Why did it take approximately 20 hours for the Government to hear of the Rena disaster?
Then another four days to react? Who waits to see fire before investigating smoke?
In my opinion, the first thing that should have been done was to put booms right around Rena to make sure no oil would escape if at all possible while the people on board tried to make sure that the fuel was secure. They should have had two boats anchored that the booms were tied to so that they wouldn't drift, and we could have possibly had less oil coming onto shore, and less wildlife affected!
This disaster was definitely avoidable, and I feel very sorry for those in the fishing and the tourism industry as they will be the hardest hit. Thank-you to the NZ Army for coming to our rescue after spending months in Christchurch, and thanks to all the experts. I just wish there was some way I could help, but as they said on One News on Thursday night, this will be with us for months, not just weeks. Hopefully our city council will find a way to get whoever is responsible for this to cover more than 80% of the total cost! Is there going to be any fundraising to help cover costs for the time being? I would like to see something like this so that wildlife who are the most innocent in this tragedy get the help that they need to recover to go back into the wild.

Sallee Roberts, Tauranga.