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Tuesday, May 7, 2013
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Councillors Skydiving a safe industry, says CEO to receive an 18% pay rise
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By Myles Hume
By Sue Newman
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Ashburton’s district councillors have been given an 18 per cent pay rise, but the district’s rapidly growing population means pay rates are still out of kilter with the size of the job. The base rate for councillors has moved from $18,413 to $21,800 a year but this will still do nothing to attract young people to stand for council, says long serving councillor John Leadley. “For any young person looking to make a career out of this it’s TXT THE EDITOR simply not enough. This job’s a strange combination of community service and work but it’s something you can’t do justice to if you have a full time job.” From October the Remuneration A package of $21,000 wasn’t Authority sets the pay rates for an incentive to swap full-time councillors and the mayor. work for the role of councillor, Mr A pool will still be given to Leadley said. provide top-up pay for elected “Young people have commit- members who take on additionments and those commitments al responsibility. This will be are way more than $21,000. I capped at the equivalent of 1.5 know being a councillor shouldn’t times the base councillor salary be just about money, it is com- for a committee chair and 40 per munity service, but there has to cent for the deputy mayor. be a balance. I always think the Mayor Angus McKay concedjob is like being a ed that becoming director of a large a councillor was company and look a big sacrifice in at director’s fees.” time and earning As well as potential for famupping pay rates ily people. for councillors “This makes it and mayors, the hard for people Remuneration to give up a job. Authority has Even if you own also changed the your own busiway it formulates ness you still have those rates, this, the extra cost of however, is still paying somebased around one to cover your conservative, histime. Some people torical data. The would argue that district’s popuhaving 5pm meetlation growth is ings could overoutstripping all come the problem John Leadley – $21,000 wasn’t predictions, with of working peostatistics New an incentive to swap full-time ple standing, but Zealand showing work for the role of councillor would it?” at its most optiAshburton’s mistic the discurrent populatrict’s population will reach just tion estimate of 32,000 is sim29,000 by 2016. ilar to the population of the And that, Ashburton District Queenstown- Lakes District Council chief executive Brian council where councillors Lester said, is well off the mark. will be paid $29,300 and the Indications are that the popula- mayor $102,850 and more than tion has already hit 32,000, but Southland where councillors until figures from this year’s will earn $22,300 and its mayor census are released there was $99,300 from October. only historical data to work on, Currently a district councilhe said. lor is paid $18,413 and mayor Previously councils were given Angus McKay $84,000. Post a pool of money from which election, the new pay rates will they paid elected members. be $21,800 and $92,450.
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Serious questions over New Zealand’s priority to make adventure sport tourism safe don’t make sense to the chief of the country’s leading skydiving school. The New Zealand Sky Diving School, which operates out of Pudding Hill, near Methven, has been the launching pad for many of the country’s top skydiving instructors. Its chief executive Kirsty Smith says safety is paramount at the school and to skydiving operators around the country, which she says has the best safety record in the world. That is why she is questioning the recommendations of a corner’s report and comments from affected family members which emerged yesterday over the Fox Glacier skydiving plane crash that killed nine people, including four tourists in 2010. The tourists’ families wrote an open letter to Prime Minister John Key, asking the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to better regulate safety standards to make New Zealand “a safe place to visit”. Their comments came shortly after coroner Richard McElrea’s recommendations yesterday to fit converted top-dressing planes with passenger safety harnesses to control weight distribution and that loads be limited to six people. He said it was likely the cause of the plane would never fully be understood. However, Mrs Smith, who is close with the operators involved in the Fox Glacier tragedy, said safety was a “massive” part of the skydiving industry in New Zealand which carries out the second most tandem jumps in the world per year. To reinforce her point, she pointed to Part 115, a new rule introduced by the CAA in May last year. The CAA states Part 115 was “a new rule for the purpose of regulating the adventure aviation industry” and operators needed to satisfy the authority that their business was up to industry standards. “I do a lot of travelling around the world and one thing I’m familiar with is the stat that New Zealand has by far the best safety record in the world, and when I say by far, I mean by far,” Mrs Smith said. “Safety is massive, absolutely massive, and as it is all the way through the industry, people don’t take short-cuts because no one wants their business to be affected.” Mrs Smith struggled to see the relevance of the corner’s recommendations, saying harnesses would not have made a difference in the plane and a person limit was unnecessary because planes already had weight limits. She said she understood the grief the affected families were going through, but the perception that adventure tourism did not take safety as seriously as it should was outdated. “I think people are talking about 30 years, 35 years ago when it was in its pioneering stages, that’s very different from what it is now, it’s a very regulated industry even prior to when the CAA introduced Part 115,” she said.
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Families of the four tourists who died in a Fox Glacier skydiving plane crash in 2010 question New Zealand’s industry standards, but skydiving operators take safety extremely seriously, says New Zealand Skydiving School chief executive Kirsty Smith.
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Black billed gulls form their nests on the bed of the river and in doing so are at risk from all sorts of predators.
Prison term for destroying gull nests A man who drove into a colony of endangered black billed gulls has been imprisoned. Yesterday in the Ashburton District Court, Samuel John Townhill pleaded guilty to two charges of destroying the nests of black billed gulls under the Wildlife Act, and was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment on each count, to be served consecutively. The court was told that on the evening of November 4, Townhill, 39, drove along the banks of the Ashburton River toward the Tinwald Bridge in a 4WD vehicle. He then crossed the river and parked in the middle of a colony of nesting black gulls. According to the Department of Conservation about 10,000 birds were nesting in the colony at the time. They are regarded as the world’s most threatened gull species. About 8pm police received a complaint from a passer-by. While crossing the bridge police officers observed Townhill’s vehicle parked in the colony and a large number of distressed birds flying around it. When attempts to signal Townhill to come to them failed, a police officer was forced to cross the channel on foot to speak to him. Townhill denied knowing the birds were protected, and said the vehicle belonged to a mate – who was fishing further down the river. Eventually he complied with the officer’s request to move the vehicle, causing further destruction as he did so. The officers were unable to estimate the number of nests and eggs destroyed, but noted the vehicle had been driven straight into the centre of the colony and back out again. Townhill’s lawyer, Paul Bradford, said his client had been staying with friends and had opted to give them some space, planning to spend the night in his vehicle. He claimed not to have seen warning signs and denied knowing the gulls were protected; he said he drove toward the birds without seeing the nests. However, Judge Joanna Maze said it would have been obvious the birds were distressed. She said the offence occurred at a time when there was still sufficient light to observe the birds circling his vehicle and calling in distress as their nests were destroyed. Townhill is already serving a custodial sentence on unrelated driving matters. Yesterday’s sentence will be served cumulatively to the existing sentence. More court news, P3, P5
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