Air Security & NZ

All the news at present more terrorists in the air. Yet despite an attempted hijacking here only within the last few years, Kiwis will in general say all the extra security being placed is over the top.

In some cases from a security point of view some of the measures being implimented have no security value. All any prospective terrorist will do is take note of new measures & adjust accordingly. Despite all the measures taken there has always being enough items to be used as weapons on commercial aircraft or even as an improvised bomb.

Often there is too much reliance on technology. Anything man can make or think of man can defeat. They are only aids to a person with a mark 1 eyeball & that intuition that comes from experience.

At times the amount of security, in particular to a NZ eye, seems overkill such as at sports games. International experience shows though that the amount of people used in NZ is grossly lacking. That experience shows that when something goes wrong, say a fire in a stadium, everyone looks to the security & law enforcement personel to provide direction. That is where the international formula for the amount of security required at events comes from.

It is a health & safety issue first. Yet NZ doesn't even come close to this formula, but claims to have international standard events. Unless it complies with those requirements it could easily loose international events. It will also have to bring its training in line with international standards. At present only two companies offering training in NZ are of international standard. One starting out here in Christchurch(NZQA combined with Australian standards) & one in Auckland offering high end security to SIA standards (British standards).

As one British consultant remarked when making a documentary about NZ security & the training he observed one of our major companies carrying out, "lower than west africa". That is where they hand kids weapons & tell them they are soldiers or security.