last pantry when you were in your vegan phase.
When I return home from holiday, I will discover which of my kids has moved in and who has moved out. My husband and I have three kids and two spare bedrooms, so the kids have developed a spreadsheet of occupancy for 2020. Their stuff has preceded them and I suspect does not feature in the “moving out” column of the spreadsheet but rather is now a permanent fixture of our basement. One day, Pompeii like, archaeologists will find a treasure trove of middle-income family life in the early 2000s and be amazed, as am I, by the detritus.
My late friend Tom Bridgman used to say that the world was full of middle-aged people with pets they had not themselves chosen. Rather, they had inherited the animals from their kids, who had found to their surprise that it is harder to rent a place when you own a dog.
My husband has always been clear that, with a few exceptions, he likes animals only when they have been roasted. Consequently, we have no pets and I don’t need to keep checking the oven. Because, home is the place where, even when the kids come home, you don’t have to take their dog.
My husband has always been clear that, with a few exceptions, he likes animals only when they have been roasted.