OPINION
Sir Bob Jones
You will have read of the 33-year-old Maori bloke who leapt off the 45-metre-high floating crane in Wellington Harbour and drowned, this the second such fatality in the last two decades.
To get to the crane requires jumping in the drink and swimming whereupon one encounters several highly visible signs warning people to stay off. Notwithstanding that the victim chose to ignore these.
The Wellington wharves are an immensely popular weekend walk, borne out by the large number of restaurants and other services on site.
Probably hundreds of thousands of people have strolled along them in the past two decades without feeling such an urge to ignore warning signs and clamber to the crane’s top then leap off.
We have since been deluged with numerous items on Facebook and in the media about how wonderful the deceased was, this notwithstanding the initial Stuff and Herald reports, specifically; “In recent years Jarreth’s life had taken a turn including drug use and time in jail. He was living on the streets by choice and was in a community transition programme. He was the father of three children, they living with their mothers elsewhere in the North Island.”
Now we read of ludicrous accounts of his parents wanting to meet the crane owner, the Maritime Heritage Trust trustees to complain.
In my younger years, like most blokes I did some madcap life-threating escapades and got away with them, although there were some near misses.
But had I not got away with them, I’d be very surprised if my family or anyone else would be publicly seeking a scape-goat from my own wilful idiocy. Presumably, if Jarreth had drowned while swimming out to Oriental Bay’s fountain, his parents would now be demanding its removal.
That said the floating crane is a shocking eyesore and no surprise, is listed by the Historic Places lunatics. We’re told it could be of possible use in a devastating earthquake, a ridiculous rationale for its retention.
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