‘Explosives freely available to the public’
Access to explosives should be more tightly controlled, according to the managing director of an Auckland company which wrecks buildings. Mr Alex Burrell, of Burrell Demolition, Ltd, was, responding to a recent report in “The Press” which explained how the importation, manufacture, sales, and use of explosives were controlled in New Zealand.
He disputed an assertion in the report that the way in which sales are regulated makes it difficult for anyone with sinister intentions to obtain explosives legally. The report was written after an explosive device killed a Christchurch truck driver, Denis Drinkwater.
The sale of explosives to the public was not controlled at all, Mr Burrell said in a letter to “The Press?’
As a contractor, at times he sent a worker to buy explosives from licensed outlets. “We have never been asked for identification (none is needed),” Mr Burrell wrote.
The only difference between buying petrol, described by Mr Burrell as
“the most dangerous explosive in general use,” and commercial explosives was that someone had to sign the explosives book.
Signatures in the book included “Micky Mouse” and “Bill the Bodgie.” Mr Burrell said that his company recently went to a cify in which it had not worked previously. During three or four weeks the company bought $4OOO worth of explosives on credit. At first, no-one in the sales office where the explosives were bought knew anyone in the company, although they did by the end of the job. “In- my experience explosives are freely available to the public any business day, for money,” said Mr Burrell. He said that the sale of explosives needed more control and that the police Arms Office should issue an identification card for buyers of explosives.
Mr Burrell said that through the Contractors’ Federation he had taken up the issue with two Prime Ministers, the police, and the S.I.S.
He had not had a satisfactory answer from any of them.
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Press, 26 February 1986, Page 9
Word Count
325‘Explosives freely available to the public’ Press, 26 February 1986, Page 9
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