A devastating workplace accident at Ballance Agri-Nutrients’ Mount Maunganui fertiliser plant has led to a $420,000 fine after the company admitted to safety failures that caused the death of 37-year-old Wesley Tomich. The incident, described by Tomich’s sister as a “ticking time bomb,” has become a harrowing example of how routine industrial tasks can mask deadly risks.
Tomich, who had been working at the site for seven months, was cleaning near an operational conveyor belt on July 27, 2023, when he attempted to step over the moving machinery. He lost his footing and was pulled into the system, becoming trapped under a large metal hopper known as a Johnson. Despite efforts by coworkers and emergency responders, Tomich died at the scene from traumatic asphyxia.
WorkSafe’s investigation found multiple safety failures. The conveyor system had exposed moving parts that should have been guarded and emergency stop buttons that were difficult to access—one was more than 20 metres from the accident site. Workers had been regularly cleaning around the moving machinery, a practice that had become normalised within the factory. Ballance’s own safety procedures allowed the belts to run during cleaning, despite internal documents warning against working within one metre of an energised conveyor.
These were “basic machine safety failures,” said WorkSafe. Rob Pope, Head of Inspectorate at WorkSafe, said, “Although Ballance had some safety processes in place, they failed to match the reality of workers trying to find the quickest or most effective way to do a task.”
Court documents revealed that the risks had been flagged years earlier in assessments commissioned by Ballance in both 2015 and 2022. Yet proper guarding was never installed, and conflicting procedures remained in place. Judge Paul Geoghegan, who imposed the $420,000 fine in the Tauranga District Court, found Ballance’s level of culpability to be high. “The victim’s death was a direct result of cleaning the conveyor without effective guarding, without appropriate locations for the emergency stop switch, and without effective instructions to workers on how to perform their task safely,” he said.
The maximum penalty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 is $1.5 million. Ballance had already paid $287,202 in reparations to Tomich’s family, but for his mother, Lee-Ann Tomich, no financial settlement could compensate for the loss. “You have given me a life sentence of sorrow and trauma,” she told the court.
Ballance has since upgraded safety features at the plant, including installing compliant guarding and revising operational procedures. However, the incident has reignited concerns about safety culture in New Zealand’s manufacturing sector—one of the country’s most hazardous industries.