Peter Williams: Workplace destruction could have been avoided

The CTV building was destroyed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. Photo / File

COMMENT:
Maan Alkaisi should have been in the news in the last eight years as much as Bernie Monk, Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse. He should also have had as much satisfaction as the other three appear to be enjoying right now.

All four of these determined New Zealanders have suffered traumatic personal loss because workplaces which were supposed to be safe were anything but.

The destruction of the two workplaces by the forces of nature were subjects of separate Royal Commissions. The judgements from those inquiries were unequivocal. The death traps that the Pike River Mine and CTV building became could have been avoided.

The next question was whether anybody should be prosecuted for creating those places of mass killing. Some of the country's brightest legal minds pondered this question for many, many expensive hours.

As we know, there have been no prosecutions in either case. Pike River boss Peter Whittall had the health and safety charges against him dropped in return for $3.41 million in reparation payments, a move eventually deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court.

Police wanted to charge engineers Alan Reay and David Harding with manslaughter after the collapse of the CTV building that killed 115 people in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

The police case was stopped by the Crown Law Office, a decision the Christchurch Detective Superintendent Peter Read and his police colleagues were highly annoyed about.

This week Maan Alkaisi has shown he has a determination gene as strong as that of Monk, Osborne and Rockhouse.

The widower of a doctor who was one of the 115 victims in the CTV building has been in the High Court watching the Crown, through the Attorney-General and MBIE, try to overturn a decision made by the former Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ) not to discipline Reay for his sub-standard work which caused the building to collapse in the earthquake.

Maan Alkaisi would surely have much rather had the Crown Law decision not to prosecute Reay appealed or reviewed, but he and the other victims' families just don't have the resources for such a fight.

But that's about where the similarities between the two cases ends.

The change of government meant everything to the Pike River families. In a strong Labour voting area, they extracted extraordinary promises from the new administration. The cost of the Pike River Recovery Agency is bound to eventually exceed $50m. Many people on the West Coast itself don't think it's worth it.

I was there three weeks ago and locals roll their eyes at the some of the salaries, supposedly in excess of $300,000, being paid at the agency.

Like many in other parts of the country, they can't see the point of what is likely, in the end, to be just another very good attempt to get into the mine. There is still no certainty anybody will get as far as the rockfall, and any collection of forensic evidence, should it exist, is going to be problematical because as of now police and ESR scientists are not taking the risk of going in the mine.

A friend this week emailed a thought piece quoting the first German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who said "politics is the art of the possible".

For Labour and New Zealand First, it's possible to spend millions for what is highly likely to be a nil return. The most probable final report of the Pike River Recovery Agency will read something like "we tried our best".

Has the Government really tried its best for Maan Alkaisi and the CTV building victims' families? Most certainly, no.

After all, the Pike River workers had a pretty good idea their workplace was unsafe. They'd told management about it. If they'd had a strong union leadership, they would have stopped working until the issues were fixed. But they were lured into a death trap by the very, very big wages and stayed on the job.

Those inside the CTV building had no idea their place of work and study was unsafe. The victims' families have been treated far worse by authorities than those at Pike River.

The outcome of this week's judicial review against the IPENZ won't be known for a while. Even if the decision is overturned, it'll be the smallest of small compensations for Maan Alkaisi.

Bernie Monk, Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse think they may still see justice prevail in their fight if some evidence is found for a prosecution. That door is shut in the CTV building case because the politics of the government appealing a Crown Law decision are impossible.

At the very least, may the High Court overturn what IPENZ didn't do.