The Kiwi Mindset

Kia Ora,

The Kiwi mindset towards security & in particular the lack of risk assessment you meet in all walks of life.

Occassionally I get emails about tenders. One to a government department interested me as it was for body armour & since my company owns a few sets for hire I thought I would look at it.

Suffice to say my comments forwarded to the department were in the main not well taken even though I was not going to tender.

First point I had was as part of the military I had had an association with this department & a true risk assessment would show that all those that had what would be classed as front line duties should be wearing at least a stab vest. Not the significantly less numbers for use when required they were asking for. It there is a threat then they are required to be worn at all times as you just never know when the threat will arise.

Basically they had put out a tender that was a replica of what the police are now wearing.

Next point I made was both from an economic point of view & protection point of view that was inadequate as police vests are only ballistic rated to equivalent toNIJ (National Institute of Justice) level II. Though higher in stab rating. Though each brand is different a level II rating usually only lasts five years where as a level IIIA lasts ten years & has a higher ballistic rating. Which Leads onto their next point of some being able to be level III as some risks they had identified meant people could be fired on. So they had carried out a partial risk assessment. But to be level three rated means it is the plate plus level IIIA inserts. Having level II inserts & adding a plate does not give someone level III. Companies in Iraq were caught out doing that as well & the ratings must be current.

They then wanted a similar shirt to the police. Now that shirt is likely to Breach OSH.

Yes it is cool when wearing the armour, but is it fireproof.

This comes about because of incidents in Iraq. The British due to lessons learnt over the years used cotton T shirts as being a natural fibre it doesn't burn as easy.

There was a product which many of us bought called underarmour (good for cycling etc, but is it good under body armour.

One day I received a call from my old army mate 'swampy' "Bro you got underarmour?"

"Yes but I don't wear it we use cotton T shirts."

"Well we have just being hit by an IED. All OK, but flash over has set one of teams underarmour on fire underneath his body armour. He is badly burnt. It has just melted".

So what does that have to do with police shirts or even security in NZ?

If as I suspect those shirts are synthetic & most T shirts are at most a combination of cotton & synthetic's these days then the most likely people, other than firemen, to go into a fire situation are those likely to be wearing body armour & the heat could set this material off or melt it.

That is but one example of the NZ government departments attitude to risk assessment & security.

Staff safety, not an issue.

So if that is the officials take on it then how can the privte security industry turn it around to show that they do it better.

Start doing Risk assessments. But most would have no idea how to do it properly.

Probably the best one I ever heard was from an officer in the army when instructing on a command course. He said think of the worst case ever that you could come across & plan for it.

He then painted a scenario of a four man patrol going to check a knoll. He asked for worst case scenario from the course.

Our thinking because of size of that piece of ground instead of enemy patrol, maybe a platoon dug in. 

His was way over anything we had ever imagined. An enemy company getting ready to attack backed by tanks.

Plan for the most unlikely event. In fact OSH rules say if you don't identify it as a threat you don't have to plan for it ( & NZ tends to stop thinking after this), but it then goes onto say that if you should of identified it even if it has never happened to you before then you are liable for prosecution. So a catch 22 situation.

To me it is better to have planned for the way out scenario instead of running around when it happens trying to make things up as you go.