The strange case of Oravida and the rupturing of the Ruakaka jet fuel line

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, September 17th, 2019 - 16 comments
Categories: election 2017, Judith Collins, national, uncategorized - Tags:

Radio New Zealand reported this morning that an independent inquiry has concluded that an Oravida associated company was implicated in the rupturing of the oil line that caused something of a crisis for Auckland’s jet fuel supply.

From Radio New Zealand:

The inquiry found “with reasonable certainty” that the pipeline damage was caused by a contractor looking for swamp kauri.

It established a 16-tonne digger was working on the Ruakaka property between 26 and 28 August 2014. The digger had been delivered there so a contractor could look for swamp kauri logs.

Local sawmill Kauri Ruakaka Ltd (KRL), at the time called Oravida Kauri Ltd, owned the digger.

KRL does not look for or extract swamp kauri itself, but sometimes bought kauri logs from the contractor, the inquiry said. It it did not charge for the use of the digger or pay the contractor for his time.

The manager of KRL confirmed to the investigator that he arranged and paid for the digger’s transport on each of the occasions it had visited the property.

The landowner gave the contractor permission to dig, but warned him not to dig in the back paddock, which contained the pipeline.

Readers may recall this event happened just before the election in 2017.

The rumour mill went overboard at the time with suggestions that an Oravida company associated with Judith Collins was involved.

She denied it and said that no Kauri stumps had been pulled out of the area since 2011. It appears she was, ahem, wrong.

But something strange happened:

I wonder what did happened?

And what was the motivation for the company to change its name?  And who owns it?  Although it appears that Collins’ husband David Wong Tung resigned as a director before the incident.

Parliament should be interesting this afternoon …

16 comments on “The strange case of Oravida and the rupturing of the Ruakaka jet fuel line ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Warren Doney 1
    17 September 2019 at 1:32 pm

    Is this payback time? I recall wondering what happened at the time. It does look like Dom post management did something fishy.

  2. greywarshark 2
    17 September 2019 at 1:35 pm

    The fuel line is presently the nation's feedstock. Its damage and the aftermath, is an analogy of how abandoning good practice that benefits the maintenance of the NZ economy is being degraded by the fascination of the Quick Buck with subsequent harm to the body politic.

    It's a pity that we can't get a firm lassoo on the progenitor of this infamous trade and pull hard on the rope to roll over the feisty filly and brand it with its owners logo.

  3. ianmac 3
    17 September 2019 at 1:53 pm

    A lasso round my progenitor would hurt a lot.

    But the profiteers are exempt from further actions so their progenitors are safe in bed tonight.

  4. Peter 4
    17 September 2019 at 3:13 pm

    I posted this in Open mike:

    Paula Bennet can get up Parliament and under privilege mention the name of someone alleged to have done something but Winston Peters can't get up and mention Judith Collins as a person connected to Oravida?

  5. phillip ure 5
    17 September 2019 at 4:09 pm

    wot you all saying about judith 'swamp-mama' collins..?

    people say you can smell the swamp-kauri on her breathe..

  6. tc 6
    17 September 2019 at 4:15 pm

    Another example of our totally pissweak approach to infastructure being compromised by cowboy practices.

    This type of shit goes on all the time with telco, water etc and SFA happens to the dodgy operators doing it.

    • greywarshark 6.1
      17 September 2019 at 4:29 pm

      But we aren't a third world country, yet – two and a half maybe though.

    • Adrian 6.2
      18 September 2019 at 10:44 am

      Try accidently cutting a fibre optic and the costs run into 10s of thousands even when the bloody thing is not where the telco says it is.

      Immunity only applies to people whose initials are JC.

      Collins is a beneficary of Oravida Kauri through her family having been shareholders.

  7. gsays 7
    17 September 2019 at 6:52 pm

    C'mon folks, y'all know the way it goes; privatise profits, socialise costs.

  8. peterlepaysan 8
    17 September 2019 at 9:23 pm

    Especially plastic packaging. Everybody except the producers and users pays the cost.

  9. Lucy 9
    18 September 2019 at 7:35 am

    "KRL does not look for or extract swamp kauri itself, but sometimes bought kauri logs from the contractor, the inquiry said. It did not charge for the use of the digger or pay the contractor for his time." " The manager of KRL confirmed to the investigator that he arranged and paid for the digger’s transport on each of the occasions it had visited the property." If KRL didn't charge for the digger and transported the digger to the site there is an employee status being created as the contractor was directed to work at specific sites. Surely this confirms that KRL can be sued by any company affected by outage.

    • Dukeofurl 9.1
      18 September 2019 at 12:12 pm

      Good point. Criminal charge wouldnt stick as it didnt direct him where to dig and hide the damage.

      But a civil claim might with the Contractor [un-named] as first defendant and Oravida Kauri as second defendant – who would end up wearing all the millions in damages.

      Similar thing happened in the National party copyright Eminem music case…there were about 7 defendants in the chain from National at the top right back through various agencies to the 'original' artist who made the soundalike.

      That way the defendants can later fight amoung themselves over who pays what share and who is indemnified by who else.