Demo day charge stirs ski shops

Waimarino Bulletin, Issue 3, 5 August 1988, Page 3

Demo day charge stirs ski shops

Ski companies are up in arms at a new policy of charging for ski demonstration days. The Department of Conservation again became the butt of bitter criticism in the Ruapehu region this week. The attack on DOC follows a battle between local officials and a National Park ski instructor who wants to open a private ski school at Whakapapa. This week the two commercial skifield operators took up the cudgels along with ski retailers and wholesalers against a new charge by DOC for demonstration days. The row followed cancellation o f demonstrations of new skis and bindings planned by the Ski Yer Heart Out chain from Auckland and the Powderhorn ski shop in Ohakune. Last minute approaches by Ruapehu Alpine Lifts and New Zealand Skifields Ltd resulted in a compromise. The Powderhorn's demonstration of K2 skis went ahead on Thursday but future demonstrations are still in question. The battle follows the introduction of charges of $300 per demonstration for the first time this year. It appears the charges follow the new DOC user-pays policy. But according to one outspoken DOC critic, Mr Ian Helton, a director of the Powderhorn, the department has no idea of propriety and public service. Mr Helton made his views known to the

assistant director-general of DOC, Mr Murray Hosking, in a phone call early this week. "I told him I'm ashamed to be associated with this mountain (Ruapehu) because of what his department is doing. "They've never had to be accountable to anyone for their spending and their decisions and they've been allowed to get away with it for too long." He said cutbacks caused by internal bungling had resulted in a situation this year where the Ohakune ranger station was closed at weekends. Now trampers and

climbers could not follow normal advice to log in before going on to the mountain and eveh life could be put at risk because of DOC's mess-ups. Mr Helton said he was incensed that the department wanted to charge people to use their own mountain. He resented the $300 charge for free demonstrations of new ski gear and felt this would deprive the skiing public of something they wanted. It was inconsistent to charge for this and not for photos and trials of tramping gear commissioned by companies wanting to make commercial gain from the park. Turoa Skifield managing director Mr Tony Wright and Ruapehu Alpine Lifts general manager Mr Dave Mazey took up the issue with local DOC officials this week. They managed to have the charge reduced to $200 with half going to themselves as the companies who had developed facilities for demonstrators to use and half to DOC. Mr Wright said he had a little sympathy for DOC because it was trying to balance its budgets. But it had made the mistake of invoking charges without discussing them with anyone first. Ski retailers and wholesalers had not been given the chance to budget for the charges. Mr Wright said the charges were, in fact, attacking the market developed by the Turn page 8

Demo day changes stir

From page 3 skifield operators and this was not fair. Hence the compromise to reduce the charge and then share it between DOC and the companies. y Mr Hosking said the charges were simply an

attempt to pursue legitimate cost recovery and revenue generation. If anyone s o u g h t commercial advantage from use of the park then a charge was justified, he said. Asked about the inconsistency of not charging for photos, he said this was "a tempting possibility". Mr Hosking could not quote the chapter and verse of the various regulations under which charges for demonstration days were made. Asked if he felt entitled to deprive people of a public service such as free use of new skis, he said his primary concern was with the commercial aspect of the matter.