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41


The main point from the letter below....

This “old” evidence includes (and is not all that is available to the PGDB) .
•   Gas Supply - the cylinder station. Comparing the initial Allgas receipts for materials and fittings to the police forensic photos of the explosion, which showed that the cylinder station was up-graded and expanded in gas volume after the initial install, probably to accommodate the added pizza oven. Done well after I left Allgas.

•   Mid-way - the install of this said pizza oven. This is the same appliance that the PGDB denied ever receiving a gas cert for. But the same cert number and details appeared on the PGBD’S electronic register with exact same details and dates. All copies available (both electrical and carbon) showed that no soundness test was recorded (on an install that later exploded). Installed after I left Allgas.

•   Termination - the two bayonet fittings. Shown to have been lowered down the wall to floor level, from their original position some 600mm from the floor, as evidenced by the fixing screw holes in the wall. This was shown in the photos that the “Impartial” investigator withheld (he withheld well over 100 photos). He was far from impartial.

•   Termination - the sale of a third gas hose to connect the bayonets to the fryers. There were only two fryers ever installed at the chip-shop. This sale of a third hose, sold a month after I left Allgas. This is the hose that split on the 9th April again… causing the explosion. Splitting due to pinching against the floor, because the bayonet was lowered.

I openly ask the PGDB…

Are you, as a perpetual professional industry Board happy to allow this injustice to stand??? With no one to be held accountable for nearly killing someone with faulty work, and allowing 9 people of interest to not even be asked about their involvement or any other wrong doing, all done at the expense of an innocent man’s character, business and family?

Please, no double talk or legalese….just a simple YES or NO. You either do or you don’t condone this dire situation to stand.

I would respectively and formally request that this question above to be put to the vote by the Board Members and I ask for the results.

We still live in a democracy. I would give the decent people a chance to distance themselves from those that do allow for this corruption to stand.




42


Page 4

I would respectively and formally request that this question above to be put to the vote by the Board Members and I ask for the results.
We still live in a democracy. I would give the decent people a chance to distance themselves from those that do allow for this corruption to stand.
I look forward to your reply.
Please table this letter at the next PGDB meeting. Please can the Chair read it aloud to all members. Spoken words are more meaningful than an attachment to an email that is easier to ignore. I formally ask with all due respect that it is read in full to the whole Board before voting. I am happy to do this myself if the Board allows.
Yours with Integrity
Paul Gee
43


Page 3

At the hearing after a three-day ordeal of bias, more untruths and finding out very relevant photos were withheld by the very un-impartial investigator. The hearing was brought to an end just was we were cross examining the investigator about the “dangers” of the proximity of water heaters to openable windows (this the basis for the only charge that “stuck” out of 44 for me). The hearing was shut down by his long-time colleague from the gas industry and chair of my hearing Stephen Parker. Please see the final pages of the transcript of my hearing, it is blatant.
My customer stated he had never had a problem with his water heater and had never smelt any fumes entering his window. I drew on a whiteboard at the hearing how I knew the fumes would act. Since the hearing I have provided photos of an experiment I conducted that proves what I said/drew to be true and this is also supported by a British Regulation, not forgetting the documents I provided at the hearing.
But another customer who complained to the PGDB about fumes entering their home was told by the PGDB to shut the window when he used it. Which is it or does it just depend on who you are ???
This is the only charge that stands, for this window proximity, but I was scolded in the newspapers for it by Alan Bickers, a member of the Board for my hearing.
Ironically the same Alan Bickers became a Board member for Trustpower. I bumped into him in one of the only local jobs I could find, to be near my family, at the local power station. Co-incidentally I was made redundant months later after bumping into him at the power station.
If you truly regret that this matter continues to causes distress, then please do something about it and clear my name.
The terrorising of my wife with the use of child sexual abuse case notes to prove probabilities in a plumbing context is disgusting and reprehensible, I want an official apology for this egregious behaviour. I came home to her sobbing hysterically; it still haunts my thoughts. I have asked many times but have not received any apology to date.
We were forced to sell our home not long after the hearing. My wife lived in a caravan with my young sons for a whole winter. While I worked in “NZ Housing” homes. I had to sign a waiver not to tell anyone about the conditions I saw people living in, child poverty and abuse. While missing my own kids and family. I was working while watching things I will never forget and sleeping in the workshop. I have too many tales like this while working away from my family.
I have provided a lot of extra evidence since the hearing and you now have Wal Gordon’s report. I believe this is new evidence and points to 9 people of interest ignored by the PGDB. It appears that if the PGDB couldn’t pin it on me, then they are not interested in finding those that are guilty. This is not due to a lack of evidence, but due to a lack of will.
There is so much more to this than the contents of this letter, I have tried to be brief and pick a “worst of ” list. There is nothing that I have said which I can’t prove with a lot of evidence, I am considering a civil case. Time has proved me right and has not diminished my innocence whatsoever.
Is the PGDB interested in fixing this injustice before I incur the cost of a barrister? I only ask you to do what it right, fair and just.
There is acknowledgement and regret stated in writing in your letter. But these are just words without action. Innocent people always protest the most and will always go further than the guilty to see justice served.
I will re send this letter regularly to the Board. I intend to do this on the anniversary of the explosion, April 9th every year. Hence the content, to ensure new readers have the info to hand.
I hope one day we have people leading the industry with a true moral compass. I will wait until then but I am hoping it is you and those who preside today. I want to think the best of the new members of the PGDB and would hope to give them an opportunity to not be akin to their predecessors and fix this injustice. To not act is to condone in my opinion. I ask the well meaning to look at those who try to cover this up with the distain that they deserve and with this letter in mind.
I openly ask the PGDB…
Are you, as a perpetual professional industry Board happy to allow this injustice to stand??? With no one to be held accountable for nearly killing someone with faulty work, and allowing 9 people of interest to not even be asked about their involvement or any other wrong doing, all done at the expense of an innocent man’s character, business and family?
Please, no double talk or legalese….just a simple YES or NO. You either do or you don’t condone this dire situation to stand.
44

Page two

I resigned from Allgas due to concerns over attitudes to safety that built up during the last months of my 9-month employment at Allgas. I was given a written warning for arguing with the son in law of the owner. He was trying to force me to fit a califont to a spa. It had “do not fit to a spa” written on the box of the califont. Apparently, it was ok though because he’d had one of the main bosses of the califont manufactures around for a BBQ, this pretty much summed up Allgas’ attitude to gasfitting. It was all about who you knew, not what you know.

Finally, later that month, this came to a head when I asked for specifications/schematics for the installation of a central heating (C/H) system that was heated by a califont. I am ex British Gas and this idea contravened all my previous training and experience.
The said califont had the same ring main supplying both the hot water outlets AND C/H radiators off the same ring main. The C/H radiators being controlled by TRV’s (thermostatic radiator valves), these TRV’s open when the room calls for it by temperature drop. So, water held stagnant in the rads for a whole warm Nelson summer, will be released into the ring main when it gets cooler outside. With the hot water out lets connected to the same ring main, the most concerning being the shower rose, atomising any bacteria to be inhaled. Legionnaires would be a very real concern. As far as I am aware it’s still there.
His reply to my request for specifications was the final straw…”just use poker face and pretend you know what your doing”. I told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his job. He then bought 4 books of gas certs in my name with his credit card. As soon as I went self-employed, I came across dodgy certs covering dangerous work and informed the PGDB straight away. I was told there were over 1000 certs in my name and it would cost $25 to see each one, I didn’t have 25k to hand. There were actually less than 100 certs at the time, some 89 from memory.
Later after the explosion, I asked the investigator about this purchase of 4 books in my name (purchased without my permission or knowledge), he didn’t have a problem with it at all and showed me copies of all the certs in my name, photocopied on pink paper with black ink. This method of photocopying I later discovered concealed the fact that added information done to my gas certs, after my signature, was done in different colour pens… blues and reds, I think even a green from memory.
The PGDB’s investigator was in possession of all this evidence from the very start, but then went on to investigate many years of all my work (as stated in a PGDB letter written by a PGDB lawyer after my hearing), but publicly and officially the investigator claiming only a small % of my work was investigated at the hearing. Giving a slanted representation of my work. When measured against the one charge that stuck, it shows the level of my work.
My involvement in this sham of an investigation should have stopped right at the beginning, I had come forward voluntarily as I had all my fears come to fruition with the explosion. But I suppose as the investigator had gifted Darnley his full craftsman/certifying license after one “oral” exam, he probably thought it may reflect badly on the investigator personally. Also, the fact that this failure of the cert system was evident, a system the investigator had lobbied for in his “deregulation” papers. Impartial is not a word that I would use to describe him.
We had had an impartiality hearing previously on the 22 Feb before my hearing 3 May, where we aired our concerns about the obvious conflicts of interest, we were ignored.
All sites of charges (except the chip shop) were prejudiced with letters claiming the “untruth” that I was issuing illegal gas certs in the North Island; I had never worked in the North Island up until that date. This letter was allowed to stand for many months and put the final nail in my business’ coffin, especially the letter sent to the Motueka high school.
These un-true letters were finally rescinded (but the damage was done). Rescinded, because they could have been “worded better” … i.e. to contain the truth and not untruths I suppose. I am not allowed to call them lies. Ironically, I have been forced to work in the North Island since to support my family, missing many years with my family and my lads growing up. This hurts the most above all else.
Then just a very short time before the hearing, after nearly a two-year investigation, 50% of the charges were amended, i.e. totally changed. We (Wal and myself) still saw 42 out of the 44 charges off. Helped very much by Wal’s irrepressible search for truth.
I later found out that John Darnley’s charge for the chip shop explosion, the charge that prevented me sharing the same hearing and any opportunity of cross examination, just disappeared before his hearing, gone … poof in a cloud of dust….please can you explain how this happens?
Also see the handwriting expert’s opinion on Darnley’s hand writing being added to my job sheet for the fryers at the explosion. In all probability done when they were installed, with the bayonets lowered to accommodate their installation.
45

Page one

4 April 2022

Reply to PGDB letter sent 29th March 2022 - Zero Accountability for a near fatal explosion

Thank you for your reply dated 29th March 2022. I also thank the Board for considering my previous email and attached documents.
With the 9th April anniversary of the explosion approaching, every year is a struggle to be reminded what my family has been subjected to since 2009, 13 long years of stress. I am glad the PGDB have finally acknowledged the distress that it has inflicted on my family and that this has been difficult for me. Difficult doesn’t cover a tenth of it, but it is at least a start in the right direction. Thank you for this.
I can only assume that still no one has been held accountable for nearly killing someone in the 2009 explosion. I find it quite revealing that the letter of response 29th March avoided committing to writing, in plain English, the actual words “no one has been held responsible”, but to refer me to previous correspondence where this was stated.
I must also assume that the PGDB condones that an innocent man, who spent 6 years warning about dodgy certificates covering dangerous work, was singled out to be rail-roaded and his life turned upside down, suffering a very directed witch-hunt and character assassination.
I have either worked away from home within my trade, or worked out of my trade nearer to home since. I have applied for many jobs, that due to my experience, qualifications and skill level I get to the final checks, only to be turned down when they find out about my “past”… a past that was manufactured by the PGDB and sustained right up to this day, it is a “past” full of corrupt actions, conflicts of interest, untruths and bias, none of which is mine to own. I live with this daily, as does my family. I would get on with my life, if I could just get my life back and clear my name. What purpose does it serve the PGDB to hold on to this, is it to keep the 100% conviction rate???
You speak of no new information regarding the explosion, the old information speaks volumes if you would but look. And I believe there is plentiful “new” evidence, Wal Gordon’s report for example.
This “old” evidence proved that the gas supply, mid-way and termination of the install was not how I left it and so I could never have been responsible for the explosion in any way. Which would leave all the other results of the so called “investigation” into me irrelevant and moot points.
This “old” evidence was provided to me by the PGDB from the very outset, evidence available to Tony Hammond, the investigator. Evidence that showed I could not have been responsible for the near fatal explosion
It should have ended right here and my previously aired concerns considered and acted upon.
This “old” evidence includes (and is not all that is available to the PGDB) .
•   Gas Supply - the cylinder station. Comparing the initial Allgas receipts for materials and fittings to the police forensic photos of the explosion, which showed that the cylinder station was up-graded and expanded in gas volume after the initial install, probably to accommodate the added pizza oven. Done well after I left Allgas.

•   Mid-way - the install of this said pizza oven. This is the same appliance that the PGDB denied ever receiving a gas cert for. But the same cert number and details appeared on the PGBD’S electronic register with exact same details and dates. All copies available (both electrical and carbon) showed that no soundness test was recorded (on an install that later exploded). Installed after I left Allgas.

•   Termination - the two bayonet fittings. Shown to have been lowered down the wall to floor level, from their original position some 600mm from the floor, as evidenced by the fixing screw holes in the wall. This was shown in the photos that the “Impartial” investigator withheld (he withheld well over 100 photos). He was far from impartial.

•   Termination - the sale of a third gas hose to connect the bayonets to the fryers. There were only two fryers ever installed at the chip-shop. This sale of a third hose, sold a month after I left Allgas. This is the hose that split on the 9th April again… causing the explosion. Splitting due to pinching against the floor, because the bayonet was lowered.


46


And here's my reply.....I can't copy and paste as its a bit long.
47

The reply to my letter see below....



29 March 2022

Paul Gee
By email: pgee3366@gmail.com

Tēnā koe Mr Gee

Email and Official Information Act request

Thank you for your letter to the Board dated 8 February 2022. Your letter and the documents accompanying it were considered by the Board at its meeting on 22 March 2022.

We acknowledge that this matter has caused you distress and we understand from your correspondence that this matter has been difficult for you.
 
The matters you raise in your email have been the subject of extensive correspondence between the Board and yourself for a number of years now. The Board acknowledges that you remain dissatisfied with the responses you have had however there is nothing new that the Board can tell you about these matters.

With regard to your request under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), following consideration the Board has concluded that there is no information covered by your request which has not already been provided to you in response to previous OIA requests you have made. This includes information provided in response to requests about the charges laid in respect of the explosion of the fish and chip shop on Milton Street, requests for correspondence with the Department of Labour relating to the explosion and subsequent investigation, a number of requests about the person who made the complaint to the Board about the explosion, a number of requests about the certification and audit processes used by the Board for gasfitting work around the time of
the explosion, and a number of requests for information concerning John Darnley in relation to the explosion.

As there has been no new information gathered by the Board in relation to the Milton Street explosion in 2009 since these previous responses, there is no further information the Board can provide to you about this matter.

The Board regrets that this matter continues to cause you and your wife distress. If you are dissatisfied with the Board’s response in relation to your OIA request, you can raise it with the Office of the Ombudsman. Information on how to do so is available on the Ombudsman’s website at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz

Thank you for your letter.
Nāku noa, nā

Aleyna Hall

Chief Executive/Registrar

Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board
48
Fellow Practitioners Update / Re: Fellow Practitioner Issue 407 Dated 18 March 2022
« Last post by Plumber on March 28, 2022, 02:59:26 PM »
Thanks Wal. Missed the newsletter.  What needs to be done to get the PGDB to engage?
49
Fellow Practitioners Update / Re: Fellow Practitioner Issue 407 Dated 18 March 2022
« Last post by Macmole on March 23, 2022, 07:21:13 PM »
It nice to see the newsletter back
50
Fellow Practitioners Update / Fellow Practitioner Issue 407 Dated 18 March 2022
« Last post by Wal on March 18, 2022, 07:07:34 AM »
Hello everyone.  It's been a long time since we put out a News Letter but when nothing is happening and the powers to be aren't engaging with the industry, as they are required to do, then there is no use banging our heads against a brick wall. There is a lot that needs to be done and we need fresh blood and perspectives to get what is due to us as practitioners. Have a read and contact us if you are interested. 
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