Empowering the Security Industry

Kia Ora,

I am still livid over the events of Sunday morning. Currently there is an investigation going into the killing of the taxi driver in Auckland & a review of taxi driver safety.

But this was done after the stabbing & murder of the driver here in Christchurch.

At the time of that incident I contacted the taxi federation & independant taxi companies here in Christchurch to see if they wanted someone to brief the drivers on bodyarmour. I know quite a few have purchased stab vests  armour from army surplus stores but much it was next to useless. So I thought as they are going to purchse it anyway then it would be a good idea for them to know what to look for.

I never heard back from any of the independent companies despite pointing out it was not a sales pitch, but passing on what I had learnt.

Did hear from the taxi federation who put it all in independents & had no interest. Despite the fact that it was many of its members staff who on finding out that I had bodyarmour had being asking about buying some.

The same with security industry. As one operations manager once said "security is only unskilled labour". Our reply he was the only unskilled labour there. In fact that was why he was the operations manager as he was a yes man. Has no idea about actual security.

I hear where they are currently based advice hasn't changed. Don't look for cirme & ignore it or suspicious activity especially if it is not on your clients property.

In other words he has no idea about security.

For private companies buying body armour is expensive & OSH actually caters for that by saying if you can afford it. But it also says you must have procedures to mitigate the danger if equipment not able to be purchased.

Again it comes back to risk assessment & risk awareness then risk management. Not risk management written in a nice folder that no one ever reads or are aware off.

You get asked but aren't you scared. Well actually no, we just react & I don't think either of us were scared on Sunday morning but we reacted as experience told us too.

You expect danger, but you also expect to be able to deal with it in a safer manner.

The other company had more guards on site because their client is a bit more aware of their responsiblities. It is a constant battle to get clients to agree to what should be the minimum number of security on site.

It is about time politicians pulled their finger & got real about this country. Funny how the party that has made it worse over last decade are now accsuing the others of letting it get out of hand. To them it is all a game. To me whilst I am confident of handling the situtations that confront me, it is about the lives of people in an industry that is just not up to standard.