Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little join with families outside the Pike River Mine on May 3 for a ceremony despite the re-entry operation being delayed. Photo / Alan Gibson
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little join with families outside the Pike River Mine on May 3 for a ceremony despite the re-entry operation being delayed. Photo / Alan Gibson
The Pike River Recovery Agency, which is charged with the project to recover the mine tunnel or drift for forensic evidence or human remains, is not seeking toexempt itself from any law.
The nature of the ventilation system which will operate in the drift means that the standard required by this regulation will be met, but in a different method than set out in the regulation.
The opposite is true: it is strictly adhering to our workplace health and safety laws, as it should do, and it is under possibly the most intense scrutiny of any New Zealand employer by WorkSafe, the independent health and safety regulator.
Let's not forget that 29 men went to work at Pike River Mine in 2010 and never came home. It was New Zealand's worst modern industrial loss of life. The Pike River disaster should never have happened, and it was a wake-up call for better regulation and management.
Pike River re-entry is about safely recovering the Pike River Mine drift, to give the families closure, to promote accountability, and to help prevent future mining tragedies. Of crucial investigatory importance is a section of the drift called Pit Bottom in Stone, which housed underground services for coal collection, crushing and transport, water storage, high-pressure pumping systems and electrical infrastructure.
Safety is the bottom line - for the families, for the agency and for this government.
Transparency is also a foundational value. Anyone can read the technical reporting, including advice provided to the previous National government, because it is proactively published on the agency's website.
No government can exempt itself from the law. There has never been a plan to change health and safety legislation or any other law to facilitate the Pike River Re-entry project. Here again I can rule out any law change.
Nick Smith claimed "new laws rightly now require two means of exit from a mine". This is a reference to 2016 Mining Operations and Quarrying Operations Regulation 170 (1). That regulation was issued under the last National government, and it does not take effect for existing coal mines including Pike River until December 2024. Smith would have known that because he was in Cabinet when the regulation was issued.
The agency's view, informed by world experts and reviewed by an independent advisor, is recovery of the drift via a single entry in compliance with the current regulation is the safest option.
Mining regulations are overseen and enforced by WorkSafe under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Regulations are the very detailed and prescriptive parts of our law. WorkSafe has the statutory power to exempt an employer from a particular regulation if, and only if, doing so is consistent with the objective of the act of maximising health and safety.
What this means in practice is an employer must prove something it wants to do that is not strictly consistent with the regulation is as good as or better than the regulation.
WorkSafe currently has around 40 exemptions in force on the basis that the standard employers are meeting is as good as or better than the regulation. Many of those exemptions relate to mining regulations.
This law was not made by the current government, it was made by Nick Smith's government. It has long been a matter of public record that the agency will seek an exemption to a different mining regulation which relates to the quality of the air in the drift if someone has to escape in an emergency.
The nature of the ventilation system which will operate in the drift means that the standard required by this regulation will be met, but in a different method than set out in the regulation.
I had recently thought we were past ill-informed debate about the Pike River project. I have engaged constructively with National's Pike River spokesperson, Mark Mitchell, and he has professed support for the project providing it is meeting exemplary health and safety standards.
The project is proceeding well and health and safety remains the paramount consideration.
In the end, this is an act of justice for families who were promised every effort would be made, but who were let down by the government Nick Smith was a part of.
I am committed to honouring the promise made to the families, and seeing justice done.
• Andrew Little is the Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry.
