Graeme Brent Raymond's company Pacific Decontamination Services Ltd has had 11 breaches. Photo / Facebook
Graeme Brent Raymond's company Pacific Decontamination Services Ltd has had 11 breaches. Photo / Facebook
An asbestos removal company that had multiple safety breaches - including two at schools - has had its licence cancelled by WorkSafe NZ.
Pacific Decontamination Services Ltd, owned by three-times bankrupt former property developer Graeme Brent Raymond, clocked up multiple breaches, which potentially exposed workers and the public to the deadly fibres.
This week - 18 months after the first breach - WorkSafe cancelled the company's Class A and Class B licences.
Raymond's other company, Asbestos Removal NZ Ltd, still holds a Class B removal licence.
Graeme Brent Raymond's company Pacific Decontamination Services Ltd has had 11 breaches. Photo / Facebook
But experts in asbestos removal said cancelling Raymond's license was "too little, too late" and want quicker action on the strict safety regulations, introduced three years ago.
From March 2017 to April 2018 PDS had at least 11 serious breaches including five prohibition notices and four improvement notices.
Five of the breaches were for potentially exposing people to asbestos fibres and 3 were for working at height without protection.
Asbestos removal is a specialised and dangerous industry. Photo / John Borren
One expert in asbestos removal, who didn't want to be named, believed WorkSafe NZ should never have given Raymond a licence given his history.
In 2001 Raymond was labelled "commercially hazardous" by the Auckland District Court judge who sentenced him to 13 months' jail on a charge of having contributed to his insolvency by gambling and living extravagantly.
He was also jailed for six months for concealing property under the Insolvency Act.
"I think that WorkSafe NZ has a lot to answer for in this. To hold an asbestos licence you are supposed to be a person of 'good character', not a convicted criminal and someone described as 'commercially hazardous' by a judge," the man said.
"To grant him a licence in the first place, then to have it reinstated after 11 breaches, indicates to me that WorkSafe has failed in its "duty of care" to the New Zealand public."
The Weekend Herald can reveal two of the exposure incidents were at Auckland schools and included "risk of illness" and "incorrectly stored asbestos material".
In January this year, a WorkSafe inspector found PDS workers removing asbestos at Macleans College in Auckland were not wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) in the asbestos removal area.
PDS workers at the secondary school were also storing asbestos waste in the decontamination area. WorkSafe cancelled Raymond's licence in March 2017 but it was reinstated "on strict conditions" a week later.
Then in April, at St Heliers School, a WorkSafe NZ improvement notice was issued against Raymond and PDS.
An inspector identified numerous issues including:
• Lack of PPE worn on a live asbestos removal site
• Graeme Raymond escorted new workers on to a live asbestos site without wearing PPE himself or requiring his workers to wear PPE.
• Overall lack of risk management on a site containing materials hazardous to health.
Raymond was twice fined $6000 for failure to notify WorkSafe NZ in accordance with asbestos regulations.
The Weekend Herald has also found Auckland Council investigated and served an abatement notice to one of Raymond's companies, Dansar Projects Ltd, for stockpiling asbestos material at a property in Alfriston.
The land was being leased by Raymond for his demolition business.
Kerri Fergusson at Auckland Council confirmed the material had been removed and the land was tested and showed low levels of contamination. A report on testing is yet to be finalised.
The criticism is the latest saga involving Raymond and PDS.
In August the Weekend Herald revealed Raymond's work had allegedly caused damage to several people's properties, led to safety concerns and cost them thousands.
