Acceptable risk is what this incident is all about.
There are gifted helicopter pilots all over the globe with fantastic stick and rudder (or cyclic and collective) co-ordination. It is what you choose to do with those skills which is the great difference between various cultures and operations.
Part of that choice is what level of risk do you accept as the norm and where you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable risk; within that there has to be room for extenuating circumstances such as life-saving where a greater risk may be acceptable for a short period since the reward part of the risk/reward balance is greater, although even that has to have a cut-off point somewhere.
In NZ, the culture is clearly to accept a higher level of risk as the norm than would be the case in say the UK or parts of Europe. If the operators, regulators, insurers and customers are happy with those elevated levels of risk then fine, crack on but don't expect those from different cultures to sympathise when that elevated level of risk turns into an incident.
If an operator was to go to the UK CAA for an AOC to say they would like to land next to another helicopter in whiteout conditions on the top of a mountain and charge fare-paying customers for it, I suspect I know what the answer would be. In the Southern Hemisphere it is clearly different, not better or worse, whatever your viewpoint, just different.
Perhaps, in time, NZ will end up with the levels of regulation experienced in other parts of the world, in the meantime, don't be surprised when those of us from a more risk-conscious culture say 'WTF' when we see incidents like this occur.
Are Kiwis genetically better helo pilots that the rest of us? I doubt it. Do they have a higher level of acceptable risk in order to ply their trade? Clearly. Is it safe? That is a matter for conjecture and debate.
BTW night mountains in Snowdonia or the Glens in 50 to 70 kts of wind is equally challenging to the Southern Alps I would suggest, especially when you then have to put someone out on a wire to rescue someone. Just because it's not 5000 -12000 feet high doesn't mean it's not dangerous, scary and demanding.