Mike's Minute: Work and Safety have something to answer for

I am thrilled for the White Island company that had their conviction quashed on appeal on Friday. 

White Island and its judicial process has worried me from the get go. 

Work and Safety appeared to panic in their response to the disaster. 

Make no mistake, what happened at the island was a disaster and a tragedy. But it was a natural disaster and tragedy, and what level of legal recompense was required was questionable from the start. 

But the approach that Work and Safety took appeared to be a panic-driven “scatter gun” affair, whereby all-and-sundry faced a barrage of charges in the hope some of the judicial mud would stick. 

The brothers who owned the island faced a couple of charges. One was dropped but they were found guilty on the other. They appealed it and have had it, quite rightly, turned over. 

The company simply gave licences to conduct tours. They didn’t per se "manage" anything and therefore could not be held accountable for what others directly did. 

I still believe a lot of the other charges were overreach, given the nature of a volcano. 

Adventure tourism, by its nature, carries risk. A live volcano, by its nature, carries risk. At some point the people who buy into that, as in the visitors, must take some level of responsibility. 

From what I could see or have read about no one acted recklessly, they weren't crazy and there was no daredevil behaviour involved. It was an unforeseen disaster. 

As the judge pointed out, given the island company simply handed out licences, what was there to manage? He also pointed out, quite rightly as far as I can see, that we are dealing with bare ground, so there's not a lot to manage there. 

Many of those charged pled guilty early on. I'm convinced they did it not because they believed they were, but because it was easy, whether on legal advice or not to simply cave and pay. 

This quashing is proof that it didn't need to be that way. All the charges that were dropped is proof it didn’t need to be this way. 

So how much damage, stress, money, energy and failed business do we have from an agency that, it looks increasingly likely, set about things in a very haphazard, if not dangerous, way. 

And yet they're in no way being held to any level of account. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.