On Day 23 of the Rena Disaster, Skipper Key sailed into Tauranga last week to view the ship on the rocks.  There were no “Mission Accomplished” banners though, because with hundreds of tonnes of oil and 1300 containers, some with poisonous chemicals, still on board there is still a great risk to the livelihoods of the people of the Bay of Plenty, birds and marine life in and around this reef that was once teaming with life.

John Key was asked about the total cost of the clean-up and gave one of his usual less than confident answers: “It’s a big number. $70 million, $80 million or $100 million maybe”.  Of course, as usual, he failed provide was an answer to the hard question:  Who is going to pay for the costs of this disaster?

John Key and Steven Joyce were adamant in the early days that the owners were liable for all costs but that all changed when reality caught up to the spin.  That hasn’t stopped Mr Joyce from spinning some more.  Yesterday he reminded us that the owner’s insurers have said they will meet their liability.  But that is no assurance at all, because the owner’s liability is limited by law and as a result the taxpayer will have to pick up the a big chunk of the tab.

This was not just an accident. It looks as if the grounding was an act of negligence and that fault was involved.  Someone other than the taxpayer should be liable for the consequences. (more…)

Last week Joyce claimed the opposition was playing politics with the Rena disaster because they had not asked him for a briefing.

So, on Friday I asked Joyce and the man in charge of the Government, John Key, for all of the briefings and reports they received to be released so that the public could be reassured that everything that could be done was done and was continuing to be done.

Such briefings generally pull a lot of information together in succinct fashion. And, since they were already written for the Government they do not require officials working on the crisis to be pulled away from their duties to answer the same questions again. We made it an urgent request and asked that the documents be supplied by the end of the day Monday.

As suspected, there was never any intention of being transparent because both Key and Joyce have replied with delaying tactics. Joyce has gone so far as to hide behind the fact that MNZ officials are working on the disaster and cannot be diverted from dealing with it.

I agree  that officials should concentrate on averting further damage to the Bay of Plenty environment and economy and that is why I specifically asked for only briefing Joyce and the PM received – not what officials wrote amongst themselves, not emails or any other documents – just reports and briefings that the ministers themselves specifically received. At the point of the request there would have been 10 days of reports and briefings.

A ministerial clerk with a photocopier could have easily copied those in ten minutes. Or printed them off the computer in two.  The fact that Mr Joyce and Mr Key have refused to provide this information proves that Mr Joyce’s pretence of transparency last week was nothing more than a political ploy to deflect from John Key’s and his own slow response to this disaster.