Northland iwi leaders push Transpower class action over pylon collapse
Northland iwi leaders are supporting a class action lawsuit against Transpower and its contractor Omexom following a 2024 pylon collapse that caused a massive regional power outage. The legal action seeks to recover estimated business losses of up to $80 million for affected Northland businesses.
Why it matters
This case highlights the challenges regional and indigenous-led businesses face in holding major infrastructure providers accountable for operational failures.
The downed Transpower pylon at Glorit, north of Auckland, left 180,000 Northlanders and more than 20,000 of the region's businesses without power for days.
Two of Northland’s prominent iwi leaders are backing a class action against Transpower and its maintenance contractor Omexom over 2024’s regional power outage, caused by an “entirely avoidable” collapsed pylon.
Business leader Harry Burkhardt (Ngāti Kuri) and community leader Dame Naida Glavish (Ngāti Whātua) say the class action, due for a preliminary hearing in the High Court at Wellington tomorrow, is the only path to justice for businesses affected by the incident.
The iwi leaders are backing it because they believe Māori operators, in particular, often face greater obstacles to accessing legal remedies and run some of the more vulnerable businesses - more likely to be geographically isolated, with limited digital connectivity, and under-resourced.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in