Nelson port boss welcomes national inquiry
Port Nelson’s boss is welcoming a national inquiry into the port sector following the deaths of two workers in Auckland and Lyttelton within a week.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood has announced a range of measures to investigate the working conditions at the country’s ports. They include Maritime New Zealand and WorkSafe undertaking assessments at each of the 13 international commercial ports during the next fortnight.
On Monday, a man in his 70s was fatally crushed while loading a ship at Lyttelton Port. It was the second death at a New Zealand port in six days, after a stevedore was killed in a fall on a container ship at the Ports of Auckland on April 19.
Port Nelson chief executive Hugh Morrison said Nelson would be included in the inquiry, which he welcomed.
Wood has directed the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) to investigate the recent port deaths to determine any system-wide lessons to improve safety.
He has also asked all port companies to review their operations and provide assurances that appropriate steps are being taken to minimise harm for all high risk activities, and asked a Ports Leadership
Group to prepare advice on extra priority actions for him to consider, including whether regulation changes are needed.
Morrison said he was pleased with the direction of the inquiry and believed the minister had struck the right balance, recognising there was a huge amount of work going on with tripartite organisations and imports, and an existing structure whereby TAIC could respond quickly to investigate deaths and serious harm.
‘‘This situation (deaths in Lyttelton and Auckland) is terrible and our thoughts are with both companies and the people involved,’’ Morrison said.
He said Port Nelson had a close working relationship with WorkSafe and Maritime New Zealand, and while the port company was fortunate it had had no recent deaths or serious harm, it did have workers injured from time to time, which it was continually trying to improve on.
Port Nelson’s injury frequency rate had been tracking down over the past few years, Morrison said. For the past 12 months it had a rate of 1.8 incidents per 100,000 hours. This was currently better than its target rate of under two injuries per 100,000 hours.
‘‘We’ll keep driving that as low as we can. Deaths are the tip of the iceberg,’’ Morrison said. ‘‘Below the water is this huge amount of risk one is carrying and culture is the key issue.’’
Maritime Union Auckland secretary Russell Mayn has said he wanted to see immediate change, rather than a formal inquiry which could take months.
The union proposed the Government immediately adopt Australian port standards across all ports, while working
through its review of the two deaths.
This proposal would put a stop to several immediate issues the union said endangered lives of port workers, such as long working hours, inadequate training for casual staff and irregular shift work.
Morrison said the industry needed to find the right mix of how to keep people safe while still being able to perform port functions.
‘‘Let’s see what the report says and the causes of the incidents in question.’’
In 2001, a worker was killed in a workplace accident at Port Nelson after falling onto a concrete floor from an elevated work platform, and in 2012 a man died after he fell through an insecure hatch on the deck of a fishing boat at Talley’s wharf in Nelson, which is operated independently of Port Nelson.