NZTE spends $30,000 on gifts

A Government agency has spent $30,000 on buying greenstone as gifts for its staff.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) bought hundreds of pounamu pendants for its staff members in June last year, documents from its financial review revealed.

The gifts, totalling $30,060, were to reward the high performance ratings the agency had recently received, from a poor review in 2011.

Labour’s trade and export growth spokesperson David Clark said it was ‘‘extravagant spending’’, dubbing it the ‘‘greenstone giveaway’’.

‘‘This raises serious questions. How did NZTE think this was a wise use of money? Why on earth would every staff member need a pounamu?’’ Clark said.

‘‘There’s no doubt that NZTE staff are hard-working but jewellery for bureaucrats sets an unfortunate precedent.’’

However, the agency’s minister Steven Joyce said it was ‘‘laughable’’ to suggest Government agencies carelessly spend when they had reduced office space and saved ‘‘10s of millions’’ in office rentals and reduced headcount.

‘‘I understand the gifts of approximately $60 per head were a thank you for a job well done,’’ Joyce said.

Joyce was in hot water last year after the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spend large amounts of money on their new building, including large signs and hair straighteners.

NZTE chief executive Peter Chrisp also believed the gift was appropriate.

‘‘Saying thank you and recognising effort is a simple way of motivating people,’’ Chrisp said. A skipper’s inexperience, lack of communication, and failure to research weather conditions and appropriate yachting procedure could have contributed to the deaths of three Germans on board a yacht in 2014.

Andre Kinzler, a 33-year-old dairy farm worker at Winton who was from Germany, Veronika Steudler, and Lea Tietz, both 19 and from Germany, sailed from Bluff Harbour on Kinzler’s yacht Munetra on April 16, 2014.

They intended to sail to Preservation Inlet, Fiordland, before returning to Bluff.

The trio were first reported missing on April 24 by another German woman, who was friends with Steudler and Tietz, after they failed to return to Bluff at the agreed time on April 22.

Despite the discovery of a squab at Pahia, near Monkey Island, western Southland, and a life raft at Flour Cask Bay, Stewart Island, no further debris relating to the yacht or the three people on board has ever been found.

An inquest was held in Invercargill before coroner David Crerar in November 2015.

Coroner Crerar’s findings were released on Monday.

He found there was sufficient physical information and circumstantial evidence to conclude the Munetra sank in Foveaux Strait, probably on April 16, 2014.

‘‘The evidence available to my inquiry satisfies me that each of Andre Kinzler, Veronika Steudler, and Lea Tietz died of drowning,’’ Coroner Crerar said in his findings.

It was clear Kinzler was an inexperienced yachtsman, the coroner said. ‘‘Such skills as he [Kinzler] had as skipper of the Munetra were self-taught from the internet, although he may have learned some sailing techniques from the French sailors in the company of whom he attempted to sail the Munetra to Preservation Inlet [on a previous occasion].’’

During the inquest, Bluff Fisherman’s Radio operator Meri Leask gave evidence the weather forecast on the day the trio sailed from Bluff Harbour was poor.

Coroner Crerar found it was unclear whether Kinzler knew of the unfavourable weather forecast.

‘‘The lack of radio skills and experience by Andre Kinzler is of concern . . . [he] had not ensured that Munetra was adequately provided with communication equipment. He relied on a cellphone and a hand-held radio.’’

The previous owner of the Munetra had described the vessel as safe and slow, and there was no evidence that the yacht was unsound or suffered from a design or maintenance fault, coroner Crerar said.

‘‘To summarise, the decision to set off on the journey to Preservation Inlet by Andre Kinzler with Veronika Steudler and Lea Tietz was ill-advised.

‘‘Andre Kinzler was inexperienced as the skipper of a yacht. He commenced the journey in spite of an adverse weather forecast.

‘‘The Munetra, with a capable skipper, may have been able to negotiate the prevailing weather and sea conditions,’’ coroner Crerar found. A 22-year-old United States student may have had a better chance of survival after falling from a hostel fire escape if a CT scanner had been based at the Queenstown Lakes District Hospital.

Otago Southland coroner David Crerar has released his findings into the death of Corey Richard Docherty, of Santa Barbara, after he fell from a fire escape at The Base backpackers in Queenstown last year.

Docherty was found in an alley beside the backpackers covered in blood and vomit in the early hours on February 6, 2015, and died in Dunedin Hospital four days later of severe traumatic brain injury.

It was the second fatal fall at the site.

Docherty had been drinking in Queenstown bars with his sister, Chanel, and a friend and arrived alone at the backpackers about 4am.

CCTV footage showed he was stumbling around the building before going onto a fire escape on the first floor through a door believed to have been left insecure by other partons.

The only way to get back inside the building was to move up or down the fire escape.

At 8.30am he was found conscious in the alley shaking and looking cold.

Intensive care paramedic Suzanne Tait said Docherty could recognise Chanel during the transfer in an ambulance to hospital but by the time they arrived his con- dition had deteriorated.

He was diagnosed as suffering from concussion and hypothermia as well as spinal and head injuries.

He was airlifted to Dunedin after initial treatment in Queenstown.

A CT scan found Docherty was suffering from multiple brain bleeds, a fractured skull and a spinal fracture.

Dr Morne Pienaar noted that he believed that if a CT scan had been able to take place in Queenstown, doctors would have made a ‘‘substantial and significant difference’’ in how they treated Docherty.

A single CT scanner for the entire Queenstown-Lakes and Central Otago region was controversially based at the Clyde Hospital in 2012.

The Southern District Health Board advised the coroner it was impractical to fund and supply a CT scanner to all hospitals in its jurisdiction, with a capital cost of $2 million and an annual running cost of $800,000.

The combined scanner at Clyde operates two-and-a-half days a week.