Logging death prosecution

Today is expected to be the final day of the private Council of Trade Unions prosecution of Whakatane-based logging company Puketi Logging in Tauranga's District Court over the death of an employee.

Eramiha Eruera Pairama, 19, was killed when he was struck by a falling tree in a forest near Taneatua in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in January 2013. Eramiha was the first of nine forestry deaths that year.


Photo: File.

WorkSafe NZ chose not to prosecute the company, and the CTU had to go to court to seek leave for the private prosecution.

Since 2008 there have been 26 fatalities in the forestry industry and nearly 900 accidents causing serious harm.

CTU president Helen Kelly says death and serious injuries in the sector have dropped markedly since the CTU began prosecuting.

'We've been proven right,” she says today.

There has been one forestry death in the last 15 months and serious harm injuries have dropped by 60 percent.

The CTU sought leave for four prosecutions and was granted two, with the second due to start in Rotoura on August 5. It is also appealing another.

Since 2014, WorkSafe NZ changed its approach, inspecting forestry contractors and issuing improvement notices, says Helen.

'Forest owners have stepped up,” she admits. 'They are actually quite proud of their work, and so they should be.”

In 2013 Helen declared that New Zealand had twice the rate of forestry deaths as Australia and six times that of the UK.

She accused the government of doing little more than muck around with weak codes of practice and new initiatives that fail to address the underlying problems.

She said then that forest owners were denying there was a problem at all, at a time when more people were dying in New Zealand forests than at any time in the last 20 years.

You may also like....

1 comment

Foresty deaths

Posted on 22-07-2015 18:53 | By Kenworthlogger

I can see first hand why people get killed logging. The poor underpaid worker is put under huge pressure to produce. So being human we try and cut corners to do the job quicker and sometimes we come unstuck. How many other workplaces make their workers do 14, 15, 16 or more hours each shift then wonder why we start making mistakes??.


Leave a Comment


You must be logged in to make a comment.