Nevertheless to force grieving families to wait more than a generation for some token in remembrance is a scandal in itself.
Compare the almost immediate and nationwide memorialising of our most notable military adventure – Gallipoli – and remember that, too, was a disaster.
Are lives lost in war somehow more valued than those lost in civil actions overseen by some aspect of government? I doubt the relatives of those who died at Erebus – or Pike River, or Cave Creek – would agree.
But speaking of war, there's the not insignificant matter of Napier's war memorial.
The one paid for by residents and entrusted to the city, which the current council saw fit to desecrate with no by-your-leave and has still – two years after starting work - not made a frank apology for, nor moved with alacrity to make right.
Oh, you think that's harsh? Show me the original memorial plaques and eternal flame, supposedly stored in "safe keeping" somewhere but which no one (outside council) has seen since they were removed.
Presenting a mocked-up gas Bunsen burner on a rubbish bin lid as if it were the original flame was a farcical disgrace. At which point anyone with integrity might have resigned and would at least have apologised outright, but not Mayor Bill Dalton. So instead we have a long, drawn-out series of "consultative" moves aimed at diminishing responsibility and, eventually, deriving something that attempts to make amends. But only the council will consider this a win.
Fortunately there's flair and spark in the old Guy yet – Guy Natusch, who designed the original building.
His stunningly simple, engrossingly accessible, and inherently sympathetic new design for a replacement memorial surely must be adopted.
Not only does it have all those qualities one might look for in the finest architecture of its type, it quietly but insistently reprises something of the original façade – now lost within the strict lines of corporate nonentity that have straightjacketed the curves of the memorial hall structure.
Yet the subtlety of his design is such the new memorial would not so much sit beside as meld together with the existing centre. In short, it adds back what has been lost.
Indeed, I'd go so far as to say enhances it. Because it is true that sitting within the foyer area of the hall-cum-conference centre as before, the eternal flame and memorial plaques were, if not exactly lost, certainly not particularly visible either.
So why dally longer? Napier City should promptly effusively thank Mr Natusch for pulling their posteriors out of the fire, acknowledge both his fundamental right to contribute and the brilliance of his concept, and get on and build it.
There's the challenge, and the solution, Napier. Just do it. Now.
• Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. Views expressed here are the writer's opinion, not the newspaper's.
