And it must be a final wake-up call for New Zealand farmers: we cannot allow this to keep happening.
Any death on a rural property is devastating, but to see the loss of someone so young, who was described by his teachers as “full of energy, excelling at sports and who had a big heart” is even more distressing given that this young person will not go on to reach his full potential.
While some will call for things to change, we will also hear that things on farms are different from other work environments. Yes, we know that children who grow up on farms are subjected to far more potential dangers than their urban contemporaries and overall appear to have a more idyllic way of life.
However, we can’t allow the gut-wrenching news of young people being killed in our workplaces to continue just because “farming is a different way of life”.
We need to remember that farms are workplaces and, while understanding that young boys are drawn to tractors and quads like moths to flame they can’t be allowed to use either. We need to ask firstly, what was a nine-year-old doing on a full-size, adult quad, and secondly, why was he doing it unsupervised?
Would you expect to see a nine-year-old ‘helping’ in the steel mill at Waiuku or the paper mill at Kawerau? Of course not! And we know that both plants would be shut down immediately in such an event.
So why can we not accept that although NZ farms are homes to young people, they are also places of work?
In the coming weeks we will hear rural folk saying farming is ‘different’ and ‘everyone needs to muck in’. But what next? Are you going to send the nine-year into town in the farm ute to pick up supplies or groceries?
We must learn from this tragedy and ditch the outdated thinking that says “it won’t happen to us”. Quads, tractors and the like are ‘tools’ and, as such, are no more dangerous than a car or even a shotgun. It’s the way they are used that is the danger. Quads require ‘active’ riding by persons who are physically strong enough to do so.
Industry parties promoting the use of anti-crush devices with no scientific proof of their efficacy are only offering a smokescreen to address an underlying problem, i.e. we continue use these machines in a way they are not designed for and we allow their use by persons who shouldn’t be using them.
We must get back to basics by promoting the safe use of such machines -- understanding their limitations and risks, ensuring safety helmets and gloves as a minimum requirement, and keeping youngsters away from that risk until the appropriate time. Then our potential ‘young farmers’ might just become ‘old farmers’.
