Dredging NZ has been fined $79,500 and ordered to pay $42,000 in reparation after the death of a worker, crushed on a dredging barge in West Park Marina, Auckland, on 19 November 2013.
Peter Bateman died after being crushed between an excavator and the wall of a hopper, on a barge being skippered by Brent Darrach.
Dredging NZ was sentenced yesterday, 21 July, in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to a charge laid by Maritime New Zealand under section 6 of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, that as an employer it failed to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of employees at work.
The accident happened when Mr Bateman left the barge he was operating to board Mr Darrach’s barge to travel as a passenger a short distance to the wharf.
The barges are moved by using the excavator arm to pull and push off the seabed. Mr Bateman died when the excavator rotated, crushing him between the back of the excavator and the hopper wall.