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Speaker 1: I'm more knowledgeable about the Pike River tragedy than the

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Speaker 1: Tony Gibson Auckland court case. But out of Pike River

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Speaker 1: came the law that god Gibson yesterday as former boss

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Speaker 1: of the Port of Auckland over the death of a worker.

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Speaker 1: Now he's been found guilty, he may appeal. You would

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Speaker 1: imagine if the verdict stands and a penalty is imposed,

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Speaker 1: it would have a severe chilling effect in the world

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Speaker 1: of CEOs. Just where is the line for a boss

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Speaker 1: in looking after the safety of the staff beyond the

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Speaker 1: broad based and widely understood rules we have currently and

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Speaker 1: do court cases like this now reset those boundaries as

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Speaker 1: to what you must or might do as regard safety

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Speaker 1: in a large workplace. Some workplaces are inherently dangerous, of

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Speaker 1: course because of their nature. Rules will be in place,

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Speaker 1: But how tight do those rules need to be? And

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Speaker 1: it's out of that sort of expectation if you think

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Speaker 1: about it, The life in general can sometimes be brought

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Speaker 1: to a sort of a standstill by the just in

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Speaker 1: case mentality. Work in safety driven by good intention stifling

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Speaker 1: in the real world. That's your potential problem. Taking the

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Speaker 1: very specific responsibility right up the chain to the corner

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Speaker 1: office for a person not falling off or falling over

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Speaker 1: or falling into something. That's a tremendous amount of very

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Speaker 1: specific expectation. I would have thought, especially in a large company,

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Speaker 1: when the numerical gap between the boss and a bloke

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Speaker 1: on the floor or a machine might be large. It's

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Speaker 1: an interesting concept, I think, to judicially skip any number

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Speaker 1: of people between the victim and the CEO. What I

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Speaker 1: don't know about Pike River was it was a top

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Speaker 1: down mess. If you were looking for blame, there was

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Speaker 1: no shortage of it to spread all about the place.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people wanted Peter Whittle if you remember,

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Speaker 1: to pay, but that was more predicated on him being

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Speaker 1: an easy target, not because he and he alone was responsible.

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Speaker 1: How much of this new law came out of that

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Speaker 1: same mentality, Oh, I don't worry about the detail or

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Speaker 1: the fairness. Just let's look to have somebody pay. And

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Speaker 1: if that's what's driven, is that good law or a

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Speaker 1: lot of potential trouble and a reason not to be

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Speaker 1: the boss. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays.

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