Please see an email sent to MPS and Max pederson.

Feed back welcome.




Max,

 

I ask you to reconsider the refusal for my application under the OIA for a number count on John Darnley’s gas certificates, item 1 from the letter I received from Iain McLachlan dated 27th Jan 2012.

 

I am aware that it is all freely available on the Board’s site but the method of discovery is preventative and very time consuming. The Board could produce this at the touch of a button.  I only ask for a number count. For me to find out I would have to search through some 500 000 plus certificates, something the Board and you yourself view as a large amount of paper work, please see below for an excerpt from your recent email below.

 

There are over 500,000 paper certificates that have been recorded electronically on the database. Unfortunately, transferring such large amounts of handwritten data to an electronic system, makes it almost inevitable that there will have been some errors in the data transfer. However, a review of a random sample of the electronic records does not indicate that it is a common problem. The Board does not propose to check the 500,000+ electronic records on the database or to scan the original certificates as the large cost of doing this could not be justified by any benefits of doing so.
You are now asking me to trawl through this huge body of information, which you and the Board are refusing to do with your greater access to resources and staff.

The OIA states that you “may” refuse, not must, I imagine it is down to your discretion.

“Refusal of requests - A request made in accordance with section 12 ….may….. be refused only for 1 or more of the following reasons”
  
This request is made in good faith and could be deemed, by those not so trusting, as another cover up. This refusal to my request could be seen as a deterrent by some. I take it you don’t see it as a frivolous or vexatious request as you would have said so already, so what is your reason, not your excuse, but your reason??
 
Please consider this-
 
John Darnley nor any office staff (who were his relatives i.e. wife, daughter and son in-law) to date to the best of my knowledge has never been questioned about –
 
·         The exploding chip shop, which had the gas work altered (highlighted by photos withheld by the “impartial” investigator). This altering of the gas installation is something I had said from day one at my voluntary interviews.
 
·         Why he issued carbon copies of a cert for a pizza oven to a customer but didn’t register the pink master copy at the Board, something the Board’s legal staff was aware of 9 days after the explosion…. this pizza oven was installed at the said exploding chip shop, the same cert appeared to lack any gas leak pressure test details.
 
·         The writing on the pink master copy, which is missing on the carbon copy of 3 certs that Kern Uren dismissed as vexatious.
 
·         A letter written to the Board, in my name, 3 months after I left Allgas’s employment asking to alter a certificate’s details (which was apparently done). If you require a copy of this letter there is one in the “impartial” investigators documents from my hearing.
 
·         Why he signed off people who were unregistered. On at least one cert I was put down as the supervised gasfitter ( not certifier as per your latest email), this is the cert that I highlighted and resulted in a disclaimer being added to all the electronic gas certs that the Board has made copies from the paper cert, all be it not very well apparently. This person and others were also highlighted at my hearing.
 
·         The certificate system at Allgas where someone, in the office, would fill out the certs from job cards and hand back to the gasfitters to sign, and then add appliances and details after signature. These additions were actually highlighted at my hearing, because if I didn’t do it ….who did? This is all backed by the Board’s own witness’s evidence. Another gasfitter has contacted the Board about his identical treatment by Darnley and Allgas…..but was then audited himself by a local gasfitter on the Boards behalf, effectively being audited by his competition in business, all with the blessing of the Board. This auditor being a high ranking master plumber apparently appointed by master plumbers and NZIGE members along with other industry group leaders who populate the Board, please see the NZ Law Commissions paper on impartiality and its best industry practice recommendations on there being no industry group members on industry boards to ensure transparency and impartiality, I can forwards a copy if you require. I note all this was dismissed at an impartiality hearing over seen by 5 board members. With at least 3 of the 5 being members of industry groups some of which I had actually complained about, giving them the majority. The “impartiality” hearing actually chaired by a very high ranking Master Plumber all be it one that didn’t renew his contract and no longer is part of the Board.
 
I must ask this question why do you appear to protect John Darnley?
 
I have produced photographs of Darnley, Hammond and several Board members at NZIGE seminars all of which were members of NZIGE and Mr Hammond is a fellow of NZIGE, at an impartiality hearing over seen by the Board and dismissed by the Board. Funny that.
 
I ask you in light of all this to push the button and tell me how many gas certs this untrained person has over seen and signed off on, signing off people who are un-qualified using a qualification gained after one oral exam and gifted this authority by the very same Mr Hammond, the Board’s “impartial” investigator.
 
The Board have empowered a person who to the best of my knowledge has never sat a formal apprenticeship to sign off unregistered (I presume un trained) fitters but never be even asked about it, and yet I have been steamrollered for a situation that I have tried to warn about since 2003…. a chip shop exploding in 2009, my life, business, reputation and some times my nerves in tatters. Is this a good day’s work for you, do you tell your family what you do for a living?
 
 
Please Mr Pederson push the button and tell me how many certs there are. Perhaps the ministers copied in could ask to see how many potentially dangerous installs there are.
 
A question for Mr Williamson, do you have confidence in this Board?? Will it take another incident before anyone acts?? You appear to be gambling with lives on a person who is untrained and has signed off unregistered perhaps untrained people. Is this acceptable??
 
Max…… how many certs are there, I have only signed of 343 jobs (according to Iain’s recent letter) and believe me I need the money; it is very lucrative to sign people off. How many has John Darnley signed off or do you not want those worms released from their can??
 
 
Yours very sincerely Paul Gee
 
Adversis ut vincere tenacitatis
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/pgdb-new-zealand-plumbing-gasfitting-and-drainlaying-board/30/another-apparent-cover-up-by-the-board/971/

Hi TS, Thanks for the feed back.

What I am trying to ascertain is the extent of what he has signed off, it is proven that he has signed off unlicensed, presumably untrained people, possibly not even a tradesman and I have been dragged into it on electronic copies of paper certs where my name isn't even mentioned on the paper cert. All known to the Board, hence the disclaimer on all the electronic copies of paper certs on the Board's web site, check your own ones mate if you don't believe me.

He was signing off lots and lots of people, who obviously weren't craftsman, talk about the blind leading the blind. You have a case of the untrained (gaining full craftsman status after one oral exam) leading the inexperienced and unqualified.....I believe the public should now how many...the bloody board won't tell them so I am asking.

I know he would sign off anyone, offering to sign off an apprentice before he got out of his time, he once said to me it was a matter of "poker face" when I asked him for a specification for a central heating system which he plumbed up with the hot water coming out of the taps off a ring main off a califont, still not acted on by the Board as far as I am aware. Unbelievable I know.

I said it 6 years before a guy nearly died in an explosion, you got dodgy certs legitimising dodgy work but no one wants to know. All because he was in the same boys club, disgusting.

I think the public should know the numbers of potentially harmful jobs, the guy did not know what he was doing, but worse than that didn't care.....I have been to many many jobs that were potentially lethal, but if you fix them no one wants to know.

I got no problem with boys clubs, but I do have a problem with incompetent people joining boys clubs to hide behind and then the club's closing ranks and protecting them, do you think that is acceptable?? Because it has happened and I can prove it.