Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group
August 13, 2021, original URL: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/12/pike-a12.html
The Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) in New Zealand continues to seal the Pike River underground coal mine, where 29 workers were killed in a series of explosions in November 2010.
Newshub erroneously reported on August 7 that “a permanent seal will not be applied until the police investigation is completed.” The first of the two seals has already been completed 170 meters inside the mine and preparations are underway for the installation of a second seal at 30 meters.
The Labor Party-led government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is halting the underground inhabited investigation of the mine, having only explored the gallery, the mine’s 2.3 km entrance tunnel. He refuses to explore the mining work, blocking the forensic examination of crucial evidence, including an underground ventilator that could have set off the first explosion.
For more than a decade successive Labor and National Party governments, as well as the judiciary, have worked to prevent anyone from Pike River Coal from being prosecuted, despite multiple breaches of workplace safety laws. . The mine was a death trap that could have contained an explosive level of methane dozens of times before the disaster. Yet the company, the government’s Ministry of Labor and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), did not shut down the operation to protect workers’ lives.
Speaking to Newshub’s “Nation” program on August 7, Pike River Return Minister Andrew Little sought to justify shutting down the investigation with a series of blatant lies.
He said before the 2017 election the Labor Party had only pledged ‘to catch the drift’, and that was the mandate given to the PRRA by the Cabinet, which included Labor and key members of its coalition partners. NZ First and the Green Party. “It is very clear in the [Cabinet] papers, ”Little said.
Little accused NZ First leader Winston Peters, who served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2017 to 2020, of attempting to “rewrite the Cabinet minutes” by claiming the government tricked families into believing that they would consider going further into the mine. Peters, whose party is no longer in parliament, recently said the government was engaged in a “cover-up” of the mining disaster.
Indeed, Little and the Labor Party promised on several occasions, in 2014, 2016 and 2017, to do everything possible to recover the bodies and evidence from the mine, and to take all decisions relating to the re-entry “in partnership. With the families of the 29 victims.
The Cabinet document of November 2017 established that the PRRA left open the possibility of exploring mining sites. He said: “At a time when the process of recovering the gallery is well advanced, the responsible minister will report to the Cabinet on whether further work, to assess the feasibility of returning to the mine sites, should be undertaken.”
In March 2020, however, when only a quarter of the drift had been explored, Cabinet ruled out further funding. Little told Newshub that the government decided the investigation into one of New Zealand’s worst industrial disasters was getting too expensive, even though no feasibility study had been conducted on the cost of entry into the yards. of the mine.
Interviewer Simon Shepherd asked, “If money weren’t an object, would you continue? Little replied, “The critical factor was safety. He said “experts”, whom he did not identify, had said walking through a roof drop into the mine works “was virtually impossible” without spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” .
Bernie Monk, whose son Michael died in the mine, told the World Socialist Web Site that the minister’s statements were “absolute hogwash”. He said the government “used” the families of Pike River “to gain power, and now they are pushing us aside. If he doesn’t use money, then he tries to use health and safety. We proved him wrong. It is not a question of hygiene and safety, we have traveled 2.3 km downstream, we have not had any health and safety problems so far… He is continually lying to the public there -above. It is unforgivable.
In 2017 he said: ‘we had a Labor Party that said we were going to do everything we could to get into the mine, we are going to get your men out, we are going to hold you to account … Now they I say no , we didn’t say that.
Monk pointed out that internationally renowned mining experts have produced a concept plan on behalf of the families showing the mining work can be safely re-entered for less than $ 8 million. Experts included several who had previously advised the government, including former chief mine inspector Tony Forster, UK-based mining engineer David Creedy and mine rescue expert Brian Robinson.
Little himself praised the work of these experts when they advocated for reinstatement of Drift in 2016. In Newshub’s interview, however, he dismissed their report, which he falsely claimed, that no expert had “put his name”. In fact, Creedy, Robinson, and Forster have all spoken publicly in support of their findings.
Little rejected the concept plan in May, not because of security concerns, as he now claims, but because of the “significant costs” involved, which the PRRA estimated at over $ 20 million, not to “hundreds of millions”. This has not been supported by any feasibility study.
Little claimed that a police investigation “will continue over the next few months”, but “the process of closing the mine is ongoing.” Police are drilling boreholes in the mine and will lower the cameras to get “good evidence to determine whether or not they can prosecute,” he said.
As Monk pointed out, lawyers for the families have been saying for more than a decade that boreholes should be drilled in the mine to gather information, but that work is only underway now. Even if the cameras lowered into the mine find significant evidence, sealing the mine will prevent its further examination.
The majority of the 29 families are asking for a judicial review of the government’s decision to close the mine, against the families’ wishes and before the end of the investigation. They garnered significant public support, including an online petition with over 6,500 signatures.
Even if a court eventually ruled in favor of the families, the government will not be forced to return to the mining sites. Carol Rose, whose son Stuart died in the mine, told the WSWS: “Next they will have to assess the concept plan, and then they will have to engage with the families and consult them on the decision not to go in. We expect them to make the same decision. All we can really hope to gain from judicial scrutiny is that we will name them and humiliate them. “
The government would not be able to close the mine and isolate the evidence without the help of the union bureaucracy. Neale Jones, a former EPMU official, told Newshub he had “sympathy” for the families, but insisted Little had “kept the promise he made”. Little was the leader of the EPMU at the time of the disaster and his immediate response was to defend Pike River Coal’s safety record.
The union, now called E tū, continues its role of auxiliary to the business elite by endorsing government actions. “Where were they?” Monk asked. “Do they mind leaving 11 of their members underground?” “
Monk said the message to companies was, “Come invest in New Zealand: you can kill people in the workplace and get away with it and go, it won’t cost you a razor.”
He praised 30,000 New Zealand nurses and health workers for ‘standing up to’ Andrew Little, who is also health minister, by leading a nationwide strike and rejecting a deal on vintage wages presented by the syndicate.
The government claims there is not enough money to adequately fund public hospitals, just as it says there is no money to properly investigate 29 workplace fatalities in Pike River. The same government, like others around the world, has given companies tens of billions of dollars to protect them from the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.
The working class is entering an increasingly direct struggle against the government’s austerity measures, which are being applied by the unions. A major problem for healthcare workers is the lack of workplace safety due to understaffing, which could lead to disaster in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak. The WSWS calls on these workers, and the working class in general, to support the struggle of the families of Pike River for the full truth about the causes of the 2010 disaster, and for those responsible to be brought to justice for their criminal practices.
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