Reparations awarded

Victims of the Whakaari/White Island eruption and their families have been awarded more than $10 million in total reparations.

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Evangelos Thomas delivered sentences for five companies that took tourists to the volcanic island before the fatal eruption in 2019. Twenty-two people died in the tragedy and 25 others were injured.

He said reparations would be paid by the islands’ owner Whakaari Management Limited, White Island Tours and the helicopter company Volcanic Air Safaris.

‘‘I adopt an individual general sum of $250,000,’’ Judge Thomas said. ‘‘That calculation provides for total reparation of $10.21 million.”

He said the exact reparation amounts would be tweaked in some cases.

He said each of the five companies involved had failed in their duties to assess and mitigate risk.

Whakaari Management Limited was fined $1.045 million and ordered to pay $4.88m in reparations to all of the victims and their families. White Island Tours, which took visitors to the island via boat, was fined $517,000 and ordered to pay $5m in reparations to the victims involved in its tours.

Volcanic Air Safaris Ltd, one of three helicopter operators that conducted tours, was fined $506,000 and ordered to pay $330,000 in reparations to the victims involved in its tours. Two other operators, Aerius and Kahu NZ, were fined $290,000 and $196,000 respectively but were not ordered to pay reparations.

GNS Science was fined $54,000.

As a Crown entity, Thomas noted that any fine would have to be paid via public funds.

WorkSafe chief executive Steve Haszard said the victim impact statements delivered in court had showed the impact of the eruption was “far wider” than just the people who were on the island.

WorkSafe had a duty to hold businesses to account over the tragedy, Haszard said.

Judge Thomas acknowledged that the companies may struggle to pay the reparations.

Whakaari Management Ltd, as a corporate trustee, did not have a bank account and therefore no funds from which to pay a fine. The judge did not let that impact his decision, and he addressed the company's owners, Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, directly.

“I do not relieve WML from any of its reparation or fine obligations. There is nothing to stop the Buttles, as WML's shareholders, from advancing the necessary funds to cover that obligation.’’