Maritime Union concerned at treatment of Wellington Coroner

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has spo­ken out against the replace­ment of Welling­ton coro­ner Gar­ry Evans and paid trib­ute to his long ser­vice.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union has worked along­side Mr Evans going back at least 40 years.

Mr Han­son says Mr Evan’s approach to every­day human prob­lems was con­sis­tent.

“Any aver­age cit­i­zen with in par­tic­u­lar acci­dent relat­ed prob­lems received 100% assis­tance, and any Gov­ern­ment Agency that did not ful­fil their law­ful duty was quick­ly rep­ri­mand­ed.”

Mr Han­son says Mr Evans has assist­ed thou­sands of cit­i­zens, most­ly from work­ing class back­grounds, who strug­gled with the com­plex­i­ties of leg­is­la­tion.

“Many low paid work­ers from around New Zealand have been assist­ed by Gar­ry and usu­al­ly with sat­is­fac­to­ry out­comes.”

He says that that since Mr Evans appoint­ment as Coro­ner, his prin­ci­ples have strength­ened his deci­sions and have had a pos­i­tive ben­e­fit both for Welling­ton and New Zealand.

Mr Han­son says the replace­ment of Mr Evans is trou­bling to the Mar­itime Union and to lose his expe­ri­ence and cred­i­bil­i­ty would be a bad mis­take.