Denis Marshall (politician)
His ministerial career ended when he resigned about six months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry report into the Cave Creek Disaster, and a year after the accident itself, in which 14 people died and a further four were seriously injured, and during which time he was minister of conservation.Born in Marton on 23 September 1943,[1] Marshall was educated at Norwood School, Gisborne, Hereworth School, Havelock North, Christ's College, Christchurch and Lincoln College as part of the Kellogg New Zealand Rural Leadership Programme, and he was a Nuffield Farming Scholar to the United Kingdom 1983.A commission of inquiry[2] found that whilst many individual mistakes contributed to the accident, a root cause was that the Department of Conservation had been under-funded and under-resourced for the role it was expected to achieve, and from the time of its creation in 1987 it had remained disorganised internally with few consistently used project and safety management systems, or formally qualified staff for much of the required work.[2] Criticism that he had been the minister of conservation for five years during which time it had remained in a disorganised state, however, eventually ended with his resignation about six months later.He is a member in numerous community organisations in New Zealand such NZ Historic Places Trust and Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.