"Death by Legislation" Opinion Given

A Unitec building services specialist plans to give evidence to the coroner's inquiry - the only independent investigation into the death of fireman Derek Lovell - about flaws in regulations he says set the scene for the fatal coolstore explosion.

"It's an appallingly complex, dense and badly written set of rules," says Gary Cruickshank, head of building services at Unitec New Zealand's Applied Technology Institute. "These rules should be written in such a way that a layman could understand them. Instead ... professionals working in the field can't get to the bottom of them.

"I have coined the phrase that it's death by legislation," says Cruickshank. "The immediate cause was the explosion and the fire ... the root cause is the confusion caused by the very badly put together legislation."

The Department of Labour yesterday laid charges regarding the explosion against several unspecified parties alleging breaches of the Heath and Safety in Employment Act and associated regulations. But calls are mounting for a wide and high-level inquiry which would include scrutiny of the regulatory regime the Labour Department enforces.

A report released this week by a Fire Service investigation team called for a "wider Government investigation" and Act leader Rodney Hide repeated his call for a ministerial inquiry or similar.

The Fire Service report described the regulatory regime for managing large-scale flammable refrigerants as "extremely complex" and "deficient". It concluded that the "fundamental cause [of the explosion and fire] ... may lie in systemic defects in the regulatory environment and the communication between the various regulatory agencies".

Lovell, a senior Hamilton fireman, died and seven colleagues were injured on April 5 in an explosion at the Icepak Group coolstore that the Fire Service inquiry says "was almost certainly caused by a leak of flammable refrigerant".

Icepak had converted most of the coolstore's cooling system to operate on Hychill Minus 50, a refrigerant made up of 95 per cent of highly flammable propane, but the Fire Service, local council and Government agencies were unaware of this.

About 400kg of Hychill Minus 400 was on site without the required safety certification. A location test certificate is required under Hazardous Goods and New Organisms (HSNO) legislation to certify plants with more than 100kg of flammable gas.

Icepak Managing Director Wayne Grattan says the company had thought it had complied, but some regulations were difficult to understand.

The Fire Service investigation was one of several. While it had no powers to compel information to be produced and testimony given, the Labour Department (which enforces Health and Safety and HSNO legislation) and the coroner do. Several private investigations for insurers are also under way.