The Rena disaster – only a matter of time?

New Zealanders have watched on in horror over the last few weeks as the enormity of the Rena oil spill becomes apparent and the clean-up continues to be hampered, first by bad weather and then by equipment failures.

A much loved stretch of the North Island's coast line, home to almost quarter of a million people and the holiday destination of many more, is quickly becoming coated in thick, toxic oil sludge. By the 19th of October the oil slick had spread as far as Waihau Bay, on the western side of East Cape.

Topmost in many people's minds as the disaster began unfolding was why is it taking so long to do anything, and how can I help. Despite the opportunity to learn from BP's mistakes following 2010's Gulf of Mexico spill, there was a resounding lack of clear information being expressed by the country's leadership.

It emerged in last Saturday's NZ Herald that the reason for a delayed response to removing oil from the Rena was in part due to liability issues. My question is why couldn't Steven Joyce tell us that earlier. And, where was John Key? For a prime minister with such a fine nose for a media opportunity and responsibility for the tourism portfolio, he was very slow to make any comment. When he did appear in Papamoa, 10 days into the disaster, he tried to head off angry attendees by admitting the government's response looked slow. Unfortunately, there has been no good news as the recovery efforts continue to be hampered by first bad weather and then mechanical failure.

So, what can we learn from the Rena disaster?

1. New Zealand is not prepared for maritime disasters of this scale. With deep sea oil drilling on the table, and visits by ships carrying nuclear waste, this surely needs urgent work.
2. Shipping is not going away. New Zealand is an exporting nation at the end of the world and we're reliant on container ships to transport goods to and from. How can we manage it better, because currently we seem to be at the mercy of international laws – be it ship or labour standards.
3. We love this place and people are keen to chip in to help. The authorities should have been ready for volunteers and quicker to direct them to the most needed place. Or, they should have had the right information about the toxicity of the sludge and been able to redirect the helpful hordes. Also, where's the clean-up fund? The funky fund-raising t-shirts? Not that every disaster should be commoditised, but it would provide a way to fundraise for the clean-up effort that is going to further hurt our over-wrought economy.
4. How do we manage the damage to our 'clean green' image? Most people would admit that the image itself is a bit of fallacy, and NZ is only so clean because there's less than 4.5m of us. But we do have vast swathes of beautiful, unspoilt country. We all need to stand up for it.

I've got my fingers crossed for some good to come of the investigation into the grounding and then hopefully a serious review of just how we manage shipping.

Kia kaha.