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An Auckland court has found Whakaari Management Limited (WML) guilty of breaching workplace safety laws relating to the Whakaari White Island eruption in 2019. This decision could have implications for anyone involved in adventure tourism in New Zealand.

When Whakaari erupted on December 9 2019 there were 47 people on the island. The eruption killed 22 of them and injured 25, some severely. The island was at alert level VAL 2 (moderate to heightened volcanic unrest) when it erupted.

As owner of the island, WML was charged with failing to adequately minimise the risks to tourists.

The court’s guilty verdict will likely result in significant changes to the $26.5bn tourism industry. So how did we get here and what is likely to change?

New Zealand’s most active volcano

The Buttle family has owned Whakaari since 1936. Brothers Peter, James and Andrew Buttle inherited the island in 2012 and own it through a family trust. The trust leased Whakaari to WML (with the Buttles as the company’s directors).

WML had licensing agreements with tour companies to run commercial walking tours.

Of the 47 people on the island when it erupted, 38 were part of a tour organised through the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Questions quickly arose about how aware tourists were of the risks and who might be held responsible.

WorkSafe New Zealand originally charged 13 parties under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Six eventually pleaded guilty to the charges and six, including the three Buttle brothers, had their cases dismissed.

The case against WML

WML was charged with breaching two sections of the act. The company was found guilty of one charge while the other was dismissed.

A key question in the court case was what responsibility WML bore when it licensed others to run the tour operations on the island.

WML argued it was only a landowner and not responsible for tourists’ safety. The company also claimed it had no physical presence on Whakaari or involvement in day-to-day tourism operations.

However, Judge Evangelos Thomas did not accept WML’s “passive owner” argument. The judge pointed to several factors as evidence, including:

• its business was to generate income through the enabling of commercial walking tours on Whakaari
• it entered into the licence agreements and had termination rights for breaches
• it maintained a direct and continuing relationship with tour operators
• it engaged with tour operators and other relevant entities, including Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS), civil defence and various agencies interested and involved in increasing tourist numbers to Whakaari
• it had occasional direct engagement with WorkSafe and GNS.

The judge also noted an earlier eruption in 2016 should have had all Whakaari stakeholders on notice for sound risk assessment. This eruption occurred when Whakaari was at VAL 1 (minor volcanic unrest). Fortunately, it occurred at night when there were no visitors on the island.

Judge Thomas argued this showed the volcano “could erupt at any time and without warning, with the risk of death or serious injury to tourists or tour guides who may be there at that time”.

WML should have engaged experts in volcanology and health and safety to advise on risks presented by tours to Whakaari, the judge found.

Sentencing will happen in February with a maximum possible penalty of a $1.5m fine.

Adventure tourism rules have already changed

This tragedy has already impacted the adventure tourism sector of New Zealand.

In August, the workplace relations and safety minister announced government changes to the rules for adventure tourism operations.

Minister Carmel Sepuloni said: “Adventure activity operators will now be required by law to communicate serious risks to customers, meaning prospective participants can be fully informed of risks before buying a ticket, in the time before the activity begins and throughout the activity, including if the risks change.”

WorkSafe was also given expanded powers to suspend, cancel or refuse registrations for adventure operators who cannot provide activities safely.

It is clear more rigorous risk assessments are required in New Zealand’s tourism industry. Responsibility for safety will no longer fall on tour operators alone.

All facets of the tourism supply chain, from land owners to tour operators to transport providers, will need to fulfil certain responsibilities to ensure the safety of their customers and workers. This will include careful consideration of the definition of “serious risk” and the many possible sources of risk.

Agencies such as the Meteorological Service and GNS will need to update adventure tour operators on a day-to-day basis. Natural hazards and risks such as extreme weather events, as well as volcanic and seismic risks, will need to be understood, factored into the planning of tour operations, and clearly communicated.

Reducing the risk in adventure tourism

Risk is an exciting attraction of adventure experiences for tourists in New Zealand. But public perception of risk is not the same as actual risk.

Some adventure tourism businesses offer experiences, such as bungy jumping, based on high perceived risk. But in reality these are low risk due to long-standing safety protocols.

Others, such as tours to geologically active locations, offer low perceived risk but there is the potential for periodic and unpredictable high actual risk.

Operators providing such experiences will now be obligated to shoulder greater responsibilities in ensuring such risks do not cause real harm.

All aspects of risk associated with the full spectrum of tourism businesses and tour operations, including but not limited to adventure tourism activities, will now need to be considered more carefully in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Freya Higgins-Desbiolles is adjunct senior lecturer in tourism management and adjunct associate professor at the University of South Australia and James Higham is professor of tourism at Griffith University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

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Tāpoi Te Moananui ā Toi | Tourism Bay of Plenty chief executive Kristin Dunne recalls a day of “shock and disbelief” as Whakaari/White Island erupted a year ago, eventually claiming the lives of 22 tourists and tourism workers.

When Whakaari White Island erupted on 9 December 2019 at 2.11pm, we each experienced the devastating natural disaster through a different lens.

This is the window through which I experienced the disaster in my role as tumuaki | chief executive of Tāpoi Te Moananui ā Toi | Tourism Bay of Plenty.

I wish to acknowledge the bravery of the survivors, offer my deepest sympathy to the whānau of those who tragically passed and acknowledge huge respect for all that were involved in the rescue efforts and medical treatment of those affected.

To the team of Tāpoi Te Moananui ā Toi, you are incredible, and I could not be prouder of you.

Kristin Dunne

Our Crisis Management Plan was on the agenda for sign-off at the Tourism Bay of Plenty Board meeting on 9 December 2019. By 2.15pm, the meeting was suspended, and the newly completed Crisis Management Plan was in action. Whakaari White Island was erupting.

Phone calls to industry colleagues confirmed our worst fears – manuhiri were on the island. Calls to the brave operators (who were mid-rescue efforts) confirmed our worst nightmare – there were multiple injuries and loss of life.

My legs went weak and a chilling cold swept over my body. I felt absolutely nauseated.

I stopped for a quiet moment to pray – “Dear God, please help them.” I repeated this simple prayer many times in the coming days.

I rang my parents who live on the coast. “White Island is erupting, but I don’t know how badly. Please go to my house inland so you are safe, and please pick up Caelan from school. I’m not sure when I will be home, but it won’t be tonight. I love you.”

Step 1 of the Crisis Management Plan – settle your family, make sure that they are safe so you can clear your head and concentrate on your job.

Our team and board huddled together. Everyone was in shock and disbelief, and tears rolled down some of our faces. We did a Karakia together. We agreed that we had a job to do, not that we knew what it was going to entail. I was in rare ‘command and control’ leadership style. Everyone was assigned a task.

The phones exploded. Journalists from outlets around the country and the world were wanting information and commentary. As our comms team prepared a holding statement, I remembered a tool from crisis media training called “put your C.A.P. on” – which means Care, Action, Perspective.

As the journalists’ questions were posed, my brain filtered what we knew “unofficially” out. I tried not to lie and instead say, “we have no official information yet”, but inside I knew there was so much more of the story that was yet to be told.

It was not my role to release information, and I was so cognizant of the panic-stricken families who deserved the full facts from official sources. It took too long to establish an official source, which exasperated media desperation. With a holding media statement in place, I handed my phone to a colleague to answer, whilst we re-grouped on what we knew, and made a plan for the next few hours.

Our cruise manager called. I had almost forgotten that the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas was in port with more than 4000 passengers on board.

This was our second disaster alongside Royal Caribbean Line. In 2016, a passenger was killed on a cycle tour, and a coach of passengers crashed (escaping injury) within half an hour of each other. We worked through that disaster together in partnership and the care RCL showed then was extraordinary.

The Ovation of the Seas berthed at Tauranga earlier in 2019.

We started a crisis control centre in our boardroom. Crisis roles were established, butcher paper zones were created on the walls covering communications, stakeholders, risks, team welfare and more. Post-it notes started to fill the zones. Tasks were agreed, assigned and documented. We got supplies in for the team who would be working from the boardroom that night.

Once we had ascertained that there was no threat to the Whakatāne township, some of the team were dispatched to Whakatāne to help. Our board chair and the then mayor of Tauranga went, too.

No-one slept that first night and my team witnessed scenes in Whakatāne that will haunt them forever. Perhaps they shouldn’t have gone? Whether that decision was right or wrong bothers me still.

A team member and I went onboard Ovation of the Seas. By now we knew (unofficially) that this was the second epicentre of the disaster. Thirty-eight passengers were missing. A lot of things broke my heart that day, but learning children were still in the ‘kids club’ as their parents had not returned from their day trip was harrowing.

We joined the captain and his team of officers on the bridge. We explained how we thought we could help, and they welcomed us into the ranks of their team. There was butcher paper on the captain’s boardroom table too. They had a map of New Zealand and had marked in vivid pen the locations of the hospitals, and beside the map were the photos and names of the passengers who were missing. We had one objective: find the missing passengers and be able to give some answers to their distressed families all around the world. We worked under strict confidentiality.

Some victims had arrived in Whakatāne Hospital and others were transferred to Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch. There was no central register to inform the transfer of those who were on the island. The DHBs can’t give out information by phone. In many cases patients had no identification on them, or due to their extensive injuries, were unidentifiable.

RCL dispatched representatives to each hospital and slowly but surely, we started to fill in the map with the passengers’ locations. Through the night, many of the missing were accounted for. It was harrowing work for the RCL staff out in the field. But at least we could start sending family and friends from the ship to their loved ones.

Local cruise tour operator Shore Trips & Tours worked through the night, and for free, taking kin to wherever they needed to be. The RCL care team started working to bring family from overseas to New Zealand and we called out to our friends at Air New Zealand and our RTO colleagues who would be welcoming manuhiri into their regions for help.

A huge operation was underway in Whakatāne, and we tried to connect the two epicentres. This was harder than it should have been. Eventually, after escalating the lack of communication to the minister of civil defence, representatives from the New Zealand Police and Civil Defence joined the ship to help co-ordinate and communicate between the two sites.

Meanwhile, 4795 passengers were stuck at the Port of Tauranga and the cabins of the missing needed to be sealed and forensically analysed, which we guessed would take some time. The ship remained in Tauranga for three days, with passengers getting increasingly frustrated and upset at the situation.

The early morning gathering on 13 December 2019 at Whakatāne Riverside giving karakia, waiata and support to the recovery teams. Image: Lesley Immink

We worked with local iwi Ngāi Te Rangi who performed a Karakia Tau Te Mauri (prayer vigil) in honour of the victims and the community of Whakatāne. The media also got increasingly frustrated at the lack of information and so we negotiated with the port and RCL to bring the media pack inside to film the karakia under strict conditions. Passengers crowded the decks to watch. It was a beautiful moment to honour those that had not returned to the ship.

Following that, I returned to the office to regroup with the team, check on everyone’s location and welfare, update the team’s tasks and then departed for Whakatāne to join the on-site team. Someone had to drive me as my phone never stopped ringing and I hadn’t slept.

We realised that the information that we held onboard the ship was more up-to-date than the ‘official information’ in Whakatāne and a central source of truth needed to be established.

The injured were moved around the country and between many organisations it was difficult to keep families informed and re-unite them with their loved ones. Some family members arrived from overseas and went to each hospital themselves, desperate to find their loved ones. That seemed unacceptable. Their medical status also changed all the time.

So, after an escalation to the Regional Emergency Management Agency, a Welfare Co-ordination Centre was established in Whakatāne District Council and RCL and ourselves sat on that group to help update (usually heart-breaking) information that was ever-changing.

The Whakatāne crisis centre inside Whakatāne District Council was also the media centre. It wasn’t hard to tell that the communications between various departments and organisations were not going well. We brought in Scott Campbell from Campbell Squared to assist and my whole comms team worked tirelessly alongside them to try and bring timely, accurate and well-prepared information to the nation, and the many other nations watching.

NZ Defence Force personnel on Whakaari/White Island on 13 December 2019. Image: NZDF

Once confirmed, the retrieval of the bodies of the deceased on Whakaari then became the focus for us, and getting the affected families to Whakatāne as this happened. The decision was made late in the day to attempt the retrieval on 13 December. A phone call to Duane Emeny at Air Chathams produced a late-night charter flight to fly the families in.

Whatever we needed, we only had to reach out to a local contact and it was sorted. The shell-shocked industry came together, and nothing was too much trouble.

We also needed to keep all details highly confidential to keep the victims and their families’ privacy protected and let them process their grief without the glare of media. The national industry sent their awhi also; Tourism New Zealand came to town and the Visitor Sector Emergency Advisory Group (VSEAG) was stood up.

We worked with the New Zealand Police victim support team and the Australian Consulate to pick up the families from Whakatāne Airport and local Ngāti Awa-owned accommodation White Island Rendezvous welcomed them with open arms. It was late when they arrived and I recall McDonald’s being all we could find for our manuhiri for dinner that night.

We negotiated spaces for the international families to join the local families onboard a White Island Tours boat for the waiata and blessing at dawn the following morning. McDonald’s was also all we could provide for breakfast. No one had much of an appetite in any case.

The vessel took the families out to sea to view the island from a safe distance to help them in their grieving process. Once the families returned, deeply moved by the waiata experience led by Ngāti Awa, the New Zealand Police victim support team and I helped to quietly move the families to the Whakatāne Airport, where we waited together for news of the returning bodies.

White Island Tours guides Hayden Marshall-Inman (pictured) and Tipene Maangi were among the 22 fatalities.

Eventually, choppers started coming overhead and we were updated that six of the bodies had been retrieved, but two had not. Which two…?

There wasn’t time for the formal identification processes. Once the bodies were decontaminated, they were placed in coffins and, with the support of incredible Ngāti Awa tikanga and the aroha of everyone involved in the retrieval operation, the families said goodbye to each coffin, unsure which contained their loved one. Or whose loved one was still missing.

We supported RCL to arrange flights for the families to follow their loved ones to Auckland for the formal identification and repatriation processes of those who had not survived the eruption. And as we said goodbye, we hugged, for they were now our whānau, too.

It is even more tragic that Covid-19 has meant that the international families cannot join Whakaari He Rā Whakamauharatanga (the Whakaari Anniversary) in-person. For the international families who had lost loved ones on foreign shores, experiencing the Te Ao Māori approach to tragedy and death was hugely impactful and helped to cushion the devastating loss in those first few days.

Hopefully, in 2021 we can once again awhi and share deep aroha with our special manuhiri who will never be forgotten.

To help me lead in this crisis, Ngāti Rangi gave me this Whakatauki which I taped to my office door during the darkest days of my career:

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.
Keep strong, keep brave and keep steadfast.

It is still on my office door.

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Ngati Awa-owned White Island Tours, operator Volcanic Air Safaris, and government agencies GNS Science and the National Emergency Management Agency are among parties charged over the deaths on Whakaari White Island a year ago.

Worksafe yesterday said it had charged 13 parties over the 22 fatalities that followed the eruption on 9 December 2019.

A number of parties have identified themselves including James, Peter and Andrew Buttle, who were directors of the island-owning company Whakaari Management.

WorkSafe chief executive Phil Parkes said at a media conference on Monday afternoon that it would not name any of the charged parties because they had a legal right to seek name suppression when they came before Auckland District Court on 15 December.

“The integrity of the process is paramount,” Parkes said.

“The charges conclude the most extensive and complex investigation ever undertaken by WorkSafe.

“We investigated whether those with any involvement in taking tourists to the island were meeting their obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.  We consider that these 13 parties did not meet those obligations. It is now up to the judicial system to determine whether they did or not. WorkSafe can’t comment on the matters in front of the court.”

WorkSafe would not release the investigation reports into each charged party until the conclusion of the legal process.

“It is critical we respect the need to ensure the maintenance of the law, including the proper conduct of court proceedings.”

Three individuals have been charged under section 44 of the Act, which required directors, or individuals with significant influence, to exercise due diligence that the company is meeting its health and safety obligations under the Act. Each charge carried a maximum fine of $300,000.

Ten organisations have been charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Nine face a section 36 charge for failure to ensure the health and safety of workers and others, and one faces either a section 36 or a section 37 charge, which relates to the duty of a PCBU that controls a workplace. Each charge carried a maximum fine of $1.5m.

“This tragedy has had a wide-ranging impact on victims, families, communities and iwi,” Parkes said.

“There were 47 people on the island at the time of the eruption, all of whom suffered serious injuries and trauma, and 22 of those have lost their lives. Those who went to the island, did so with the reasonable expectation that there were appropriate systems in place to ensure they made it home healthy and safe.

“That’s an expectation which goes to the heart of our health and safety culture. As a nation, we need to look at this tragedy and ask if we are truly doing enough to ensure our mothers, fathers, children and friends come home to us healthy and safe at the end of each day.”

There were 47 people on Whakaari White Island, most on excursions operated by White Island Tours, when it erupted. Volcanic Air Safaris was also on the island with visitors at the time. In addition to the deaths, a further 22 people were seriously injured.

Most of the tourists were from Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas cruise ship, berthed at Tauranga.

They were on a guided day tour of the active volcano off the Bay of Plenty coast.

Among the fatalities were White Island Tours guides Tipene Maangi and Hayden Marshall-Inman.

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Whakatāne tourism operator and district councillor, and former Tourism Export Council CEO, Lesley Immink, on how the local community and industry have rallied in the wake of last week’s fatal eruption.

Lesley Immink

It’s been a sobering and tragic week for the Whakatāne community and difficult to describe the pride you have in seeing your community come together in a moment of adversity and working across multiple agencies to provide rescue and recovery operations. I know that Christchurch, Kaikōura and other tourism communities will understand all the decisions and actions that get done in front, and behind the scenes, when an incident of this magnitude occurs.

As tourism operators, we already have amazing kaitiaki (guardianship) and manaakitanga (caring and hospitality) for our visitors. On a good hectic day, you might think, “Phew, that was busy, but things went well. Don’t know how we (the business) could have performed any better?”

Well, we now know, that we are at our best when things are at their worse. Another gear of energy is found, patience and care for one another unfolds and the call to action is at its strongest. Bonds are created between complete strangers. Whether you are a New Zealander or visitor to NZ, between families and support people you’ve never met before, or between international emergency agencies.

I’ve been privileged this week to have been able to support and see first-hand how things un-fold from the moment the alert goes out, the rescue and recovery operations and how our tourism organisations and operators come together with the only priority being the wellbeing of our people.

Our family lives on Muriwai Drive in Whakatāne, which is where the river and wharf area is and this is the area that was blocked off last week to the public. The area has been inundated (and camped on) with international and New Zealand media, desperate for news and some willing to accost, follow and interview anyone they can to gain an insight from people willing to share their thoughts. We really value and appreciate the sensitive coverage most media have broadcast. However, some media have not acted sensitively at all.

These media have literally chased people asking questions like, “Have you been out, would you go out, what was it like on the island”, then leading up to “why were White Island Tours allowed to operate when the status was Level 2?” I’m pleased to say that in all instances that I’ve heard about, locals have been united in their support of White Island Tours. And, while locals have not been able to answer the key question, the response of support and aroha for White Island Tours has given media a lot to think about why we live here. He tangata, He tangata, He tangata.

Part of the reason New Zealand is considered one of the best destinations in the world and leader of world class tourism adventures is because of the diverse nature in our offering. There is an absolute reality of living on islands, amidst the ‘ring of fire’ and all the potential natural disasters that come with it. Our perspective to risk and where we live is unique. To quote former search and rescue pilot John Funnell, who posted this on facebook:

“It’s is a tragedy that people have died at White Island. To put the risk in perspective, 140,000 people walk the Tongariro Alpine crossing each year. It’s is an active volcano that has erupted in recent years. The Mt Ruapehu ski-fields have around 10,000 people on them most days in the ski season, it is an active volcano that has erupted in recent years. Some 25,000 people live in the Taupo township against the lake edge. It is an active volcano. It has not erupted recently but the lake-bed does heat up and volcanic gas bubbles up.”

It has been 105 years (1914) since there have been any loss of lives at White Island, when ten miners died working at the Sulphur Mine. White Island Tours in its current form has been operating for nearly 30 years with approximately 20,000 visitors (including heli tours) per year with no fatalities. In 2018, White Island Tours won the NZ Safe365 Small Enterprise “Safest Place to Work” and they are a Qualmark Gold endorsed company. The courage that White Island Tours staff and crew displayed during the crisis to ensure as many passengers as possible were cared for and bought to safety is a story that many have currently overlooked. Perhaps their remarkable efforts will come to light when the grieving and healing process begins.

I do hope, when the recovery is complete, that we don’t waste the next few years over analysing the ‘ifs and buts’, only to come to the conclusion that it was sadly an ‘act of God’.

On a personal note, thanks to all those who contacted me during the week. The team from Tourism BOP and other tourism organisations have had an incredibly difficult week and the professionalism and care they have shown for our visitors has been humbling to observe. Please send them your aroha over the upcoming weeks as we’re only in Week 1 of the response phase of a natural disaster event and there are still many challenges to come during the recovery and mourning phase for our community and tourism industry.

This natural disaster event will have an impact on the Whakatāne community, local Bay of Plenty tourism industry and potentially NZ’s wider volcanic and adventure tourism sector. It’s too early to say if the impact (decline in visitors to Whakatāne) will be short-term or long-term. Those sorts of discussions will happen at a later time. The priority is still the well-being of those affected.

Tourism New Zealand and Tourism BOP are proactively working on key messages to be communicated that New Zealand is a safe destination, and Tourism Industry Aotearoa is working on Whakatāne’s behalf with the establishment of VETAG (Visitor Event Tourism Advisory Group) and being a conduit for Whakatāne with key government agencies. Thanks everyone. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Our thoughts and prayers remain, and will continue to be, with the families of Ngāti Awa, White Island Tours, cruise ship passengers and our visitors most affected by the tragic event. To the boys of the skies from Kahu and Volcanic Air, thank you for your bravery and voice that ‘made the difference’. Your efforts were truly courageous.

We have two young local tour guides with a long road to recovery ahead of them so if folk are keen to help, them please visit the Givealittle pages for: Kelsey Waghorn and Jake Milbank.

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