Lack of enforcement of safe practice in the quarry industry has been slammed as "outrageous" after it was discovered around half of quarry managers do not hold the required licence to operate a site.
Radio New Zealand spoke with the chief executive of the Aggregate and Quarry Association, Roger Parton, this morning following calls for the industry to implement more stringent health and safety laws after the third major incident at a quarry this year occurred yesterday morning.
A man was buried under a mountain of rubble at the Heathstock Haulage quarry on Limeworks Rd on North Canterbury.
The search and rescue operation to retrieve the man's body could take days, police inspector Corrie Parnell said.
The incident followed the deaths of two other quarry workers who were killed in accidents in March and April this year.
Morning Report's Susie Ferguson said an Official Information Act request revealed at least 700 quarry managers were operating without a B Grade Managers ticket.
Mr Parton guessed there was somewhere upward of 1300 quarries operating in New Zealand but said this was not a reflection of an industry standard problem because many of these quarries were very small and not part of the Association.
Ms Ferguson said the fact there was no oversight from within the industry on these smaller quarries was ''outrageous''.
"That's WorkSafe's responsibility," said Mr Parton, who admitted it was "not a good look" for the industry.
Changes to tighten safety regulations in mining was passed in 2013 after the 2010 Pike River mining tragedy, but quarries were exempt following lobbying from the industry.
Roger Parton told Morning Report this was because a lot of the regulations would not have been realistic for quarries at the time, but the industry was working toward stricter regulations.
"If we had been embraced by the legislation we would have been unable to meet it simply because of the numbers of quarries," he said.
"It was easier at that stage to leave us out of regulations and work through that in a little bit longer time."
Mr Parton said many of the initial laws passed in 2013 did not apply to quarries, such as regulations about working underground and dealing with coal.
"We have given an amended set of regulation to the Government and to WorkSafe and hopefully that will be put through as this new legislation going before parliament."
