Funnily enough, I just watched a YouTube video of yet another bridge collapse in the states, if it's anything like that case, the corrosion and decay would have been duly noted on successive inspections, and duly ignored by the powers that be.

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I wonder if we will ever know, or because they are a SOE they may fall outside the power of anyone to investigate them.

[–] Xcf456 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's not a thing at all. SOEs face investigations like any other company. Kiwibank for example is getting prosecuted at the moment by the commerce commission for fair trading act breaches

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry I should have been more careful with my words. The government does investigations into itself all the time, and because of the Official Information Act they results generally get made public, even if they was no issue found.

But for a company, the rules are different. If there is some legal action to be taken, then that happens whether it's SOE or company, but if it wasn't negligent then we don't have any path to get info from the internal investigation.

[–] Xcf456 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah right that's fair enough, SOEs definitely are a blindspot from an OIA perspective. I thought you meant in comparison to a private company, which would be the same if not worse.

I think in this case a combination of the huge public interest and the heavily regulated environment transpower operates under the causes will come out. But I guess we'll see

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah my original comment did a terrible job of communicating my point 😆

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Kiwirail definitely didn't get out of being investigated.

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah sorry, poor wording. What I meant was companies only get investigated when they are negligent or breaking a law, and only if they get charged do we get information about it.

Government departments will do internal investigations and then the results are accessible under the Official Information Act, regardless of outcome, so we tend to get more info if it's government.

But on thinking about it, Transpower are probably keen to give people an explanation if it was some freak accident to protect their reputation, so we may find out anyway.