Foreign Correspondent: Oct 30

On Tuesday night Foreign Correspondent’s Dominique Schwartz exposes flaws in New Zealand’s reputation for adventure holidays.

The Land of the Long White Cloud is now the Land of the Long Loud Scream. In a spectacularly successful marketing makeover, New Zealand has transformed itself into a magnet for thrill-seekers from all around the world, turning adrenalin into a billion dollar rush. If you want to throw yourself off things or out of things or into things that turn, roll, slide or fall from breathtaking heights – all in a setting of spectacular scenery – then this is the destination.

But when things go wrong is New Zealand really the place to be?

Scott Ashcroft may be terrified of heights but when his friends decided they were going to celebrate his 25th birthday by doing New Zealand’s highest bungy jump what could he do? He jumped too. And when the bungy band bounced itself out and Scott realised he might not have a shot at making his 26th birthday he was in an expansive mood. How was it? “Yeah, good.”

But not everyone walks away from an adventure tourism experience in New Zealand. Over the past eight years at least 50 visitors have died when things went dreadfully wrong. Many more have suffered crippling injuries. Of course many of these white-knuckle pursuits are dangerous but is New Zealand doing enough to ensure companies and individuals selling these thrills to a wide-eyed crowd are playing by the rule-book and is that rule-book as comprehensive as it should be?
Many think not.

Chris Coker’s 24-year-old son Brad came all the way from the UK to throw himself out of a plane high over the Kiwi mountainside but that plane crashed shortly after take-off killing all nine on board. The loss of his son in the infamous Fox Glacier disaster has spurred Chris Coker into an internet campaign targeting New Zealand’s unique compensation system

In a forensic examination of New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry and safety regime, correspondent Dominique Schwartz exposes significant flaws in regulation and safety awareness. She investigates the activities of a prominent ballooning operator with a troubling track record and hears evidence that NZ’s taxpayer-funded accident compensation scheme may be enabling poor practice.

Tuesday, 30 October at 8pm on ABC1.