Fireworks Control

[harm_less]

Isint this the same people who held a multi million dollar wedding their or something?
I heard them talking about it on the radio the other day.

This is brilliant - Why an American billionaire should be New Zealander of the year!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/13088962...f-the-year

"Virginia Fallon is a Stuff senior writer and columnist based in Wellington.

OPINION: Only days into 2023 we already have a strong contender for New Zealander of the Year.
Tony Malkin must surely slide into the nominations after welcoming in the new year first with a private fireworks display, then with a public fire emergency.

For fear of the latter, hundreds of neighbours opposed the former by signing a petition in the days preceding the disaster. But as we know, the celebration went ahead; keeping firefighters working all night; scorching about half a hectare of Malkin’s land and proving the neighbours right in their concerns.

While Malkin might not spring to mind as someone worthy of the country’s highest honour, his service to it is going to be hard to beat. Because in one night, with one event, his selfish actions are set to achieve what right-thinking Kiwis have been seeking for decades: a ban on fireworks.


The chaos caused by Malkin’s display wasn’t New Zealand’s only pyrotechnic problem, of course.

Fireworks and bonfires were behind multiple fires around the country on New Year’s Eve and January 1, resulting in 15 separate incidents nationwide at one point. There were blazes in Tasman, Otago, Auckland, Palmerston North and Wellington, but it’s the one on Malkin’s property near Arrowtown that’s really going to light a fire under the ban argument.

Where Malkin’s incident differs from the others is that his was a private show, understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars, for an exclusive party at his luxury Central Otago retreat.

And not only did he go ahead with the fireworks despite widespread opposition from his rural neighbours, one of whom says he’s a “helicopter resident”, but he got official sign-off to do it. According to the compliance certificate, the commercial display was operated by Christchurch company Firework Professionals.

New Zealanders might be quick to forgive a bit of pyrotechnic recklessness by everyday countrymen worried about the price of cheese, but from an American who’s worth billions and, worse, won’t say sorry? Not a chance.

Money also can’t buy what Malkin has done for the fight against fireworks. He’s a man worlds apart from most New Zealanders, and it’s that which will really light the tinderbox in this long-burning battle to ban the bloody things.

What money does buy is the opportunity to make massive mistakes that’ll inadvertently force change for the better. In this case that’s cash well spent."

THANK YOU, MR MALKIN!

Great opinion piece and Stuff wise to not have comments open on it. Things would have turned pretty nasty pretty quick I'm guessing.