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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Banjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Thursday,

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Speaker 2: the thirteenth of July. I'm Zara Seidler, i'm Nina Kopple.

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Speaker 1: A volcano has erupted in New Zealand, leaving some unaccounted for.

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Speaker 3: According to the Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, a trial has

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Speaker 3: begun in a New Zealand court over the Fakari White

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Speaker 3: Island volcano eruption. It erupted in December twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: Medical staff across the country continuing to work around the

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Speaker 1: clock to save the lives of those injured on Fakhari

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Speaker 1: White Island.

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Speaker 3: It was a tragic incident that saw twenty two people,

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Speaker 3: including many Australians, lose their lives.

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Speaker 2: An explosion of gay steam marden rocks spewed from the

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Speaker 2: crater of the island just off Forgatani and.

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Speaker 3: Now the three brothers who privately own the island a

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Speaker 3: feacing court over the disaster.

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Speaker 1: The trial has begun the three companies and three individuals

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Speaker 1: blamed for the death and injury of tourists in the

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Speaker 1: White Island volcanic eruptions.

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Speaker 2: Eleven defendants will face Auckland District Court from today as

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Speaker 2: a lengthy trial begins on charges related to the White

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Speaker 2: Island disaster.

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Speaker 3: So what went wrong and why are individuals being held

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Speaker 3: responsible for the consequences of a volcanic eruption? Will let

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Speaker 3: you know what you need to know on the deep

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Speaker 3: dive befirs Cyrus. Some news from the RBA yesterday.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, the RBA yesterday announced that it will reduce

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Speaker 2: the frequency of its meetings to discuss potential cash rate changes.

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Speaker 2: From twenty twenty four, the RBA, which is the Reserve

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Speaker 2: Bank of Australia board, will meet eight times per year,

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Speaker 2: down from eleven that it currently does. Cutting down the

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Speaker 2: meetings was recommended by an independent review of the RBA.

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Speaker 3: An unseated Ukrainian tennis has made it to the Wimbledon

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Speaker 3: semifinals after an upset win over the world number one

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Speaker 3: player Alina Spitzelina defeated the Polish top seeded Igoshviiantec in

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Speaker 3: three sets to progress to the Semis.

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Speaker 2: The Matilda's will play their official World Cup warm up

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Speaker 2: match in Melbourne tomorrow. They'll face France at Marvel Stadium

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Speaker 2: ahead of the first World Cup match against Ireland next week.

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Speaker 2: And I'm very excited to go watch a Matilda's game

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Speaker 2: later this month.

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Speaker 3: And Zara's some exciting news for the panda species. A

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Speaker 3: giant panda in a South Korean zoo has given birth

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Speaker 3: to two baby twins. It's the first panda twin birth

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Speaker 3: recorded in the country's history. And you find them so cute.

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Speaker 2: No, now, I honestly, if you're listening to this, good

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Speaker 2: morning and go and look at water baby panda, look

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Speaker 2: a newborn panda looks like because that is a site

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Speaker 2: that I did not know I need to see.

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Speaker 3: Forty seven people were on for Curi White Island and

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Speaker 3: it erupted in December twenty nineteen. Twenty two people were killed,

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Speaker 3: including seventeen Australians, and twenty five were seriously injured. Now

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Speaker 3: more than three years later, the island's owners and two

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Speaker 3: other parties are appearing in court over the events of

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Speaker 3: that day.

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Speaker 2: Nina. I remember reading about this when it happened, obviously,

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Speaker 2: and it came to define Justinda Arden's Prime ministership quite significantly.

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Speaker 2: But when it comes to the specifics, it was clearly

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Speaker 2: a disaster. There was a tragic loss of life. But

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Speaker 2: can you just fill in the gaps for me as

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Speaker 2: to what actually happened.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a lot about this. I didn't know

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Speaker 3: until this week, and I had never really looked at

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Speaker 3: the specifics. I know there's a Netflix docker that's been

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Speaker 3: really popular, but I think I'm gonna go watch it

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Speaker 3: me too. Apparently it's amazingly done. But I think even

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Speaker 3: that doesn't necessarily go to the history of the island

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Speaker 3: and how it kind of came to be run the

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Speaker 3: way that it was, which is super relevant to this

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Speaker 3: court case. So what you need to know is that

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Speaker 3: the island's about fifty kilometers from New Zealand's North Island.

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Speaker 3: You can actually see it from the mainland. Facari is

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Speaker 3: a small but active volcano that before December twenty nineteen

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Speaker 3: was a popular tourist destination. You could visit by boat

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Speaker 3: or by helicopter. And there were hiking tours where you

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Speaker 3: could go and walk right up to the edge of

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Speaker 3: the crater to look inside the volcano. I was really

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Speaker 3: curious about how they talked about this volcano to kind

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Speaker 3: of advertise it as a tourism destination, and so I

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Speaker 3: went and looked at how the New Zealand tourism site

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Speaker 3: for the island was describing it a few years before

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Speaker 3: the disaster, and it read White Island for Kari is

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Speaker 3: the perfect example of an active volcano. It breathes, it roars,

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Speaker 3: and it hisses from steaming vents, releasing eight hundred degrees

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Speaker 3: celsia's toxic gases. Apparently the island was attracting ten thousand

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Speaker 3: tourists every year before the twenty nineteen disaster.

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Speaker 2: I think it's really easy for you and I to

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Speaker 2: sit here and read those tourism pictures and think, how

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Speaker 2: could they run that as a tourist destination. It sounds

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Speaker 2: so dangerous. But then we were discussing the fact that

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Speaker 2: both you and I have at some point, yeah, climbed

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Speaker 2: a volcano in an active someplace in the world, and

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Speaker 2: like it is a tourist attraction and has been in

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Speaker 2: many countries.

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Speaker 3: But I also think what makes it really interesting in

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Speaker 3: this case is how the island came to be a

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Speaker 3: tourism destination. How did that happen? So back in the

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Speaker 3: nineteenth century it was actually used to mine sulfur, which

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Speaker 3: is used for agriculture and fertilizer and is an ingredient

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Speaker 3: in things like fireworks for example. Okay, but operations stopped

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Speaker 3: in nineteen fourteen when part of the island's crater wall

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Speaker 3: collapsed and that killed ten.

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Speaker 2: Miners, so there was no more sulfur mining.

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Speaker 3: Well, they tried again to mine for sulfur a bit

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Speaker 3: after that, so in the nineteen twenties it restarted, but

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Speaker 3: they actually just went very successful at mining anything else

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Speaker 3: after that point, and they stopped altogether in the nineteen thirties.

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Speaker 3: And that's when something really interesting happens, because in nineteen

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Speaker 3: thirty six Auckland stock broke up. George Buttele decided to

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Speaker 3: buy the island, so he passed it onto his son,

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Speaker 3: who then in turn passed it onto his three sons, James, Peter,

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Speaker 3: and n They are now the ones who own it

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Speaker 3: currently to this day, and they all own equal thirds

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Speaker 3: of the island and are directors of the company that

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Speaker 3: manages it, which is called for Curri Management Ltd. I'm

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Speaker 3: going to call it WML for Shot. So WML charged

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Speaker 3: tour operators an annual licensing fee to visit for Curry,

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Speaker 3: and every tourist who visited also paid them a fee.

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Speaker 3: So WML were apparently earning a million dollars a year

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Speaker 3: just from those fees.

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Speaker 2: I mean that's a lot of money. But of course

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Speaker 2: it's no longer the case. That all changed when the

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Speaker 2: volcano erupted in twenty nineteen, and we've already said it

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Speaker 2: ended in the tragic deaths of many. But Nina, the

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Speaker 2: reason that we're talking about this today is now that

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Speaker 2: criminal charges have been brought against those three brothers who

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Speaker 2: you said own the island and several others. The trial

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Speaker 2: commenced this week. What do we need to know about it?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I think in our newsroom we were really interested

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Speaker 3: in this idea of responsibility because when you hear about

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Speaker 3: natural disasters, there aren't always people to blame.

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Speaker 2: No. I mean I think that the furthest we've gotten

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Speaker 2: in blaming people is around climate change is that like

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Speaker 2: in action could cause more natural disasters, but not that

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Speaker 2: somebody owns the land on which this has happened exactly.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 3: The charges that have been brought in this case are

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Speaker 3: by New Zealand's work Safe, which is their work health

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Speaker 3: and safety regulator, and they're making the case that the

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Speaker 3: island's management, so WML, didn't adequately assess the risk that

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Speaker 3: the volcano opposed to people. In our opening address, work

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Speaker 3: Safety's lawyer Kirsty McDonald's said they knew there was a

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Speaker 3: risk because there was another eruption as recently as twenty

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Speaker 3: sixteen on the island. According to court documents, that eruption

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Speaker 3: was a similar magnitude to what occurred in the twenty

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Speaker 3: nineteen disaster, but it happened at night when there were

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Speaker 3: no tour groups or anyone on the island. One court

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Speaker 3: document said, had there been anyone on for Caarry during

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Speaker 3: the eruption of April twenty sixteen, it's likely they would

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Speaker 3: have suffered a similar fate to those who were there

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Speaker 3: during the eruption on the ninth of December twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 3: Work Safe's lawyer McDonald alleged this should have prompted the

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Speaker 3: brothers to reconsider their approach to managing risk, but that instead,

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Speaker 3: even after that twenty sixteen eruption the brothers were considering

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Speaker 3: opening up the creator to overnight camping trips.

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Speaker 2: When I've been learning about this story, the thing that

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Speaker 2: strikes me is that these brothers obviously own it, but

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Speaker 2: they wouldn't be the ones actually physically running the tours,

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Speaker 2: and presumably that's why there are other parties involved in

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Speaker 2: this lawsuit.

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Speaker 3: In the case, Yeah, so they own the company that

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Speaker 3: manages the island, and then they enter agreements with tourism

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Speaker 3: operators who work on the island, and they're the ones

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Speaker 3: who actually bring the tourists over, okay, And so there

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Speaker 3: are multiple tourism operators who are implicated in this case,

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Speaker 3: and for them, the allegation is that they failed in

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Speaker 3: their responsibility of adequately warning their customers as to the

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Speaker 3: risks involved. There are some really confronting videos that were

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Speaker 3: actually played in the first day of the court case

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Speaker 3: of tourists who are videoing the and taking photos of

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Speaker 3: the volcano as it started to arise, but didn't realize

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Speaker 3: what was happening until tool guides started telling them to run.

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Speaker 2: Terrifying.

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Speaker 3: Just yeah, it makes for very confronting viewing, but also

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Speaker 3: speaks to the fact that it didn't occur to people

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Speaker 3: initially that there was that real risk involved. But in

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Speaker 3: terms of the court case, New Zealand's Emergency Management Agency

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Speaker 3: was also charged, and the Research Institute and Volcano monitor

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Speaker 3: GNS Science, so they'll also be facing court. The trial

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Speaker 3: set to run for sixteen weeks and will also be

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Speaker 3: hearing evidence from survivors.

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Speaker 2: I think any time where you're watching a court case

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Speaker 2: unfold that has a lot of kind of media attention

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Speaker 2: on it, you just can't help but feel for the

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Speaker 2: survivors who are there and have to talk about their experiences,

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Speaker 2: and then you know that gets broadcast to the rest

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Speaker 2: of the world. It just must be really traumatic for

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Speaker 2: these survivors to have to sit there in court listen

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Speaker 2: to all of this, see the vision play out.

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Speaker 3: The other thing worth mentioning is that there's a few

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Speaker 3: procedural milestones that survivors and the families of those who

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Speaker 3: are lost have to go through. So there's also an

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Speaker 3: ongoing coronial inquest into the disaster, and they're waiting on

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Speaker 3: the results of that inquest for families to receive death certificates.

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Speaker 3: It's been so many years, it's been it's been a

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Speaker 3: long time.

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Speaker 2: Still waiting on death certificates.

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Speaker 3: Well, they actually before they can get those de certificates,

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Speaker 3: not only do they have to resolve the coronal inquest,

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Speaker 3: but this work safe case before the cause will also

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Speaker 3: need to be resolved. So it's going to be a while,

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Speaker 3: I think before there's a real sense of closure.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for choosing to listen to the Daily eas

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Speaker 2: this morning. We are so thankful that you join us

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Speaker 2: every weekday morning. And if you like what you're listening to,

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Speaker 2: you don't like, want more of, and would just help

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Speaker 2: us make something that you love even more