Construction workers mourn popular mate

By BRIDGET CARTER

The man crushed to death at an Auckland building site was an experienced construction labourer and "a good, honest working man", says his employer.

Te Rue Taparia Tearetoa, 39, of Mangere, was killed and Leslie Bruce Harvey, of Glen Innes, was taken to Auckland Hospital with a broken leg on Monday when a retaining wall collapsed and a slab of concrete fell on them.

The accident happened at a site for a 19-storey apartment block on the corner of Parliament St and Eden Cres.

Mr Tearetoa was working for labour hire company Allied Workforce, his employer on and off for nearly six years.

Allied general manager Simon Hull doubted human error caused the accident, "but everybody will be looking at everybody".

Mr Tearetoa's parents lived in Rarotonga and were flying to New Zealand before the weekend.

"He was a good, honest working man. He was very popular with the working chaps. There are a lot of long faces here, I can tell you.

"He would stay out with the boys and have a couple of beers ... just your honest, hard-working kiwi bloke."

Mr Tearetoa's aunt, Titaa Makuare, told the Herald last night that her nephew, nicknamed "Bobby", had a teenage son, who lived north of Auckland.

Developer Brent Clode, who owns the company undertaking the construction, One Parliament Carpark Trust, said the site would be closed for a couple of days while it was stabilised.

He suspected wet weather had made the bank unstable.

"At the moment we are concentrating on making the site safe and getting Parliament St reopened."

The Auckland regional service manager for Occupational Safety and Health, John Forrest, said factors being considered in the accident investigation included on-site supervision, training for employees, construction of the wall and whether vibration from traffic caused the collapse.

Mr Forrest said the construction industry was particularly hazardous, as the environment changed each day.

In the past six months there had been five deaths on Auckland construction sites.

"The construction industry in New Zealand is one of our biggest contributors of deaths ... It is absolutely horrible."